66 | nzdairy New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards » Lan Bariuad - Miraka Farm Lan puts his success down to pasture management, and especially the way he manages residual pasture in order to provide up to 3000kgs of dry matter per cow. Karen Phelps Lan Bariuad has been dairy farming in New Zealand since 2017 and this year won Dairy Manager of the Year in the Southland/Otago Dairy Industry Awards. Having originally trained as a nurse in the Philippines Lan took up dairy farming in Japan before pursuing it as a career when he came to New Zealand. He started as a Junior Farm Assistant on a farm in Winton and worked his way up to Assistant Farm Manager before joining the rapidly growing, large-scale dairy farming company Fortuna Group on one of their farms, Piriti 3. In March 2023 Lan moved to another of their farms, Miraka Dairies, for a few months of familiarisation before taking up his current position of Farm Manager at the start of that season. Miraka Dairies was then a 233 effective hectare sharemilking operation located in Edendale, about 40 km’s north of Invercargill. “When I came we were wintering 620 cows and peak milking about 595 through a 40 aside herringbone dairy shed with automatic cup removers. This season the owner bought the neighbouring 118 hectares which will be part of Miraka and we’ll be milking 700 cows,” says Lan. The new block includes around 40 hectares of flat to rolling land which will combine with 50 hectares on the current farm to winter graze 280 head of young stock. The rest will go to Mt. Prospect which was also recently purchased as a runoff by Fortuna Group. The additional cows will be bought internally to join the existing X-Breed, Friesian and Jersey herd. “My herd right now is around 50% X-breed, 40% Friesian and 10% Jersey but over the next two years we’re moving to more X-breed cows. We’ll be 30% Friesian and 70% X-breed which we believe produce more milk and maintain better body condition,” says Lan. In Lan’s first season as Farm Manager the herd produced 237,000 kg’s of milk solids, or 408 kg’s per cow. Three quarters of the way through his third season, earlier this year, he had already beaten the Miraka record of 252,000kgs and was targeting 270,000kgs for the season or an impressive 453kg’s of milk solids per cow. Lan puts his success down to pasture management, and especially the way he manages residual pasture in order to provide up to 3000kgs of dry Philippines, to Japan and now New Zealand matter per cow. Even more important he believes is his focus on monitoring and keeping a close eye on all the variables. This year saw the biggest jump in his milk solid figures which Lan puts down to his close monitoring of both grass and water and making sure there was plenty of both in whichever area was being grazed. He kept a close eye on his cows’ body condition score too which studies have shown is an indicator of strong health and good milk production which certainly proved to be the case. Office: 027 248 8280 77 CLYDE STREET, INVERCARGILL, PH (03) 214 4254 www.southlandhonda.co.nz For the best Parts, Sales & Service in the south No doubt paying that close attention to what matters is also why, along with Dairy Manager of the Year 2026, Lan won the Merit Award for Livestock Management and the Merit Award for Pasture and Feed management. With Lan in charge of the farm management there’s every reason to expect that Miraka Dairies will this season again successfully increase its milk solid production per cow along with the number of cows being milked. FERTILISER liquid & solid SPRAYING boom & spot & forestry MUSTERING deer, sheep & cattle BUCKET seeding & fertiliser www.heliops.co.nz Ph: 0800 HELIOPS or 03 225 8275 - anytime
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