Mark Leslie: Pāmu CEO on the launch of new dairy-beef crossbreed cows

Mooove over dairy and beef cows, for a new hybrid breed on the block.

Pāmu and Livestock Improvement Corporation have created a new cattle breed - called the Synegizer.

About 350 first-cross beef-on-dairy calves were born this year, and limited frozen insemination will available next spring.

Pāmu CEO Mark Leslie says dairy farmers won't use Synegizers for milking.

"These bulls will be used to go over maybe some of the cows they don't want to keep the replacements out of - and they'll use these to generate animals that can then go off into the livestock centre."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's a new cow on the block. PAMU and the
Livestock Improvement Corporation have created a new breed of cattle.
It can produce both beef and dairy and they're calling
it the Synergizer. Mark Leslie is the PARMU CEO and
with us home.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mark, Good afternoon, Heather, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm very well, thank you. That's a cool name. Who
came up with that?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It was a plain on where's in terms of that's
coming from the word synergy, and it was a synergy
about actually bringing together some genetics that include Angus Hereford,
Simontel Charlet, So a little bit of a play there,
but also around the collaboration between how does the dairy
sector and the livestock sector collaborate to come up with

(00:39):
these animals that will be used. It will come out
of the dairy herds and then go into the livestock
here it's and become a beef animal to go right through.
So the synergy between the sectors and but no, it's
a pretty cool name that sort of brings together the
beast of both worlds from different breeds as well as
the dairy and the livestop sector.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Now tell me something, Mark, Why do you want a
counter be able to be both dairy and beef because
we don't want to milk it for years and then
eat it.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Do you Yeah? No, so no it's not going to
be milked. So what this is intending to do is
this breed here will be used the dairy farmers will
continue to use their traditional breeds for their milking animals.
These bulls or these will be used to go over
maybe some of the cows they don't want to keep
the replacements out of, and they'll use these to generate

(01:22):
animals that can then go off into the livestock sector
and become animals for meat and for process and to
that side of it. So no, they won't be getting milked,
they'll be coming out of the dairy sector and going
off into that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Do you reckon there's a market for this?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah? Absolutely. And the work we've done and this has
been part of our journey in terms of the dairy
beef journey and rearing those extra cars out of our
dairy units to go into the livestock units, and these
genetics are a key part of that. And you have
seen a recent Rubbo report, rubber Bank report where they
talk about potential upside of dairy beef to New Zealand

(01:59):
of one point two billion, and we've been we've been
h's looking at this for the last number of years
and these will these will meet the need of the
deary farmer that they really good from their deary respective.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
They really unique.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
They stand out in terms of their silver color, their
their low birth face.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
And the lights. But then once they're on a livestock farm,
they're growing out really well. They've got good live weight
down and that's really rhythm quality, so they need to
meet the needs of both sides.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Great, that's fantastic stuff. Mark, Thanks very much, Mark Leslie
pamu CEO. For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive, listen
live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio