Initiative aims to boost beef weaner values

A rural think tank is looking at ways to increase the profitability of beef weaners.The group of eight farmers, chaired by former Environment Waikato chairman Jenni Vernon and funded by Beef and Lamb NZ  benchmarking their farms in a bid to lift weaner profits by 5%. Waingaro farmer Baden Broughton said the initiative would get farmers off farm and sharing informartion with each other. "Farmers are usually left to their own devices but we are going to get a lot of information." Mr Boughton, who farms 300 cattle and 1100 ewes, thought the $550 he was selling weaners for, at the moment, was a good price and he wanted the think tank to explore profitability in other less performing areas of the farm reports The Waikato Times. Much of a farmer's lot involved reacting to the weather. Rory Sherlock, a member of the Mid Northern Sheep and Beef Council who hosted the Profitable Beef Partnership meeting on Friday, said data from the eight farms would be input into the Farmax farm planning system so that they could be benchmarked against each other.  "Each farm will focus on the performance of weaners from a profitability point of view."The partnership, a Beef and Lamb New Zealand initiative, will be facilitated by AgResearch scientist Rex Webby and is about aligning science and practical farming to solve a particular issue.Mr Macnab said the aim was to improve weight gains of weaners in a challenging environment. "This can cover bull calves, weaned beef calves and dairy heifers out grazing," he said. "For us this is a great opportunity to put our levy money to profitable outcomes on our own."