NEW ZEALAND DAIRY FARM SYSTEMS AND KEY ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Highlights

• NZ dairy farming systems are based on year-round grazing of perennial pasture (ryegrass/white clover).

• Milk production per hectare has increased by about 29% with increased use of externally-sourced feeds over the last two decades.

• Externally-sourced feeds with a low protein concentration can potentially reduce N₂O emissions and N leaching per unit of production.

• Systems analysis is important for evaluating mitigations to minimize trade-offs between environmental impacts.

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the range of dairy pasture grazing systems used in New Zealand (NZ), the changes with increased inputs over time and associated key environmental effects including nitrogen (N) leaching and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. NZ dairy farming systems are based on year-round grazing and seasonal milk production on perennial ryegrass/clover pasture where cows are rotationally grazed in paddocks. There was an increase in stocking rate on NZ dairy farms from 2.62 cows ha⁻¹ in 2000/2001 to 2.84 cows ha⁻¹ in 2015/2016. During the same period annual milk solids production increased from 315 to 378 kg·yr⁻¹ per cow. This performance has coincided with an increase in N fertilizer use (by ~ 30%) and a twofold increase in externally-sourced feeds. Externally-sourced feeds with a low protein concentration (e.g., maize silage) can increase the efficiency of N utilization and potentially reduce N losses per unit of production. Off-paddock facilities (such as standoff or feed pads) are often used to restrict grazing during very wet winter conditions. A systems analysis of contrasting dairy farms in Waikato (largest NZ dairying region) indicates that the increased input would result in an increase in per-cow milk production but little change in efficiency of milk production from a total land use perspective. This analysis also shows that the increased inputs caused an 11% decrease in N footprint (i.e., N emissions per unit of milk production) and a 2% increase in C footprint (i.e., greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of milk production).

Graphical abstract

Keywords

dairy farms / environmental impacts / grazing systems / intensification / mitigation

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Acknowledgements

We thank DairyNZ for supplying farm data from DairyBase for use and the NZ Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s Catalyst—Strategic Fund for supporting this research (Contract C10X1918).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jiafa Luo and Stewart Ledgard declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article is a review and does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2020. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)