Coming from a farming background and with 10 years of experience within Fonterra, she has seen first-hand the challenges farmers face and wants to help make it easier to navigate them.
"There are so many changes coming at farmers, from regulations to customer and consumer pressures," explains Paula. "My passion is about putting it in a way that makes it easier for them to work with."
Paula grew up on a dairy farm in North Waikato before moving to Cambridge, to study at the University of Waikato while rowing - she rowed for the New Zealand team for many years. She studied science, majoring in zoology, and completed her postgraduate study in marine and freshwater ecology alongside business studies.
Following her rowing career she joined Fonterra as a Sustainable Dairy Advisor, looking after various aspects of the environmental side of dairy farming and helping farmers to find the right solutions for their farms. For the past two years she has managed the Waikato Sustainable Dairy Advisor team.
"Most of my career at Fonterra has been finding solutions for farmers in the environment space. Moving across to the Animals team is a great opportunity to continue to help find solutions for farmers in a different area of the farming business," Paula says.
The focus of the Animals team is to support the adoption of good farming practices while keeping a practical lens and trying to balance the speed of change. Some changes are influenced by the customer and consumer expectations, while the majority are based on improving the standard of care for animals.
"Animals are the centre of our work. We keep across what is happening in the sector, for example monitoring disease risk, changing regulations and new farming practices such as Animal Monitoring Technology. This tech puts the data in the hands of the farmer and has potential for a massive impact on animal well-being now and in the future. Our job is to ensure farmers have the right info about changing practices so they can decide what's right for their farm, and keep up with requirements."
"Animals are the centre of our work."
- Paula Twining, Animal Programme Lead
The animals team is also in charge of updating Fonterra's animal care and biosecurity standards to meet government regulations and customer expectations.
"We ensure our internal teams are up to date on these as well as our suppliers," Paula adds. Support for farmers is the core, however, with ongoing work to develop and support services like the Farm Insights Report, and coordinating support for farmers experiencing milk quality issues.
Within the team there are a number of veterinarians who ensure there is a connection between animal health, wellbeing and the practicalities of on-farm management. The variety of the work and the impact they can have is what attracted Paula to the role.
"There is always so much going on out on farm and a big part of our work is supporting our teams to help farmers with what's top of mind throughout the season. At the moment, it's about the transition, keeping cows well-fed and setting them up for mating, as well as calf management, making sure the outside calves have good shelter available and any inside have their bedding topped up and kept clean."
Their seasonal messaging is heavily focused on reducing the risk of calf disease, promoting things such as having good colostrum and calf feeding practices in place and monitoring the effectiveness by checking for any failure of passive transfer. Even if colostrum quality has been checked earlier, it's a good idea to reassess.
"We're encouraging farmers to consciously plan and consider all their calf management steps in advance, and to always be thinking about how things could be done better, for the cows, the calves and the team on farm. They should be thinking and planning through full processes, not just about what needs to happen but who will do it and when. And for anyone buying calves it's important they understand how they have been reared and practice good biosecurity."
Some of the work Paula is involved with includes how we are approaching non-replacement calves, which ties into calf well-being and ensuring all dairy calves enter a value stream. She is gathering insights and exploring any unique regional challenges farmers could be faced with next season when all calves will be required to enter a value stream. She is also looking for good stories to share.
"We know farmers are continually working to increase their animals well-being, and there are a range of ways they are doing this. We'd love to share more stories of the options available to farmers."
The next few months is the time to review any changes you'll need to make next season Paula adds, saying "Our teams are talking to farmers now, checking in to see how things are going and if they need any specific help - and sharing stories from other farmers. We do want to hear from farmers and we encourage them to talk to their regional Fonterra and Farm Source teams about the challenges. If we're aware we can help."