Dannevirke Scandinavian Club
Danish Dairy Farmers visit Dannevirke,
On Tuesday, 21 November 2000, the Dannevirke Scandinavian Club hosted to a barbecue lunch, a party of 25 Danes who were visiting New Zealand as part of a Danish Dairy tour. The party were from the Southwest Jutland Agricultural Union, and two-thirds of them were dairy farmers.
The Danish visitors at 'Kowhai Glen' being welcomed by host John Burn. (Photo: Dannevirke Evening News)
The 17-day tour, which took in a variety of agricultural enterprises throughout the North and South Islands, had begun in the South Island on 11 November. Their first stop in the Dannevirke area was at 'Kowhai Glen' Texel Sheep Stud, Kiritaki Road, Oringi, where the proprietors, Jill and John Burn, told them (with the help of the party's tour guide/interpreter) about the Texel breed of sheep and its growing acceptance in the New Zealand sheep breeding situation. The breed, having originated on an island off the coast of Holland, was familiar to the visitors. Mrs Burn's forebears were original Danish settlers at Dannevirke, having arrived on the Ballarat in 1872.
After lunch in the magnificent 'Kowhai Glen' garden, the party, assisted from then on by Dannevirke Scandinavian Club president, Bill Gundersen, moved on to sharemilkers' Stuart and Sandra Cordell's 290-cow, 96-hectare dairy farm in Armstrong Road (owned by Mike and Sherynne Harold). The Cordells explained the sharemilking concept, which is not used in Denmark. The visitors also learned of the herd recording system used in New Zealand and of animal health costs, which are about one third of theirs - as mastitis is more of a problem in Denmark. This farm is at a higher altitude than Danish farms and the visitors were surprised that it was not necessary to irrigate it.
The next stop was the Feltex Carpet plant in Miller Road, to see how the 160 employees (working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week) transform the raw material into carpet yarn. The dye house at the Dannevirke plant also serves the company's other three plants in the lower North Island, handling between 14,000 and 18,000 kilograms of wool a day.
The tour was followed by a Mayoral reception for the visitors, hosted by Tararua District's Mayor, Maureen Reynolds, and held at the council chambers. Other invited guests included farm consultants and agricultural leaders from around the district.
Tour escort Hans Kristensen and his wife Karen, live in America, and this is Hans' 50th trip to New Zealand leading farming groups since 1967. However, it was the first time he had been to the Dannevirke area.
It was noted that Danish farms are on the whole considerably smaller that New Zealand farms, and that correspondingly stock numbers are far less. The dairy farmers amongst the party milked an average of between 50 and 150 cows, with a big herd in Denmark being 500 cows. They had been amazed at the size of some New Zealand dairy herds which more than double that size. Farms average 80 to 100 hectares and for half the year cows are housed indoors, due to the long, cold winters in the south west of Denmark where they farm.
An agricultural journalist travelling with the group, Morten Handrup, who writes for a magazine similar to the N.Z. Dairy Exporter, was especially interested in the Milk Train, that runs daily between the Oringi railhead and Kiwi Dairies' huge factory at Hawera throughout the milking season.
Feltex shift supervisor Neal Haste explains the gilling process to party leader, Morten Stadil Thomsen, who then translated for the rest of the party. The gilling process draws out the fibres and helps blend the colours together. Morten is a farm consultant in Denmark and also has a small hobby farm, running mostly sheep. (Photo: Dannevirke Evening News)
Sources:
Dannevirke Evening News: 22 November 2000, 24 November 2000. Many thanks also for their loan of the photos used here.
Bush Telegraph: 28 November 2000