Southland’s climate and soils make the region well suited to dairy farming. The availability of affordable, highly productive land and ongoing dairy demand has been instrumental in increasing numbers of dairy farms around the region. Water supply is ideal for farming in Southland due to consistent, evenly spread rainfall. In fact, irrigating is rare within Southland, although there is some need for irrigating in northern areas.

 

A typical dairy farm in Southland milks around 500 cows. This has grown substantially over the past decade due to advances in milking shed technology and farming efficiency. Venture Southland has recently  completed research highlighting cost savings that can be made in dairy shed operations by optimising power usages, power factor, water use, milk quality and shed effluent disposal. See www.cowshed.org.nz for more information and results of testing.