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The Muster- Don Moore: Positives Are Ahead For The Dairy Sector · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This interview is brought to you by Agri Centre South.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Branches in Lawnville, Gore, Cromwell, Milton and Ranfurly. Drop by
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: your local Agri Centre South branch today. Don Moore Farms
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: at Kennington and joins us this afternoon. He's a member
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of the Fonterra Shareholders Council. G'day Don, last time we
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: spoke to you, you were getting into carving. Well, it's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: been a few weeks past since then and geez, what
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a ride it's been.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Sure has been. Yeah, good afternoon. Yeah, September was a challenge, eh?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: So calving's all over and done with now?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think we've got two, three left to go,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: so hopefully in the next hour or so we'll be
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: all done. Yeah, pretty much. Certainly in terms of how we,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: you know, the mindset and things, the sun's out, cows
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: are moving on, moving on, and we're sort of just getting...
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: getting that mindset of the team as well away from
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that carving mindset and sort of putting our head up
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and looking out and seeing what sort of jobs we
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: need to plan for and getting a few things tidied
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: up now. So that's the mindset we're heading into now. Yeah,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: enjoy the sunshine as much as possible and crack on
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: with some of those jobs. You know, the new farm
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: and there's things we want to do, tidy it all
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: up and Looking forward to those projects now.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: How's the feed situation down your way?
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, there's people pretty tight for sure. Like I said,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: we've got quite a low stopping rate, and so that's
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: enabled us to get by pretty well. Average cover is good.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: We sort of held our first round out until pretty
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: late in September, so that's helped a lot. It was
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: sort of the last few days of that crappier weather.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: We were starting to hit the second round. We would
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: have had the speed wobbles for sure if things hadn't
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: come right, but it came right just in the nick time.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I'd say that'd be the case for many as well.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Have the cows got through the month OK?
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, we're a bit behind, but all of Southland,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: especially eastern Southland and South.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Otago, I've got the opportunity to look at some production grass,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: factory grass from Edendale, and yeah, look, production's back.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: We're back about on par with the average for our area,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: so that's just the way it is. In saying that,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I think the milk pickups were still above the year before,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: so down on last year, but but still up slightly
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: on the year before. So just sort of emphasises, you know,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: we'll probably, you know, have some pretty tough springs lately, actually.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how would this rank amongst the springs that you've experienced?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably a challenging one to answer, really. I mean,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: they all have their different challenges for different reasons, and
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a new farm is probably, you know, being down in
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: the new areas. really hard to compare, but we were
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: talking the other day, it might have been 2009 we
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: had that snowstorm at the end of September, the 19th
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: of September or something like that. We had 20 cows
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: left to calve out of 900 and trying to feed
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: cows when the soil temps dropped to basically zero and
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: we had snow on the ground for five days. It
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: wasn't actually... It wasn't actually those five days that were
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the challenge. It was the next week that you didn't
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: grow any grass. So, you know, we've just had all
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: these different– you get all these different challenges and you
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: just have to manage them as you can, which is
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: easy to say that now that the sun's out.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Regarding your management, heading into mating, have you had to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: change much?
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Well, we've got Holter on this year, so we actually
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: had a meeting yesterday– up with Holter and Bianca at
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Head South. Just a bit of a group discussion on
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: how we're maximising it and here there's some tricks and
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: different things that we're trying and we've actually just put
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: all of our non-cyclers that have calved more than 50
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: days ago into their own mob on Holter. They're still
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: in the same mob as the other cows but when
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: we We preferentially feed them during the day so that
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: they get the pick of the grass and just trying
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: things like that that are easy wins but sort of,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: you know, being quite bespoke to individual cows that might
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: need some extra attention. So I think that's the beauty
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: of Colton.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: The GDT came out yesterday morning with a rise of 1.2%,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: which is Fonterra in general. It's looking pretty good after
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: its profits coming out last week or its results. Pretty rosy.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Pretty good vibe around Fonterra at the moment, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, look,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: we had the couple of days up in Auckland two
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: weeks ago for the results, and then obviously we've had
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the roadshows last week. Farm has been pretty positive. And
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: then we've had the TDT auction. We've had the midpoint
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: of the forecast milk price have a lift. Yeah, it's
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: just a good place to be. I think forecast earnings
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: for the next year are outstanding. Clearly, they're only a forecast, but,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: you know, from where Fonterra was five or six years
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: ago to have a forecast of 65 to 85 cents
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: per unit, it's a pretty incredible story, really. Yeah, I
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: guess just while we're talking to Montero, just the opportunity
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that we've got the director roadshows coming up. So we
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: have director elections. We've got two positions available with four standing,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: one incumbent, three newbies. So 22nd of October, just get
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: on the My Co-op app and come along to the
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: understanding your, sorry, the director roadshow meetings and register for
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: that and it's a good opportunity to get in front
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: of whatever Fonterra's future directors will be and then a
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: corresponding opportunity, I suppose, to vote and say.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Good on you, Don. We'll let you carry on. Always
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: good to catch up.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Andy. Don Moore based at Kennington. You're listening to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: The Muster up next from Beef and Lamb New Zealand, Lawrencefield.