Technical Tours

Options for technical tours to a range of New Zealand pasture-based dairy farms in the Canterbury region are available on Sunday and Thursday, subject to sufficient numbers of attendees. Farms to be visited represent a range of New Zealand dairy systems from the extensive predominantly pasture-fed system to a robotic milking system that uses higher levels of supplementary feeding. Key points about the feed management of cows in grazing systems and discussion of milk quality management in herds of more than 500 cows will be a focus of these tours.

Wednesday 24 March

Stockguard Farm - Evening

A journey to Rakaia Island farm, where in excess of 5000 cows are farmed on a Once-A-Day milking system.  The tour will include a farm walk and Q and A session with the farmer and the attending veterinarians, with special focus on mastitis issues surrounding this particular system, 3 course dinner and return transport.

Thursday 25 March

Synlait Farm – Full Day

The tour includes a site visit to the Synlait Milk Processing Plant and to one of the Synlait dairy farms, lunch and return transport.

Synlait is a Canterbury based milk production company.  Synlait is working towards maintaining total control over production, processing, marketing and distribution to guarantee customers absolute food safety, security and traceability. In this way, Synlait is New Zealand's first genuine cow-to-customer dairy export company. There are two key divisions under the Synlait umbrella - Synlait Farms and Synlait Milk.

Synlait Farms operates the farming activities, with 15,000 cows and 4,600ha of predominantly irrigated land. With a specific focus on animal health and productivity Synlait Farms employs a full time veterinarian and has implemented a number of strategies targeted at improved performance in the areas of mastitis and reproduction. These herds form the cornerstone of the special milk supply for the Synlait Milk functional food strategy.

Synlait Milk has recently completed building its own milk processing facility in Dunsandel which processes more than 300 million litres of milk a year sourced from 85 farm suppliers including Synlait Farms. The average supply herd is around 700 cows in size. The Synlait Milk plant exports milk powder products and high-value functional ingredients to the world's leading functional food manufacturers. These functional ingredients are created both behind the farm gate and at the manufacturing stage.

Farms in Ashburton and Rakaia – Full Day

The tour includes site visit to two farms, 30 minute jet boat ride, lunch and return transport.

Farms in Ashburton and Winchester – Full Day

The tour includes site visit to two farms, lunch and return transport.

Vet Workshop at Lincoln University Dairy Farm - Full Day

The tour includes practical workshop on mastitis extension, lunch and return transport. Please click here for more information.

Please click here to refer to the technical tour terms and conditions.