A Rotorua dairy farm demonstrates that profitability and environmental performance can go together. Since taking over in 2019/20, Richard and Amy have operated a low-input system designed to meet nitrogen limits while remaining financially strong.

Flooding on a dairy farm can be devastating, but the page you're reading provides essential guidelines to mitigate its effects.

Senior animal care specialist

Extreme weather puts pressure on daily farm operations, so you'll find guidance below on getting back to a normal milking schedule, managing feed, and keeping your cows healthy.

Reducing nitrogen losses from your farm can help improve efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve water quality, meet regulatory requirements, and strengthen your bottom line. There are 10 main actions to consider.

Proactive visitor biosecurity management helps protect your herd and your business. Visitors can unknowingly bring in diseases, weeds or pests that threaten animal health and farm productivity.

Good effluent management on your dairy farm combines a well-designed system with proper processes to ensure the right amount of effluent gets applied to pasture at the right time.

An employment agreement defines the rules of the working relationship between the employee and the farm owner/manager on a dairy farm. It must be in writing, and the employer is responsible for arranging it.

Wearable technologies (such as cow collars) are becoming a popular tool for assisting with reproductive management. In 2025, around 1 in 5 dairy farms are using wearables , mostly to help with heat detection, a factor in getting cows in calf.

The Healthy Hoof programme focused on the prevention of lameness. The programme was a simple, stepwise approach to managing lameness on dairy farms caused by physical factors. NZVA now offer their own lameness training.

The Dairy Effluent 'Warrant of Fitness' (WOF) is a voluntary programme that assesses your farm's effluent system to ensure it's compliant throughout the year.

The Reducing GHG team at DairyNZ are working on several projects to develop viable solutions that reduce greenouse gas (GHG) emissions on New Zealand dairy farms.

Animal welfare goes beyond just daily care for animals on farm . It means adhering to standards set out by the Animal Welfare Act and welfare codes, and meeting consumer and market expectations.