News & Events

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National Projects

Dairy Extension Centre (DEC)

Established in October 2005, the DEC is a centre that combines on-farm extension and development programs to Victoria's dairy farmers.

The DEC's strategy and operation is directed by a group of investors and primary stakeholders (Department of Primary Industries (DPIV), Dairy Australia and United Dairyfarmers of Victoria) under the charter of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Dairy Australia and the Victorian Government.

Under the MoU, Dairy Australia and the DPIV invest annual funding in the DEC.
Many of the activities and programs developed through the DEC are delivered under the Target 10 banner, which began in 1992.

How does the DEC benefit the industry?

• 45 full time staff focused on dairy extension across Victoria.
• Provide information on Exceptional Circumstances assistance;

Under the Target 10 banner, the DEC has also delivered a number of programs to help dairy
farmers address a range of issues including:

• Grazing management - "Feeding Pastures for Profit"
• Dairy cow nutrition
• Soils and fertilisers

For more information about the resources and programs offered through the DEC visit its website or contact your nearest DPIV dairy extension officer.

 

NCDEA

The NCDEA is an initiative of Dairy Australia and Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE.

Education and training delivered by the NCDEA responds to industry and student learning needs to bring dairy education and training under one umbrella.

The Centre is dedicated specifically to dairy vocational education and training (VET).

There are two main components to training delivery: courses that focus on dairy farming, and those that target food processing.
The National Centre for Dairy Education Australia delivers nationally accredited courses in:

• Agriculture (specialising in Dairy Production)
• Food Technology (Dairy)
• Food Processing

The NCDEA delivers short courses and customised programs for dairy and processing organisations, individual farmers and people in the dairy service industry.
For further information please contact the Client Service Centre on 1300 0 NCDEA (1300 0 62332) or visit its website.

 

People in Dairy

The resources on this website are designed especially for dairy farmers to get the best outcomes from the people in their business. Templates are available on a wide range of topics including, farm policies and systems, recruitment, career planning and succession.

For further information visit the website.

 

 

Cool Cows

With funding from DA and DAFF, as part of the Dealing with Today: Planning for Tomorrow program, Grains2Milk has developed two new resources

In addition to the information in the booklet, the website provides 3 tools:

• Susceptibility Assessor tool - Rates a herd's inherent susceptibility to heat stress based on location, breed and level of milk production
• Actions Generator tool - Generates a printable list of possible farm changes, based on responses to a series of questions
• Weather Forecaster tool - Provides Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) trend for past week and forecast for the coming week for a selected site in each region

For further information visit www.coolcows.com.au

 

Countdown Downunder

Countdown Downunder was launched in 1988 to help dairy farmers improve farm profitability by greater mastitis control as well as protecting export markets.

The following resources and tools have been developed to help dairy farmers achieve real change in the performance of their herd:

• Countdown Downunder Farm Guidelines
• Countdown Downunder Technotes
• Countdown Downunder Farmer Short Course
• Countdown Downunder Adviser Short Course
• Countdown Downunder Mastitis Investigation Pack

These resources and further information and advice can be found at the Countdown Downunder website

 

Cowtime

Established in 2001, CowTime is a national industry project that makes milking easier and more efficient.

It enables farmers to review their entire milking process, from when the cows leave the paddock to cleaning up the milking shed, in order to determine what works effectively and what doesn't.

It then identifies cost-effective changes that farmers can make to improve their milking practices, as well as their use of labour and farm productivity.

To make milking more efficient, CowTime's goals are to:

• Improve the use of labour during milking by 20 per cent
• Make milking an easier, safer, more pleasant and a more attractive occupation
• Improve cow comfort and stock-handling during milking
• Promote energy efficient practices throughout milking

CowTime has developed a range of cost-effective practical and web-based tools to help dairy farmers review and improve their milking systems:

• CowTime Milking Monitor (web-based)
• CowTime Shed Shake-up and Course
• CowTime Guidelines for milk harvesting
• CowTime Quick Notes
• CowTime Dairy Decisions
• CowTime Dairy Designs
• CowTime Dairy Energy Monitor

These resources and further information and advice can be found at the CowTime website

 

Incalf

 

InCalf is a project designed to improve herd fertility by providing training courses that improve herd performance, identify opportunity for improvement and evaluate options.

 

 

Tools and resources have been developed to help dairy farmers improve the reproductive performance of their herd:

• InCalf Book
• InCalf Fertility Focus Report
• InCalf Herd Assessment Pack Tools
• InCalf-Web Tech (web-based resource that supports the InCalf Book)
• InCalf Training Programs
• InCalf Advisers

These resources and further information and advice can be found at the InCalf website: www.incalf.com.au

 

Grains 2 Milk

Grains2Milk was established by Dairy Australia in 2007 to help Australian dairy farmers improve their use of feed grains and concentrates within their chosen feeding system.

To help farmers improve their use of feed grains, two complementary projects have been established under the Grains2Milk banner.

• Feed2Milk - This project is investigating the efficiency of feed grain and concentrate used by cows on farm and its conversion to milk. New information and support tools will be developed for farmers and their advisers to help the get the most from their grain and concentrate inputs.
• Grains2Feed - This project, which is yet to commence, will provide dairy farmers with systems for rapidly assessing grain availability, price and quality. It will also help them develop strategies for efficient grain purchase, storage, delivery and use on-farm.
  For more information about the Grains2Milk program email the project leader Steve Little

 

Greener Pastures

Greener Pastures is a five year intensive farming systems project which will help farmers make smarter use of nutrients, especially nitrogen. The project will test a range of farm management tools with the potential to manage nitrogen more effectively and reduce nitrogen losses off the farm, in particular leaching of nitrate from urine patches.

This project, which is based in Western Australia, aims to clearly define the milk production response to nitrogen fertiliser in a pasture system and to demonstrate practical ways to use nitrogen more profitably.

As results from the project that are applicable to Northern Victoria become available they will be communicated through the media and extension networks.

For more information about the project, contact John Lucey, Project Leader (08 9777 0124 or Email)

 

Future Dairy

FutureDairy is a research and extension program to help Australia's dairy farmers manage the challenges they are likely to face during the next 20 years. Activities are structured around three priority areas - Forages, Feeding and Innovations.

• Forages - trials have produced on average more than 42t DM/ha/year for the past three years using a ‘complementary' forage rotation, based on growing three crops a year:
  • a bulk crop (eg maize);
  • a forage to provide a pest/disease break and improve soil aeration (eg brassica); and
  • a legume for nitrogen fixation (eg clover).
• Feeding - In this study, the economic and management issues of raising production/cow by 50% or increasing stocking rate by 50% (from 2.4 to 3.2 cows/ha at EMAI) are being investigated.
• Innovation - FutureDairy is assisting in the development and evaluation of innovations that will either improve labour use efficiency or lifestyle e,g, automatic milking systems (AMS); or allow more precise agriculture without the need for more labour eg remote sensing of animal (rumen) function and pasture status or remote videoing of farm activities.
  • The major emphasis is on developing an AMS to suit the typical Australian dairy farm - grazing of large herds on pasture.

Trials are conducted at the NSW Department of Primary Industries' Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute (EMAI), at Camden. Extension activities are delivered through the industry's existing network of dairy advisers across Australia.

More information on this project can be found on its website

 

Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS)

ADHIS maintains a national database of performance and pedigree details for individual dairy animals. This is regularly updated with data collected by milk recording organisations and breed societies. The database is used to assist genetic improvement in the dairy industry by artificial breeding companies and dairy farmers.

The scheme was established in 1982 and the first ABVs released the following year. In 1984 ADHIS released ABVs based on an animal model - this was the first time an animal model was used in a national dairy evaluation anywhere in the world. Dairy Australia has been the principal source of funding for ADHIS since its inception.

For more information visit the scheme's website.