Members projects

Fonterra is well into developing and implementing an on-farm continuous improvement support model, operating across a variety of environmental, food safety and animal welfare parameters. Every year, Fonterra assesses all of its New Zealand suppliers across a series of minimum standards. Farmers that are identified as having issues are targeted for one-on-one intervention. Fonterra has been progressively rolling out this on-farm support model since 2009, beginning with milk quality. Subsequent modules have included effluent management (2010) and mastitis support (2011), and future models will include nitrogen conversion efficiency (2012), early warnings for animal welfare issues (2012), energy efficiency (tbc), water efficiency (tbc) and others.

The premise of the program is that through data collected during our annual third-party farm audit process and our milk quality testing regime, it is possible to identify farmers that are experiencing issues with food safety (milking plant and equipment), animal health (somatic cell count), and environmental compliance (effluent assessment), and intervene with education and technical support. Farmers receive one-on-one support from Fonterra's team of Sustainable Dairying and Milk Quality Advisors to develop a plan to mitigate the issues. Plans are specifically tailored to the individual farm system, with outcomes agreed with farmers.

Implementation of plans is monitored through follow up visits, and re-assessment during subsequent third-party assessments of the farm. Fonterra conducts 10,500 farm assessments every year.

As new modules are developed and rolled out to farmers, capability is developed to implement plans through collaboration with DairyNZ (New Zealand's levy-funded research and development organisation).