Waikato AgriBusiness News June 2021

WAIKATO AGRIBUSINESS NEWS June 2021
9
Firm wins recognition for Covid response
Cambridge firm AgDrive’s strong response to Covid has seen it
take out two prestigious awards.
It won Excellence in
Emerging/New Business,
and Innovation and Adaptation
at the Waipā Networks
Business Awards, held at
Mystery Creek.
It was well-earned recognition
for the firm’s remarkable
story less than a year
after it started.
The driver training business,
part of the Ag Technology
Group based at Hautapu,
was born out of a stray comment
over a coffee at a time
when the company was staring
down the Covid barrel,
says director Andre Syben.
Ag Technology’s engineers,
who normally spend
half the year in Germany
testing and developing Claas
machinery, were effectively
grounded by the pandemic
and the company was casting
around for alternatives.
“The AgDrive idea wasn't
actually mine,” Syben says.
“It was an off the side comment
made by a friend of
mine. He made the comment
completely out of the blue.
He said, ‘What’s going to
happen to all these contractors
when they can't get overseas
staff?’
“He just went on to talk
about something else, and I
went, ‘aha’. So I didn't actually
come up with the idea.”
AgDrive was established
to meet the gap - connecting
people put out of work by the
pandemic with contractors
needing staff for the upcoming
harvest season.
They signed a contract
with the Ministry for Social
Development and began short
training courses at Matangi at
the end of July.
Eight months later, they
had placed more than 60
people in jobs, and have
even taken on one graduate
themselves, a former pilot
who is now managing their
warehouse.
Others have been
employed by firms including
Wealleans and Waharoabased
horticulture company
LeaderBrand.
AgDrive not only gives
trainees the driver training
but also supports them in
their job applications.
Along with redeploying
Ag Technology engineers,
they have taken on four new
staff for AgDrive, and have
just signed a contract with the
Primary ITO to run both tractor
driving and motorbike and
quad driving microcredential
courses for NZQA credits.
Aimed at people already
in employment, the weeklong
tractor course will have
intakes of 10 or 11, while
the bike training is set to
become a twice-weekly, twoday
course, with a 10-strong
intake for each.
General manager Janine
Peters says the AgDrive ITO
initiative came after they
were looking for other avenues
to ensure the business’s
long-term future.
Early signs were encouraging
after Syben’s wife
posted the news on their
Facebook page.
“All I heard all night was
‘ping’ ‘ping’ on her phone.
It was inquiry, just unbelievable,”
Syben says.
They have built an indoor
bike training track at the back
of their warehouse, meaning
the training can be held in all
AgDrive took out both Excellence in Emerging/New Business
and the Innovation and Adaptation Award at the Waipa
Networks Business Awards. Photo: Cornegiephotography
weathers. It is carpeted with
astroturf Syben bought before
Christmas from the Cambridge
tennis courts, with the
planned track in mind.
But they are also looking
at taking the offering
on-farm for employers such
as iwi with a large number of
employees on grouped farms
Ag Technology is also
growing its Diesel Tune
business with the addition of
imported TJM four-by-four
accessories, the first time
they have sold a physical
product through the business.
Meanwhile, their 2500
sq m warehouse, a business
which they started just
before Covid lockdown,
is almost full.
Bull burps could
hold answer to more
climate friendly cows
The opportunity to breed more climate
friendly cows is one step closer for
New Zealand dairy farmers after a
Waikato trial has found a possible link
between bulls’ genetics and the amount
of methane they produce.
The pilot trial, by artificial
breeding companies LIC
and CRV with funding
from the New Zealand Agricultural
Greenhouse Gas Research
Centre, measured feed intake
and methane emissions – in the
form of burps – from 20 young
bulls destined to father the next
generation of New Zealand’s
dairy cows.
LIC chief scientist Richard
Spelman says results from the
pilot trial are promising.
“Methane production primarily
relates to how much an
animal eats. We’ve accounted
for this and we’re still seeing
variation which suggests genetics
plays a role in a dairy bull’s
methane emissions – now we
need more data to prove it.”
The research will now
progress to a larger study
where operations have scaled
up to collect measurements
from 300 young bulls, the full
intake from LIC and CRV’s
Sire Proving Scheme. Agriculture
Minister Hon Damien
O’Connor attended the launch
of the project at LIC’s farm
outside of Hamilton.
“What makes me so excited
about this project is the cooperation.
A company from the
Northern Hemisphere and a
company from the Southern
Hemisphere working together
for a common objective. There
are lots of options for methane
emission reduction being
looked at, and this is a great
one,” O’Connor said.
“Each one of the cows we
have in New Zealand now
produces a whole lot more for
the same inputs that we put in
maybe 20 or 30 years ago. That
kind of progressive development
that we’ve seen in production,
we want to now see in
methane reduction and I’m sure
we can do that.”
Although methane emissions
have been shown to be
heritable, Spelman said LIC
and CRV will carry out additional
research to validate their
findings.
“We will be methane testing
daughters from the bulls that
are identified to be high or low
methane emitters to check their
emissions are representative
of their father’s.
“It’s a long-term project but
it has the potential to deliver
real benefits to farmers in the
future by providing another tool
to reduce their farm emissions,”
Dr Spelman said. CRV R&D
manager Phil Beatson said
more than two and a half years
of planning with his colleagues
at LIC has gone into setting
up a robust structure for the
research project.
“Together, we have done a
significant amount of work to
set up this trial, including using
insights from overseas projects
measuring feed intake and
methane emissions. We believe
we are using the best approach
for what is enormously complicated
work.
“CRV and LIC recognise
that environmental issues have
become increasingly important
to New Zealand agriculture.
LIC chief scientist Richard Spelman and Damien O’Connor
at the project facilities at LIC’s farm outside Hamilton.
Our collaboration, with support
from MPI, AgResearch and
NZAGRC, demonstrates our
commitment to keep finding
genetic solutions that can help
farmers future-proof their business.”
Harry Clark, director of
the New Zealand Agricultural
Greenhouse Gas Research Centre,
is delighted with the outcomes
of the pilot trial.
“We have been highly successful
in New Zealand in
breeding low-emitting sheep
and this preliminary work with
the bulls is a positive sign that
we should be able to achieve
the same for the dairy sector,”
he said.
Spelman said while breeding
for more climate friendly
cows is the focus, it’s still a
balancing act with other genetic
traits.
“It’s really important that
we understand the genetic relationships
between methane and
traits like milk production and
fertility. We don’t want to find
we are selecting against methane
and inadvertently breeding
cows that are less fertile.”
The bulls involved in the
trial are housed in a barn so
their feed intake can be measured.
They help themselves to
feed throughout the day, eating
lucerne hay cubes via feed bins
which measures how much
each bull eats. The bulls independently
visit the Greenfeed
machine (a special methane
measuring device). They’re
enticed to visit the machine as
they get a small feed of pellets
which keeps them in the
machine for three to five minutes
– enough time to get a
methane measurement (ruminant
animals burp every 1-2
mins). Bulls are under 24/7
video surveillance so scientists
can monitor them remotely.
The welfare of the bulls
taking part in the trial is being
monitored by LIC, with oversight
from the Ruakura Ethics
Committee which has approved
the project. The bulls have the
freedom to move around in their
pens, and eat, drink and sleep
when they wish.