rivettingKateTaylor

Taken directly from Dairy NZ’s website news page dated Sunday 1 August (the day of TVNZ’s “exclusive story” that the reporter had apparently been working on for a month or so).

The dairy industry is confident a programme it has in place to reduce the use of inductions will lead to a phase out of the practice, which is carried out by only a minority of farmers.

Dr Rick Pridmore, Strategy and Investment Leader for Sustainability at DairyNZ says earlier this year the programme was revised to move the reduction target from a national herd level to targets at an individual farm level. These targets reduce over a three year period.

“The change to individual herd targets will focus efforts on the small tail of the industry who are yet to reduce their use of the practice. This small tail represents only 4.6% of the nation’s dairy cows.”

Letters were sent out to every dairy farmer in the country in early June telling them of this change. The industry stakeholders backing the programme are the New Zealand Veterinary Association, DairyNZ, Federated Farmers Dairy and the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand.

The industry is collecting data on this procedure from all dairy farms as part of their annual farm drug use audit. Induction records will be sighted and checked, and the percentage of animals induced will be reported, with cross-checks back against veterinary records. In addition, any farm which does not meet the targets will be notified to their supplier through their veterinarian.

Dr Pridmore says the programme is phased over three years so farmers who use the practice can be supported as they change their farm system by making alternative stock management decisions, which is a complex and lengthy process for many.

“The key advantage of this new process is that we will be able to identify these businesses so we can support them with the InCalf educational programme as well as through the dairy companies and local veterinarians.”

Dr Pridmore says the practice is allowable under the Animal Welfare Act and the Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare so long as it is carried out by a veterinarian according to the guidelines set out in the agreed Operational Plan.

“The practice is not an issue of animal welfare, it is an ethical issue and one the industry has proactively reduced since the 1990s so that we are now dealing with the tail-end.”