NZ Dairy Winter 2021

14 | nz dairy Organics – a ‘new light on farming’ Virginia Wright DAIRY PEOPLE » Organic Dairy & Pastoral Group • to page 16 Biozest ® 5943 Zest Biotech is o ering farmers transformational technology that could help them to easily meet environmental compliance by reducing nitrate leaching and greenhouse gas emissions while increasing milk and meat production, says company founder Nathan Balasingham. The company’s products work on increasing pasture and livestock productivity, which can have huge results considering only around 25% of pasture protein and nutrients is typically utilised by animals with 75% wasted as urea and methane, says Nathan. The company’s Biozest pasture spray product is one smart solution. Manufactured from plant extracts, fatty acids, plant compatible organic acids and wetting agents, Biozest helps pasture naturally resist stress and damage and improves pasture growth and quality. When livestock consume Biozest treated pasture, more of the pasture is converted to valuable meat and milk instead of waste products like urea and greenhouse gases. So how does it work? Biozest is a plant elicitor (or a trigger) and increases plant and animal e iciencies by evoking and strengthening the plant's immune system to help it to naturally resist stress and damage and improve pasture growth, quality and resilience. Nathan says that Biozest is not directly feeding the plant but rather supporting the plant to produce bioactive Innovative products for optimal performance compounds (phenylpropanoids) that have a range of roles in plant health and productivity. These compounds also signal to the roots to release exudates to solubilise nutrients in the soil and also to attract mycorrhizal microorganisms, which also assist in the supply of nutrients to the pasture. Nathan says that trials conducted at commercial farm scale to assess the inancial impact of Biozest have shown that Biozest applications on pasture can improve livestock productivity by over 30%. “At a meat schedule price of $5.kg this increase in production will result in $865 increased net revenue / hectare. We can achieve this extraordinary improvement in milk and meat productivity because Biozest technology increases the feed conversion e iciencies in livestock,” he explains. “Similar results have been achieved by many farmers in multiple seasons, locations, pasture and soil types.” Zest Biotech provides innovative products to enable optimal plant health and livestock performance. The company’s products have been used by growers and farmers across New Zealand for more than 10 years. “We know that every New Zealander has a strong desire to protect and nurture the land we live and work on. We also understand your livelihood depends on the productivity of your land. At Zest Biotech we design products to enable Kiwi farmers and growers to produce high quality produce, sustainably.” J anette Perrett is an organic dairy farmer and the current chair of the Organic Dairy and Pastoral Group. It’s a group of people who exist because they want to share what they’ve learnt from their own experiences organic farming, as Janette explains. “We are a group of pastoral, dairy, sheep and beef farmers who passionately work alongside regenerative organic principles. While around 50% are certified organic, the other half have joined the group to learn from us. I’m at the moment focused on fortnightly webinars free to members, and I have asked a number of our sponsors to participate and explain what their products can do for us in an organic regime.“ When Janette began organic farming 15 years ago she was helped a lot by her peers. “Their knowledge is amazing,” she says. “They’re like encyclopedias because they’ve had to find the alternatives.” Janette gives an example of an organically ac- ceptable treatment which she recently discovered “giving kombucha to cure ‘woody tongue’ with the best results achieved with early intervention,” she says. “It’s really out of the ordinary but we’re always looking for alternatives to veterinary drugs. I’ve found kombucha’s really good when I’ve got a sort throat, it soothes it straight away, so I thought let’s try it on the cows and it worked. It turns out ‘woody tongue’ is due to a lack of iodine in the system.” Janette has been on their current property for six years. She and her daughter Carla stepped away from conventional farming 15 years ago and were determined to find the alternatives. The ODPG conference in Waihi in March attracted widespread interest.