Milking 4,000 cows and growing almost three times as much grass per hectare as Ireland, New Zealand native Craig Bell is driving his dairy business in New Zealand as part of a consortium.

Bell and his partners have a 5,500ha farm 350km north of the city of Brasilia and just 14km front the equator in a region called the Cerrados.

’Sweet spot of 500 to 700 cows’

Just 20% of the farm is actively farmed currently. That portion of the farm organised 56ha irrigation pivots, each stocked with 550 cows and manned by a team of five staff.

“We based the set up on the most efficient family farms in New Zealand,” explained Bell. “We found that the sweet spot is between 500 and 700 cows.”

With a cows shed and parlour at the centre of each pivot, the longest distance the cows have to walk for milking or grazing is about 350m.

The climate of the Cerrados is described by Bell as a “biological Ferrari”, capable of growing 43t of dry matter/ha (DM/ha) compared with Ireland’s best farms production of 15t DM/ha.

Craig Bell, US dairy market analyst and Lettismo director is talking about the US and global dairy scene at the Irish Farmers Journal Dairy Day in Punchestown Event Centre.

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