Farm Dairy Records give us evidence of the work our farmers do to produce quality, sustainable milk - so we can advocate on their behalf with customers, regulators, and the New Zealand community.
July can be a busy month for Co-op farmers with calving in full force, and of course the 31 July deadline for Farm Dairy Records.
To this end, the Co-op is making life a bit easier for farmers by partnering with LIC, Ballance and Ravensdown to integrate information so that data can be transferred directly into their annual Farm Dairy Records.
How it works
The process of integrating the data involves Application Programming Interface (API) sharing. In layman's, it means that each partner's data application (i.e. LIC's MINDA® software, Ballance's MyBallance and Ravensdown's HawkEye tool) now talks to Fonterra's Farm Dairy Records system using requests and responses.
It's an opt-in process, so from the 23rd of May, when farmers log in and navigate to the Fonterra Farm Dairy Records page, they will be presented with an option to connect MINDA to Farm Source. Farmers will follow through the steps to connect their herds to their supply number and data will automatically populate the farmer's Farm Dairy Records.
The ability for farmers to connect data from Ballance's MyBalance and Ravensdown's HawkEye is planned to be available soon. When this functionality goes live, farmers can expect to receive further instructions on how to connect their data.
Farm Source's On Farm Excellence Milk Programme Manager Daniel Heine says that data sharing between large companies is relatively new in the industry and should be a huge time save for everyone involved.
"Farmers are busy, and then they have additional administration jobs on top of what they’re doing on farm. It can be quite a time-consuming process, depending on the size of the farm and the complexity of the different data they need to work through. Some farmers have it down to half a day to compile information. For others it may take them days," he says.
"Data entry has always been a bugbear for farmers. They may have the information in one place for the farm, but then we're asking for it again in another format and in another location. I guess it's fair to say the only thing farmers hate more than entering data is entering the same data twice in two different places. The more we can streamline the information, the better."
Data accuracy is critical
"There is a lot riding on the data that we collect in terms of reporting. Anything we report has to be verified, which can be a costly and time-consuming exercise. By integrating the data collected across Fonterra, LIC, Ballance, and Ravensdown, we can confidently report the information as it has come straight from the source. There is far less risk of input errors," Daniel says.
The team is currently testing the usability and efficacy of the integration with selected farmers around the country. This process allows Fonterra and partners to iron out any bugs before it is opened up to all Co-op farmers to use.
The great news is that farmer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
"So that just automatically pops up, and then obviously you then just go through and make sure everything's correct. That's brilliant."
"I mean the hardest thing would've been to remember your password, I imagine"
Ultimately, Fonterra hopes to offer more integration for farmers across all compliance areas.
"Stock numbers and fertiliser data are probably two of the more time-consuming pieces of filling out the Farm Dairy Records. If farmers can simply click a button and the data comes through, it’s going to be a game-changer," Daniel says.
Need some help with completing Farm Dairy Records?
Give our Farmer Support Team a call on 0800 65 65 68 and we'll be happy to help.
