1 Social Impacts of Once-a-day Milking

The dairy farming industry has a vision of being the ‘World’s best in dairying ’ and its purpose is: “To enhance the sustainable competitive advantage of New Zealand dairy farming”. Sustainability is expressed in an imperative to: “Increase the efficient use of resources, reduce reliance on non-renewable resources, and minimize negative impacts on the environment”. Social sustainability is not mentioned expressly but it appears by implication in another imperative: “Be an attractive career prospect for current and potential farmers ” (Strategic Framework for Dairy Farming’s Future, 2005). However, whether the industry will continue to be socially sustainable is an open question. As an area of traditional family business it is disturbing to find that while only 30 percent of family businesses in general survive to a second generation, some studies report succession rates as low as six percent for dairy farming (Lockhart and Reid, 2005) – perhaps an indication of an increasingly unacceptable lifestyle. The dairy farm labour crisis Staff shortages have dominated dairy farming news since the late 1990s, with particularly acute problems in relatively ‘new ’ dairy farming areas such as the irrigated parts o