Halter supports farmers through labour shortages.
Note: At time of filming Mitchell had one farm deployed with Halter. He is now actively using Halter on three farms, with a fourth to be deployed next month.
Mitchell | Managing Director
Dairy farmer Mitchell manages eight farms, 20 staff and 3000 cows across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. He shares how Halter is freeing up time, empowering his team and giving him visibility across his operations.
Mitchell manages eight farms, 20 staff and 3000 cows across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions, relying on a team of 15 staff to keep the operation running smoothly.
Having a skilled and steady labour force is, and continues to be, vital to the success of his business. But with such an acute need for skilled workers within the dairy sector, acquiring and retaining staff is highly competitive.
A recent survey jointly conducted by DairyNZ and Federated Farmers found that half of dairy farmers reported they were short-staffed¹. Mitchell estimates the sector is at least 2200 labour units short.
“Because of Covid, the migrant staff that the dairy industry normally employs, haven’t been able to come to New Zealand. But also, there’s not a lot of people looking for jobs, which has made it even harder for farmers.“
Instead of waiting for policy initiatives or borders to reopen, Mitchell says Halter is helping him to attract staff and keep them.
“If someone’s applied for three jobs, and two of them don’t have Halter, we’ve won.”
Since launching Halter on just one of his farms back in May, he’s seen firsthand the significant support and workload relief that Halter offers.
The effect has been so positive, that he’s opted to roll out the technology on all six farms over the next year.
¹ https://www.dairynz.co.nz/news/dairy-sector-calls-for-1500-international-staff-in-2022/
“If someone’s applied for three jobs, and two of them don’t have Halter, we’ve won.”
— Mitchell
Visibility across the entire business
Mitchell is currently facing a mid-season management change due to one of his managers being promoted within the industry.
In a normal season, this could be disruptive. But with Halter on board, he’s confident he can effectively manage the transition.
“The new manager will have access to consistent real-time information to enable them to get up to speed very quickly. They’ll be able to scroll back within the Halter app and see the feed records, where the feedings have been, and allow them to create stability moving forward for the cows. With Halter, it’s not a complete change of management, it’s just a changing of the guard.”
Each of Mitchell’s farms has its own manager and across his farms he has a team of 15 running 160 to 1000 cows. He says the transparency that Halter has brought to his business has been invaluable.
“I can open up the Halter app and see everything on the farm is right. It means I don’t need to physically check as often as I used to.”
So instead of spending time driving to each farm, he can review the entire operation from the comfort of home.
“I can see cow numbers, where they are, what mobs they are in. I can look at what cows we have put up to AI and have been on heat that day, I can also look at their allocation of dry matter.”
“[With Halter] I have an information source that enables easier and better strategic decision making.”
Using time wisely
“At the moment, my Halter farm is my lowest workload farm. Instead of a weekly farm visit, that farm is on a monthly farm visit. In terms of the entire year, that might be 200 to 300 hours I’m saving, just for myself.”
Mitchell says once Halter is rolled out across all his farms, he could effectively double his number of farms without increasing his workload.
As for the staff on his Halter farm, it’s transformed their task list. Rather than battling all day with break fences and stock movements, they now have time to focus on more critical and higher-value tasks.
“At a guess, farm managers are saving at least 1-1.5 hours a day. It means they can focus on the more important areas of feed management, and making sure our animal health is really well looked after.”
Halter’s 3000 data point heat detection also means farm managers no longer need to manually detect heat.
Gain time and increase productivity across your farm.
“In terms of the entire year, that might be 200 to 300 hours I’m saving, just for myself.”
— Mitchell
Empowering and retaining your team
Mitchell says Halter is helping him to attract new staff because he’s able to showcase the innovation to potential employees and clearly illustrate what their working day will look like.
“We can say: You don’t have to sit behind cows, heat detection’s simple, and here’s your health tool to make sure the cows are healthy.”
Staff development is a core value of Mitchell’s business. He says Halter has substantially improved morale and team satisfaction. Because everything is visible to everyone on farm, even junior staff can be involved in high-level strategy.
“Using Halter means staff aren’t getting fatigued with the monotonous day to day. We want to funnel that workflow into getting them higher-skilled for the whole industry.”
Attract and retain labour with Halter.
Safety first
Farmers, dairy farmers in particular, work extremely hard. Traditionally they’re up at 4am and checking their girls late into the night.
With Halter technology, the traditional work schedule is drastically reduced. Movements are scheduled, which allows farmers flexibility to manage their farms more efficiently, reducing workloads and symptoms of fatigue and burnout.
Mitchell says Halter has been instrumental in maintaining human resource compliance.
“With Halter saving time on the farm, it means we have more safe activity happening. People aren’t in a hurry, so they aren’t having incidents or accidents on motorcycles and they’re away from the livestock so there are no incursions with animals.”
Looking forward
With Halter, Mitchell is looking to expand his network of farms and use his model of team inclusion and empowerment to encourage a new generation of highly skilled workers.
“We are expanding at one to two farms a year. It’s a small expansion, but it's slow and steady. As we roll Halter out over the whole group, it will mean I’ll have the ability to take those farms on. And with Halter, I know my team has the ability to make decisions with potentially less input from me.”