The Cooperative Difference - what you need to know.

As you will know, Fonterra have continued to evolve their Cooperative Difference (CD) and the details are now clear:

• You will recieve 7c/kg extra if you have achieved a certain standard that relates to 4 key areas.
• The good news is that for the Animals section, if you're on WelFarm you will automatically tick this box.
• Better still, from the end of this season, when you sign up to WelFarm the process will automatically generate a report for Fonterra which means you'll have no paperwork to complete or chase.

The 4 areas of the CD that you’ll need to achieve the 7c are:

• Animals. WelFarm will satisfy this.
• Environment. You will need an FEP.
• People. DairyNZ have an assessment you'll need to complete.
• Submit accurate Farm Dairy Records.

For the majority of you who are already signed onto WelFarm, we will automatically roll you into next season but we may need to gather some more details from you around the 3 new items which are genetic improvement plan; adverse event plan; and a plan for heat stress. And we’ve already asked - 'living in Southland’ is apparently not an acceptable answer!

For those not yet signed up to WelFarm, it’s an easy process and of course WelFarm includes 4 x BCS, a Locomotion Score, a Tail Score, and reporting on all the measures in the CD as well as others. For most farms the annual cost is less than 1c/kg/MS.