Chief Executive of Dairy Holdings Colin Glass made his second presentation at the Positive Farmers Conference this morning. He talked about how Dairy Holdings (a group of 60 dairy farms with over 45,000 cows) de-risk their business.

One of the main ways Dairy Holdings de-risk their business is they involve a lot of their workers in share milking or in other words part owning some of the cows on the farm. Colin said: “We see performance ramping up year after year when we get a good share milking arrangement on a farm. It’s the ultimate win win and it de risks our business because we don’t have as much staff turnover and can attract good people.”

Colin went on to explain some of the other way he de-risks the business by applying nitrogen weekly, creating a grass wedge weekly, and monitoring somatic cell count. Colin said: “SCC is critically important to us and across 56 farms our average SCC was 133,000 cells per ml last year with many less than 50,000 cells per ml. However, we do get individual farms jumping up and down in SCC through the year for staff management reasons.”

As the boss of the operation, Colin said he doesn’t need to see the problems that are happening on the farms. He said: “It's when you see solutions do you realise you can progress and grow.”

One of the conference organisers Con Hurley also spoke in the morning session. Con made the point that people are different and what works for one might not work for someone else. He said: “You are the biggest risk to everyone but you are also the biggest asset. Some people can handle large debt but also some prefer not to handle debt.

"I was talking to a farmer from Germany at the conference here yesterday and he could borrow money at long term interest rates of 1% but potentially that could rise in coming years so you have to be able to handle that also. The human costs of expansion and dairy farming can be huge.

"Family drawings can be reduced, work rate can go up and some can head for 85 hours per week. Be prepared to manage stress.”