Standing in a bare paddock and contemplating the conversion to dairy production - a prospect that must seem like a huge challenge. There is an immense amount to learn about from farm layout and irrigation planning through to herd welfare and milk cooling. Luckily, New Zealand has an unparalleled force of rural professi...

Your tanker track and farm yard will connect your dairy operation to the world. While they might just seem like farm roads, their design needs to be right to meet very specific requirements. Getting the optimal tanker track and yard layout in place at the right time during your build is going to save you, your staff, y...

Your milking shed will be the heart of your dairy farming operation. A shed is a complex system that simultaneously manages cow flow, milking and milk storage. Getting the design right will have huge impacts on your farm’s efficiency, scale-ability, animal welfare, staff welfare, milk quality, water use, electricity ...

Modern dairy farms can’t operate without a reliable, safe, well designed electricity supply. Your farm's irrigation system, shed water, stock water, rotary bale, milk cooling, effluent spreading and more rely entirely on it. The efficiency of your electricity consumption will have a significant impact on farm profits...

You put a lot of time and money into growing your milk. The water heating, milk filtering, milk cooling and plant washing systems within your dairy shed are crucial to ensuring that the milk you produce is of high quality. These are complex and continuously evolving technologies as the regulations around milk storage t...

Water is the life blood of a dairy farm. You need good quality water and quite a lot of it. In this section, we look at where you should position your well in relation to your shed, how you should approach the purchase of your shed supply pumping systems, how you should set up the pumping shed electrics and more. There...

Your farm effluent should be seen as an opportunity not a problem. Dairy effluent contains a large amount of nutrients and you need to implement a system that will distribute it back to your land in a way that’s environmentally sustainable, maximises farming returns and achieves compliance with regulation. Utilising ...

The long term success of your new dairy farm will depend heavily on the herd of cows that you acquire. You need to build a herd that is well matched to you soil type, farm plan and budget. In this section, we will talk to experts about how to go about acquiring that herd, the need to get into that process well out fro...

Before your newly developed dairy farm can commence supply to your processing company it will have to be signed off as being compliant with your chosen company’s supply requirements. In this section, we will go through the Sustainability sign-off, Transport sign-off, Food Safety & Quality sign-off requirements for fa...

Completing a dairy farm conversion is a learning process. Dairy farmers who have developed a dairy farm are a great source of ideas, tips and pitfalls to avoid. In this section, we will bring together interviews with farmers who have recently completed a dairy conversion to see what advice they would give to farmers ap...