It feels like we’ve hit a wall. A recent review Pasture productivity in New Zealand 1990–2020: trends, expectations, and key factors highlighted something that many in the industry have suspected for a while — pasture productivity and utilisation in dairy farming has plateaued, perhaps even flat-lined, since the early 2000s.

The question is, why?

To answer that, we need to take a step back and look at the evolution of pasture-based farming over the last few decades. And to be fair, this topic is personal to me. I grew up on a dairy farm. My parents were very profitable pasture dairy farmers through and through, and in the 1990s, I farmed myself, running a 100-cow farm as a sole-charge lower order sharemilker. Back then, I relied heavily on my eye-o-meter to assess pasture covers — it was part art, part science, and it worked well for the scale I was operating at.

The Golden Age of Pasture Farming (1960s to 1990s)

From the 1960s through to the early 1990s, pasture-based farming was the heart and soul of dairy operations. Scientists like Charles McMeekan, and Arnold Bryant (no relation, btw) were leading the charge, embedding the fundamentals of pasture-based systems into the fabric of farming. It was a time of learning, refining, and extending best practices.

Farmers became true pasture farming specialists. They knew their paddocks intimately — when to graze, when they needed to remove paddocks from the rotation, what was grazed just right, and how to optimise pasture utilisation and intakes. Tools like the rising plate meter came onto the scene in the 1980s and 90s giving farmers a reliable way to measure pasture cover. The best farmers didn’t even need it; they had a trained "eye-o-meter" that was often just as accurate. Farms were typically smaller back then, with 100-300 cows, making it feasible for a single person or a small team to manage pasture measurement and management effectively.

At the same time, there were advances in ryegrass varieties, particularly around novel endophytes and genetic gains. These developments further boosted pasture productivity. In essence, it was a period of productivity gains and optimisation through sound pasture management principles.

The Shift to Nitrogen and Supplements (Mid-1990s to Early 2000s)

Then came the mid-1990s, and everything started to change. Nitrogen fertiliser became widely available and, let’s be honest, a cheap source of feed and a bit too convenient. Between 1990/91 and 2001/02, the estimated average amount of nitrogen fertiliser applied to dairy pastures per year increased by 94 kg/ha. Farmers began to rely on nitrogen to boost pasture growth and ride out and through pasture cover dips rather than focusing on precise pasture management. The same happened with supplements — palm kernel, maize silage — you name it, it became part of the system.

At the same time, average farm sizes and number of cows milked started to balloon from an average of 70 hectares per farm with 164 cows in 1990/91 to 115 hectares per farm with 322 cows in 2005/06. By 2005/06, 15% of herds had 500 cows or more! What used to be a manageable single or 2-person operation now need 3-4 up to 10 staff. With that growth came management layers and hierarchies on farms. The days of a single farmer with a trained eye overseeing every paddock were gone. Rising plate meter walks that once took 2-3 hours were now taking upwards of 4-6 hours. Simply put, the system became too big and too complex for traditional pasture management practices to keep up.

Instead of solely focusing on pasture management, many farmers turned to nitrogen and supplements as a safety net, and source of cheap energy. If pasture covers were low, a bit of nitrogen or a load of supplements could fix the problem — quickly and cost-effectively.

There were still some glimmers of hope during this period. Tools like the C-Dax pasture meter helped reduce measurement time, and management software like Pasture Coach offered insights. But these were exceptions rather than the norm.

My Own Digital Attempts (Late 2000s) - Farmax Feed Wedge and Farmax Dairy Pro

In the late 2000s, I had my own crack with Graeme Ogle and Paul Marshall at solving the pasture measurement Problem No. 1: How can I measure my pasture accurately, regularly and quickly? with a digital tool called ‘Farmax Feed Wedge’. The idea was to provide farmers with a clear picture of their pasture covers and help them make better decisions. I seriously doubt you have even heard of it, and here’s the thing — it failed, and it failed abysmally!

Why? Because it didn’t overcome the core challenge of accurate and timely pasture measurement. Farmers still had to input data manually using existing devices or their eye-o-meter. Furthermore it didn't solve Problem No. 2: How can I and my team get pasture insights easily? They still had to learn how to navigate a 'dashboard' and find insights. It didn’t give them the answers or solutions they needed right there and then or save them time. It just added to their heavy mental and physical workload. In hindsight, it was a classic case of creating a tool that didn't solve core problems.

It wasn't all bad as, in parallel, we were developing Farmax Dairy Pro. This is now the dominant strategic decision support tool used by consultants to answer the "what if" strategic problems questions like how can I change my farm system to operate profitably and repeatably given current milk prices, supplement prices, nitrogen input limitations (see www.farmax.co.nz/farmax-analysis). But, it was too complex to be used directly by farmers themselves for tactical 'next two weeks' problems and insights such as how many paddocks can I leave out of the rotation right now to hit pre and post grazing residual targets. These are key knife-edge questions that are make or break for pasture management optimisation and profit.

The Return of Pasture Focus (2010s and Beyond)

By the 2010s, things started to shift again. Nitrogen prices began to climb, and the environmental impact of nitrogen use became impossible to ignore. Urine patches, nitrate leaching, and the resulting impact on waterways were under the spotlight.

Farmers started to realise that they needed to go back to the basics of pasture management. But there was a problem: the art of pasture farming had been lost to all but the diehards or ‘pasture farmers’ that learnt through the generations and were willing to 'pay it forward'.

Technology had also moved on. Farmers didn’t want endless dashboards or clunky systems that didn’t fit modern farming operations. The tools that had served smaller farms in the 90s were no longer fit for purpose for larger, more complex operations.

Still, there were some standout efforts in research and practice. Scientists like Kevin Macdonald and Mark Neal continued to champion the importance of pasture management. Tools like the DairyNZ Pasture Potential Tool and Dairybase analysis work by Mark Neal and John Roche tried to shift the bell curve of productivity and profit by reinforcing that optimising pasture intake is the single-most important driver of profit and this requires very careful management of inputs.

Simulation work by researchers like Beukes et al 2018 - rarely talked about but incredibly important - showed the massive profit potential of improving pasture measurement and management from "low", "imperfect" to "perfect." They found that ‘perfect knowledge’, where herbage mass per paddock is known with perfect accuracy, increased farm operating profit by $640 per hectare at NZ$ NZ$6.33/kg milksolids (fat + protein) compared with 'low knowledge' where herbage mass per paddock is not known, and paddocks are selected based on longest time since last grazing. This perfect knowledge allows feed supply and demand to be better matched, resulting in less incidence of under- and over-feeding, higher milk production, and more optimal post-grazing residual herbage mass to maximise herbage regrowth.

Satellite pasture measurement also emerged as a potential game-changer. The idea of hands-free pasture measurement was appealing, but it came with its own challenges — cloud cover, delays in data, and the need for immediate decision-making on the farm.

So, What Happened?

Looking back, it’s clear that a combination of factors led to the plateau in pasture productivity:

  1. Reliance on Nitrogen and Supplements — They became the go-to fix, sidelining traditional pasture management practices.
  2. Farm Size and Complexity — The growth in farm size made traditional pasture measurement tools and techniques impractical.
  3. Technology Lag — Digital tools didn’t keep pace with the changing needs of modern dairy operations.

We’ve had the knowledge for decades about the importance of pasture management. The challenge now is unlocking that knowledge in a way that fits today’s farming realities.

What’s Next?

In the next post, I’ll dive into the modern-day solutions that are emerging — including what we’re working on at Aimer Farming. The goal is to bring pasture measurement and management back to the forefront, but in a way that’s practical, profitable, and sustainable.

I believe there’s massive untapped potential in improving pasture measurement and management. And with the right digital tools, we can make a significant impact not just on productivity and profit but also on reducing methane emissions intensity from ruminant livestock.

Stay tuned!