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A stock agent and farmer discuss grass growth - Source: NZPA / Rob Tucker -
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New Zealand's livestock farmers could earn billions of dollars more for the nation's economy simply by renewing their pastures more often.
Pasture Renewal Trust chairman Murray Willocks says the present annual pasture renewal rates of about 2% for sheep and beef farms, and 6% for dairy farms was too low.
The trust, which was set up three years ago to educate the agricultural sector about the benefits of improving pasture, says pasture varieties typically peak in performance two to three years after establishment and start declining after that.
A lack of investment in pasture improvement, new plant species and technology was holding back production, says Willocks.
Research for the trust by economic research company BERL indicated a better annual rate of pasture improvement would be about 8% for sheep and beef farms and 12% for dairy.
The report put the value of pastoral farming at $20.5 billion or 12% of the nation's of GDP, and the value of increasing the rate of pasture improvement was an extra $1.6 billion at the farm gate.
This was equivalent to a $3.2 billion boost to GDP level - without farmers having to carry out more research, or wait for technological advances.
An increase of feed per hectare increases milk solids for dairy farmers and helps other stock such as lambs become fatter, faster.
By treating their grass as a crop they carefully monitored, fed and looked after, farmers can make more money from their existing assets, the report says.
Agriculture Minister David Carter says the trust's work identified significant gains from pasture renewal.
"As a nation that seriously has to concentrate on growth and really focus on growing the GDP pie, we must grab every opportunity to boost productivity," he says.
He says that some productivity increases were achieved without fanfare, such as this week's record average lambing percentage for the national sheep flock of 124%.
But though potential productivity gains were being developed in state science companies, there was often a "disconnect" in technology transfer - getting the information to the farmer and the benefits to the wider economy.
Farmers now needed to grab that extra pasture production by more aggressively renewing some of their tired pastures.
Federated Farmers says New Zealand would have to attract a further 460,000 international tourists annually - on top of the present 2.4 million visitors - to generate $1.6 billion in economic gain, and that would require investment in infrastructure and services.
The oganisation's president Don Nicolson says if farmers not only improved their pastures but also invested in improve water storage, the farm sector could substantially increase productivity, because more irrigation would multiply the benefits from the new grass.
"Water storage with pasture renewal is an economic game-breaker," he says..
Based on the latest payout projections, an increase of just one tonne of dry matter a year over the 1.96 million hectares of dairy farms, would increase farm gate returns by well over a billion dollars.
"That's not more cows per hectare but an increase in the feed per hectare that is then converted into milksolids," he says.
Similar gains were possible on drystock farms, where an increase in pasture production of between 10 and 30% was possible over the 8.8 million hectares of pasture in production.
Farmers needed to take on board the importance of strategic planning for pasture renewal, which could increase pastoral agriculture's direct contribution to GDP by $800 million a year.
"Clearly, farmers need to look at our pastures, many of which
may be past their use-by date," Nicolson concluded.
