Chinese demand for animals to expand it's dairy operation back home has reached our shores, with up to 6000 fully recorded Friesian heifers to be exported this year from this country.
And with a premium of about $500 per head over what farmers can get for their animals here, they should have no trouble filling such orders. However with such quality animals being sold to a competitor overseas, are we selling up our dairy industry future?
Reports suggest that quality young animals for local sale are in short supply, and some of the expansion is being stocked with budget cows, which does seem to be short sighted when we are exporting quality fully recorded young animals.
A dairy export company has filled its first order of 3000 heifers and is about to start on sourcing another 3000 young dairy cattle for the Chinese market. Landmark, an Australian-based company, has buyers in NZ checking rising one-year-old friesian heifers. North Island procurement agent Evan Gregory said his firm was paying about $500 more than the heifers were making on the NZ market, so it had no trouble finding the unmated heifers that the Chinese farms wanted.
"We have filled the first order, with about two-thirds coming from the South Island and one-third from the North Island," said Mr Gregory."Those 3000 rising one-year-old heifers are in quarantine in Temuka now reports The Manawatu Standard."He said the companies exporting were largely Australian, but they had had trouble finding enough heifers to be exported in Australia because of the demand coming from China.
"They also like the disease-free status of NZ, and NZ dairy farmers are world leaders in animal recording. So for a huge percentage of dairy cattle, their genetics are known."Mr Gregory said that was key as fully recorded young cattle were a necessity to meet the order.He also said local cattle were known for their fertility over those from South America or Australia, and were in demand by farms in China as a result.
"The first 3000 heifers will be shipped from Timaru at the end of June. We are about to look for a second lot of 3000 and they will be in quarantine for 30 days. "Then they will be shipped to China in September," he said. After again facing quarantine in China, of 45 days, the heifers would go to a privately owned Chinese farm in the south of the country, Mr Gregory said. "They are interested in milk flow, so litreage, not milksolids. It is all about milk for human consumption, but the disease-free status makes the heifers from NZ desirable."
3 Comments
..and in 2 years we see 3’000’000 Friesian heifers with Zebra strips (Zebrafriesian) grazing around Lake Tanganyika in Africa delivering milk- products for the world - crazy world !
http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-rising-role-africa/p8436
Fonterra's farming interests are in northern China Janette, not southern China. Building dairy farms in China is 'flavour of the month' over there. There are other countries other than NZ, building farms there and the Chinese themselves have some huge dairy farms over there.
It is not uncommon for NZ heifers in China to be sourced and evenutually bred with USA semen. This give the advantages of fertility of NZ bred stock with production ability of USA genetics.
A lot of NZ farmers now use 'Kiwi cross' cows which are not suitable for the Chinese market, which wants straight freisians.
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