By Sarah Connor
As an experienced sharemilker who confesses to being “a bit pedantic when it comes to quality,” Roy Tiller has a vested interest in monitoring his herd’s production at Longburn near Palmerston North. He’s responsible for the day to day running of 120 hectares of land he farms and 420 cows he milks reporting to the farm owner. One of the first farmers to install Levno’s remote and continuous milk monitoring system, Roy reports that the benefits to his business were immediate.
“Suddenly I could see the amount of milk in my vat, and from that I could tell if my herd hadn’t accessed enough water or feed, or if the weather hadn’t been favourable. In one day’s milking, any one of those variables can reduce production by 500 litres. By increasing my herd’s water or feed, in good time, I can make up the shortfall in production which would otherwise see me lose $300. It’s as simple as that.”
Most dairy farmers expect production to drop three to five percent every month once a cow has reached its peak production. With this new technology, Roy has come to expect better results. “Because I know what’s going on 24/7, I have much better control over my production and therefore my profits. Over the summer, I managed to increase or hold production for four months running. That’s magic.”
Roy employs one full-time worker and suggests that with every extra staff member the risk of something going wrong increases exponentially. And for too long, he only ever dreamed about taking a short break or decent holiday. “The risk was too high. But Levno proved its worth within the first two weeks. I was in the middle of watching my daughter perform at the Regent Theatre in Palmerston North. I got an email alert saying that the stirrer wasn’t working and the refrigeration unit wasn’t on. I got my staff on the case straight away and saved a small fortune.”
Besides the risk of human error, Roy explains that technical faults are inevitable. “At 1.30am recently, my refrigeration unit wasn’t working so the milk temperature got high. An alert to my phone saved me half a vat of milk worth $3,000. On another occasion, the isolating valve was playing up so the temperature fell outside the required parameters. Being warned about potential mechanical issues means I can nip them in the bud before my whole refrigeration system blows to bits and costs me $12K – 14K to replace.”
When considering the impact of MPI’s future milk cooling regulations on his business, Roy feels completely at ease. “I’m more than compliant already. Fonterra or Open Country Dairy can audit farmers on behalf of an international customer at any time. If someone turns up here and wants to know what’s been going on in my shed e.g. the temperature of the milk or how long it took to cool down etc, I can tell them exactly! Levno provides me with proof that I’m doing the right thing.”
Roy relies on the technology even more when dairy companies move to skip-a-day collections during certain times of the year. If milk is collected daily, a farmer can closely monitor what’s in a vat and influence their herd’s production before the next day’s milking. With skip-a-day collections it can be 48 hours before it’s obvious that production has dropped. “If I’m aware of a problem within 12 hours, I can usually fix it. If I don’t know about it for 48 hours, it’s usually too late.”
Given the thousands of dollars Roy has saved this season alone, when it comes to paying the monthly subscription of $80, he shakes his head happily. “It’s not hard to work out who’s winning is it? It’s as cheap as chips! Levno makes me money and saves me money. Who can argue with that?”
Visit their site: www.levno.com.