Reducing Reliance on Imported Feed Trial
Reducing Reliance on Imported Feed 2015-2018
Northland farmers have clearly identified that they would like to reduce their reliance on imported feed, particularly PKE, and need to know the financial implications of this.
This 3 year trial finished in June 2018 and addresses the following issues:
- Can Northland dairy farms maintain production and profit with reduced imported feed
- How do we replace imported feed with extra forage grown on farm
- How do we manage climate variation with reduced reliance on imported feed
There are three farmlets of 28ha each capturing physical and financial information about the farming systems:
- PKE Farmlet 20 – 30% of feed imported, primarily as PKE.
- Cropping Farmlet All feed grown on farm including a range of forage crops such as maize, turnips, fodder beet.
- Grass only Farmlet Baseline production and profit to evaluate the impact of supplement use and cropping within farmlets 1 & 2. No imported feed or cropping.
See below for the full summary of results for the whole three year period, showing the profitability of the Pasture Only Farm and the PKE Farm surprisingly close, with the Cropping Farm the least profitable in all three years
For more detailed information on any of the three years contact info@nddt.nz