Strategic Planning and Decision Making Workshop, Northland, 29th May.
Standing Off and Feed Pad field days, coming to Taranaki, 9th May.
Go to News to find out about the Northland Once a Day Milking workshop.
2011 SMASH conference series feedback
The team was delighted to hear that 100% of the conference attendees would recommend attending the conference to other farmers! It makes all the hard work worthwhile. Make sure you get onto our mailing list to hear about future events by filling in the form under Contact Us.
Welcome to SMASH
SMASH is the brain child of a group of farmers who felt that smaller herd farmers were to a large extent overlooked by the industry. Our intention is to reverse that trend by offering support, information and a sense of community in a variety of ways. The focus of SMASH is totally on the meeting the needs of smaller herd farmers.
Over 43% of New Zealand’s dairy herds have 250 cows or less. Smaller herd farmers may not be seen by the industry, but we have a large part to play! Statistics given at the 2010 SMASH Events, revealed that for Fonterra alone, 17% of their farmers produce less than 50,000 kgMS, 54% below 100,000 kgMS and a whopping 84% under 200,000 kgMS.
SMASH started out with a series of highly successful conferences in 2010. We are building from there with more conferences and a variety of other forums and events for smaller herd farmers - chances for smaller herd farmers to get together; share their own knowledge and expertise and get input from industry experts.
Our Aims
SMASH has been created for the benefit of smaller herd farmers. We are passionate about smaller herd farmers and our intention is to:
Create opportunities for smaller herd farmers to:
- Be inspired, motivated and educated so that they can achieve the most effective and efficient use of their resources - most particularly: time, money, energy and self.
- Communicate and get together in forums so that they can share information and ideas specifically focussed on meeting their particular needs and requirements.
- Give them the opportunity to explore options and innovations that may assist them in running a profitable business and realising their goals.
- Achieve the acknowledgement, appreciation and support of their industry and the wider community.
- Help to increase motivation and levels of morale within the smaller herds community.
