Technologies Will Create Productivity Gains

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March 5 2009

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Technologies Will Create Productivity Gains In Tough Times

PGG Wrightson chairman Craig Norgate says some benefits for New Zealand's agricultural sector will come out of these difficult economic times as cost pressure forces farmers to examine their operations more closely.

He says harder times focus the mind and he believes the future competitive advantage for New Zealand agriculture will be found in incremental productivity gains made possible through technological advances.

Norgate says the only way to get ahead of low cost competitors is to improve productivity and that is where PGG Wrightson is focusing to assist farmers.

"There is a lot of good technology and research out there but the key is getting it adopted on farm."

He points to the work of PGG Wrightson business Fecpak International as an example of the focus of the company.

Fecpak has just completed an EU research project (Parasol) where its parasite management technology was evaluated on farms throughout the UK with great success.

One of the exciting aspects of Fecpak's technology is its ability to show farmers what they can't currently see, and having data at their fingertips means they make better decisions.

Norgate says rather than just believing they have to drench, they can now determine exactly what the real need is before they make a decision.

"So people might ask why are we involved? Reality is we don't want to be selling our customers something they don't need. Drench resistance is an increasing problem and what we are trying to do with Fecpak is ensure the dollars a farmer spends are being spent in the right places."

The 2.9 million Euro Parasol project, funded by the EU, was established out of growing concerns over the sustainability of the current approach to managing parasites. These concerns relate to the development of drench resistance, food and environmental residues, animal welfare and sustainable food production.

Fecpak's role in the project was to evaluate the on farm impact of moving away from the current preventative approach with drenching, to using diagnostic tools under a targeted selective treatment approach (TST), therefore only treating animals when necessary. The question was, could farmers maintain or increase animal performance and lower the risk of drench resistance by utilising a TST approach?

Project coordinator and renowned parasitologist Professor Jozef Vercruysse of the University of Ghent says the Parasol Project has validated that farmers can move to a TST approach.

"But you need the tools to implement it and Fecpak has demonstrated it is one of those tools that can be used on-farm successfully," he says.

Fecpak International general manager Greg Mirams returned recently from Europe where he was involved in presenting Parasol findings to academics, industry politicians, farmers and EU representatives.

According to research results drench treatments were reduced by 35% on average across the project farms while maintaining or improving production, in some cases the number of treatments increased in different stock classes, 91 percent of farmers claimed to have a better understanding of the parasite situation on farms by using Fecpak, and 79 percent said using Fecpak regularly had been of financial benefit to their business.

Mirams says while the system is used widely in New Zealand he hopes more farmers will start using the technology and capture the productivity opportunity within their own operations.

"On some farms this is significant," he says.

"It's a very logical approach for farmers to get more targeted and selective with their treatment programmes. When farmers see a problem on their farm they naturally respond to it, like only spraying thistles when they see them. It's the same with our technology, it just gives them the ability to see the parasites and make decisions based on what they see.

"Farmers using our system experience a significant shift in how they manage parasites on their farms. Parasites are a biological organism; they change and alter as the climate does, along with other factors. Through using Fecpak technology the farmers on the Parasol project were able to react to these fluctuations, alter the timing of treatments and minimise the impact of parasites on their properties with no loss in production.

ENDS

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