For a cow to produce milk she first must become pregnant.
Dairy farmers aim to produce more milk and so increase the number of cows on their farms.
Over-stocking is causing falling rates of pregnancy in cows.
From today's Southland Times article, "Drop in pregnancy rates costly - Over-stocking part of problem"
"General manager Peter Gatley said the reproductive performance of dairy cows had been insidiously dropping"
"It's costing individual farmers many thousands of dollars and the industry hundreds of millions in increased costs and lost milk. It is farmers' No.1 problem."
"Farmers should have been reducing herds to allow for this (not enough feed as a result of over stocking) but many were not. Some were bringing in extra feed, such as palm kernel expeller to make up for it, but this also added stress."
2 comments:
Kia ora Robert,
Sorry about above, sticky key board from kids. I was writing that last evening I saw a tv advert put out by the dairy council basically trotting out that Kiwi dairy farmers are the salt of the earth,clean and green, and care about us all.Not sure what the point was other than propoganda.If that is the case why are the rest of us paying for the cost of the polluted rivers (Manawatu here) and still paying 14 bucks for a hunk of cheese.
Cheers,
Robb
You got it in one Robb
The industry is agressively big-noting, green-washing itself and it seems to be working for them.
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