Virtual fencing is a worry for the dairy cow, the farmer and the consumer, says Golden Bay dairy farmer Tim Rhodes.
Tim Rhodes Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Virtually fencing farms is as bad as battery-farming chickens and the technology should be banned, Rhodes tells Country Life.
The practice upsets the symbiotic relationship between farmers and their herds and also has a "yuck" factor.
"I think consumers are quite turned off by having cows turn into robots, robotified," he says.
There are now several virtual fencing systems on the market which remove the need for physical fences.
Instead, cows wear electronic collars and their movement is controlled via an app using audio and vibrations and potentially an electric pulse.
These collars can also monitor cows' health and whereabouts.
Tim and Deborah Rhodes, who've been dairy farming for eight years, have a 125-cow herd.
They milk once a day, with no extra staff, and the cows are taught not to stray using traditional electric fences.
Tim says their simple, low-cost operation gives the cows as much freedom as possible.
"The idea is if you're making a really good profit margin with low costs, then you'll make a good living with fewer cows and less environmental damage."
He says with the move to virtual fencing, he's embarrassed people may think farmers are control freaks who are "robotising" animals by compromising or virtually eliminating their freedom.
"I know how cows naturally walk, what they naturally do, what they want to do, what they don't want to do. We let our cows have as much freedom as they can.
"For me to watch cows having their heads all turn together at once and walk out of a paddock all at the same speed and not be able to sniff away at the flowers or pick a bit of grass or have a good scrap in the lane is really quite horrible to watch."
Rhodes fears farmers will lose sovereignty over their own operations to overseas-financed tech companies and important stockmanship skills will be threatened.
"When you have an intervention like a collar the cows no longer relate to humans, they relate to the collars."
He also fears New Zealand's reputation for GMO-free, grass-fed cows, free-ranging within boundaries, will become tainted with a "yuck" factor and international markets will reject the milk.
Rhodes has made a submission against virtual fencing to the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) which has been reviewing the welfare code for dairy cattle.
The committee has put a lot of thought into the benefits of virtual fencing, visited farms and keeps up to date with current, says NAWAC chair Matthew Stone.
"The committee considers that virtual fencing systems have the potential to benefit pasture, cattle and health management, however, safeguards need to be in place to protect the welfare of dairy cows," he says.
Minimum standards around design and maintenance and cow training were included in the draft code including ensuring cows that don't adapt to the fencing system are managed in a different way.
Over 3000 submissions were made to NAWAC on the welfare code.
Some states in Australia have yet to amend their animal welfare legislation to allow livestock to wear electric collars.
Take a tour of a virtually fenced Waikato farm here.
The viewpoint of Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Aotearoa can be found here.
