Greetings, everybody. Firstly, sympathies to the Māori King, Kīngi Tūheitia, may he rest. Secondly, acknowledgments to the Māori Queen, Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō, and to Mana Whenua of this area, we acknowledge you all. Greetings to everybody. Good afternoon. Welcome to LIC's general meeting. I'm Corrigan Sowman, chair of LIC. Thank you for attending today's meeting. I'd like to acknowledge that this is a busy time for our farmers, both this time of the year and also this time of the day, so I thank you for taking the time to be here with us. I'll start off firstly with some housekeeping. In the unlikely event of an emergency, you'll be directed to the assembly point in the car park, which is directly behind me.
In terms of bathrooms, they're located out through these doors that you came in and down to your right. Some of you may have entered LIC today through our new hub. The hub is named Whakapiki. This was a name gifted to LIC by Ngāti Hauā, and means to improve or to do better for all and support. They're all terms of which are fitting for both the essence and the purpose of LIC, and the passion for continuing to drive improvements for our farmer shareholders.
The opening of this entrance area and space is a testament to LIC's commitment to growth and innovation, and it's about providing a great facility that acknowledges the land that we're on, our long history, delivering world-leading innovations to the dairy sector, and I think particularly importantly for me, it's a place where we can all meet together. Before we start proceedings, I just have a few more little housekeeping matters to cover. If you're like me, and you're carrying one of these in your pocket, could you just please make sure it's on Do Not Disturb or Silent? We've designed the procedures for today's meeting so that those online have the same opportunity to participate as those in the room with us. And I understand that these meeting formats can cause some complications with voting and asking of questions.
So before we officially begin the meeting, I'd just like to cover a few points regarding the use of the online platform. So in terms of voting, there are six resolutions to be considered today, and a poll will be held on each one of those. To vote, you need your shareholder number, and that's been provided to you in various numbers of emails from MUFG Corporate Markets. So you can search those for that number. You can vote using the online platform, and you'll find that if you please click on Get a Voting Card button, you can enter your shareholder number there. Voting remains absolutely confidential. No one on the call can see your vote.
Also, in terms of questions today, if you'd like to ask questions using that online platform, please click on the box beside the voting one, which is Ask a Question button, and I've probably got that there on the screen, and you also need to enter your shareholder number for the question. We may take a few minutes to collate and review those, before general business, and it's worth noting that if, your questions will certainly only be visible to myself and our team who are moderating them. For those of us joining online, if you've got any issues at this point, with asking questions or voting, can you please call the phone number that's on your screen now, which is that help number, oh, eight hundred two hundred two twenty. That's oh, eight hundred two hundred two twenty.
If anyone has any items of general business or questions that are of a more technical nature, I'd really ask that those were placed into that question box earlier, and that will give us time to get those in front of the most appropriate person to answer those. So in terms of running an efficient meeting today, I'd just ask that we could take one question or one issue at a time in terms of working through those general business. Shareholders should keep discussions particularly to applicable parts of the meeting, and then we'll have the general business opportunity for a more wide-ranging discussion. And speakers should also keep to the motion being discussed, and any irrelevant discussion around that motion should please be avoided.
If you are in the room, and you're asking questions, can you please raise your hand for me? We'll have a microphone that we'll take to you. I'd like it if you could state your name and direct your question to me, and that will really help our online audience to hear as well. For anyone joining online that has any items of general business or questions they would like to ask, just a reminder to use that Ask the Question button as we go through the meeting, so we can collate those for the end. So the notice of meeting has been circulated to all shareholders, and I'll take that as read. And with Maurice, I think we've got a quorum present today, so I will now declare the meeting open. Thank you.
So firstly, I'd like to extend a really warm welcome to LIC's annual meeting, to thank our shareholders for the time that they've taken out of their day to be with us. I'd like to welcome my fellow board members who are largely sitting in the front row here. Matt Ross, Victoria Trayner, Sophie Haslam, Ben Dickie, Alison Watters, Duncan Coull, Tim Gibson, and Candice Kinser. I'd like to welcome Mark Hooper, Chair of our Shareholder Reference Group. Welcome, Mark. Ben Smith, deputy chair, and members of the Shareholder Reference Group, Alicia Brimfield, Michelle O'Donnell Smith, Johan van Ras, Andrew Wiffen, Gerard Clarke, and Daniel Joho. Have I missed anyone who's left, guys? I think that's everyone here. Also, a welcome to Ian Brown, Chair of Honoraria Committee, and member Shirley Trumper. I'd like to welcome Trevor Newland. I saw Trevor earlier.
Welcome, Trevor, from our external auditors, KPMG, and Andrew Matthews. Where's Andrew? Welcome, Andrew, from Simpson Grierson Lawyers. Also joining us is our LIC Chief Executive, David Chin, our Chief Financial Officer, Brent Mealings, a number of the senior leadership team today, and other LIC staff. Welcome. I'd like to acknowledge departing board members today also. Firstly, I'll start with Matt, who'll be hiding there out of the limelight, I'm sure. Matt Ross was elected to the board in June 2017, and he's had a long association with the LIC Cooperative, and experience in many leadership roles. Matt's been a highly valued member of the LIC board, who brought his knowledge and practical experience in farming and excellence to our board table. I'd like to also acknowledge Dr. Alison Watters.
Alison was elected to the board in June two thousand and fourteen and has significant experience in directorship and dairy industry innovation. Alison's passion for the New Zealand dairy sector and focus on its success has been extremely beneficial for the LIC board. And to Candice Kinser. Candice has held a number of senior roles in biotech and technology sector, and that experience has been invaluable to LIC. Candice has completed nine years as an independent director on our board, and her contribution to LIC's decision-making and the Technical Advisory Group that she chaired especially has been particularly beneficial in setting the company in good stead for the future. I wish you all well in your future endeavors, and thank you massively for the contributions that you've brought to LIC.
I'd also like to acknowledge departing Shareholder Reference Group members, Mark Bent, who I don't think is with us today, and to Gerard Clarke, who's sitting there as well. Thanks, Gerard. Thank you for your time, commitment, and challenge to our cooperative. Moving on to apologies. I've received the following apologies today. Phil Lowe, who's our Upper South Island Shareholder Reference Group member, Shaun Baxter, our Lower North Shareholder Reference Group member, Gordon Glentworth, member of our Honoraria Committee, Scott Montgomery, departing member of the Honoraria Committee, Jim van der Poel. And are there any other apologies in the room to note? No. Thank you very much. So I'll move these apologies.
Second those, Brent.
Thanks, thanks, Duncan. So in terms of the agenda for today's meeting, everybody, I'll just run through these briefly. So I'd like to share my views with you about the direction of the cooperative, from a farmer's perspective, for a start. I'm then going to pass on to our Chief Executive, David Chin, and following that, our Chief Financial Officer, Brent Mealings, will present the year in review before David then takes us through a look at the cooperative going forward. From there, our Honoraria Committee Chair, Ian Brown, will present the Honoraria report. We'll then move to voting resolutions, and finally, we'll finish with general business, where there's going to be an opportunity for our questions and answers. I don't know where Steph found that photo of me from a lot of years ago, but thanks, Steph. That's awesome.
So in terms of an address from me, I guess I wanted to share a perspective of from my view as chair of the cooperative, as a cooperative, as a farmer, who's been in the role for the last 12 months. On every dairy farm across New Zealand, the herd is at the core of everything we do, and as farmers, we provide what they need to grow, to stay healthy and be safe, and every decision we make impacts their well-being, both now and in the future, so when we discuss the economic value of our farms, it's the herd that enables that value to be realized, and keeping them healthy and thriving is key to our livelihood. LIC mirrors this principle. LIC exists to help us safeguard and develop our herds by harnessing our shared experience and expertise.
It was founded on the understanding that herds are not only the backbone of dairy farming, but they're essential to our nation. They nourish our people, drive our exports, and they play a crucial role in our economy. LIC works to make herds better, both now and in the future, and the concept of the herd, whether on our individual farms or as a commercial enterprise, is a constant that outlives us. It becomes our legacy. It represents the decisions of past and present farmers and embodies our hopes for future generations. Every newborn calf is not just a result of our choices, but also of those who came before us, and the herd is more than an economic asset. It's a bridge between the past and the future.
When I think of my herd, seven fifty head down in Golden Bay here, I see it as part of something bigger. It's not just mine; it belonged to my parents and grandparents, and one day, I hope it will belong to my children and their children. And before us, it was someone else's herd, and after, it will be again. And so it's also a small piece of New Zealand's herd, contributing to that larger whole. And this cycle has always existed, and it will continue. We care for and we pass on our herds, and in doing so, we invest in each other and in future generations. LIC exists to help us achieve that balance. Strengthening one herd, our dairy cows, directly strengthens the other, our people.
And both are equally essential to New Zealand dairy farming, and in the coming year, LIC will more openly acknowledge and embrace this dual connection, recognizing that the success of one depends on the well-being of the other. Now, challenges and changes are a constant. Just as they were in the past, they will be in the future. But by working together for both our herds and each other, we can overcome them. Kiwi dairy farmers have always understood that power of cooperation. We've always known that working as a collective achieves more than going it alone. We've taken a holistic view of our system and acting today to safeguard what we're building for the future. So as we look ahead, our focus may evolve, but our purpose will remain clear: to protect and ensure the success of all of our herds.
Every decision we make goes beyond this year's milk yield or gross profit. We're actually considering the long-term health and productivity of our herds and how they contribute to New Zealand's national herd. Our work on farm doesn't just support our families and communities, but it actually strengthens the wider dairy sector and New Zealand's economy. So like every dairy farmer, LIC is responsible not just for today's herd, but for those that will sustain future generations, and our decisions shape the future of this sector, of our country, and also of our global contribution. Every calf born and every family caring for it, they represent growth, success, and continuity, and that's a testament to the hard work of past and present farmers. Together, we'll ensure that herd remains a source of strength and pride for New Zealand, because together, we are the herd.
Now, I'll hand over to our Chief Executive, David Chin, who will share how we've been fulfilling this role of supporting your herds and families over this past year. David?
Thank you, Corrigan, and welcome everyone to our general meeting. My name is David Chin, I'm the Chief Executive of LIC, and pleased to present the business highlights for the twenty-three, twenty-four financial year. Creating value for our farmers is at the heart of everything we do. Our strategy focuses on building a strong, sustainable cooperative, leading the world in pasture-based genetics and herd improvement, and delivering real value every year, this year, in five years' time, and for another hundred years. We create value by focusing on four key pillars: our farmers, the animal, data and digital, and innovation. How this strategy delivers for our farmers is captured by our three commitments. These commitments are to be operationally excellent, to deliver faster genetic improvement, and to ensure our software is both reliable and performs to your expectations.
Now, before I get into how we've delivered and performed on these commitments, I'd like to acknowledge that we didn't live up to being operationally excellent last year with our semen quality batch issue. Following a thorough investigation, we've been working hard to implement the improvements across the semen processing business. We've conducted an independent review of our processes, we are implementing the recommendations, and have moved the critical quality control process to 5:00 A.M. in the morning, so we can catch any issues before cows are inseminated. We have more backup in the field, and winter mating season went really smoothly without a hitch, and we are confident that we'll have a successful season this spring. On another note, the performance of our sexed semen product has also been incredibly good.
Last spring, the non-return rate for fresh sexed semen was only 3% below conventional, and over winter mating, the non-return rate was 1.9 below the performance of conventional semen for straws inseminated in the same herd on the same day. This is really pleasing as we see sexed semen playing a big role in accelerating genetic gain and allowing farmers to get more replacements from their best cows. To be operationally excellent, we aim for all greens on a number of metrics. We had an ambitious target for herd testing to reduce the number of complaints on shed set ups by 50%.
We know herd testing can be a stressful time on farm, and we wanna make sure that the information that you get from herd testing, we know it's incredibly valuable, and we wanna reduce the stress for you by getting everything from our end just right. It all helps. By the end of the year, we had reduced issues related to shed set ups by 38%, which is really pleasing. We've made a big difference. We'll continue to focus on improving this further. We also wanna make sure that the turnaround time for all of our testing, milk pregnancy testing, Johne's Disease, et cetera, is all happening within 10 working days. We didn't quite meet those targets this year, but we'll continue to strive to improve on them.
Continuing on with the operational excellence of the over 850 AB technicians that we have operating every single year all around the country, we had one whose performance was below our expectations. A near low group is where a technician's non-return rate performance is 10% below the supervisor average, and a low group is where it's 15% below the supervisor average. I can report that we had one near low group and no low groups. Our AB technicians do an absolutely fantastic job, and it's pleasing to see that we're getting a good number of apprentice AB techs qualifying each season. This year, we had 105 pass training this year, which ensures we have a good pipeline of AB technicians for the future. For GeneMark, we have a goal of getting results back to farmers within four weeks.
We achieve this 99% of the time. We know that's important, these results, how important these results are for you, and getting them to you in a timely fashion is, is our aim. I'm proud to say that we have delivered on all of our targets when it comes to genetic gain for our Sire Proving Scheme, for our Premier Sires bull teams, and for all of our farmers on-farm. I'll talk more about genetic gain and how we are ramping this up later on in this presentation, and lastly, MINDA is performing really, really well. We continue to focus on ensuring that MINDA is available at key times on-farm, and this will be more important going forward as we have more third-party providers connecting in to MINDA and as we increase the data interoperability.
Except for the semen quality issue, it's been a really, really good year operationally for LIC, and I'd like to thank all of our frontline staff in herd testing on the farms and animal health, the GeneMark labs, our AB techs, and all the staff in our semen processing labs at Newstead and Awahuri, for all their hard work and dedication. I'll now pass over to Brent Mealings, our CFO, who will run through the financials for last year. Brent?
Thank you, David. Thank you, Corrigan. Good afternoon, everybody. Despite some challenging conditions, I'm pleased to present a positive result for our farmer shareholders. Delivering value for our farmers is at the center of everything we do. This financial year, we paid a special dividend, returning NZD 18.5 million to our shareholders as a result of the National Milk Records divestment. We were able to pass through the total proceeds of that divestment directly to our farmer shareholders, including a NZD 9 million gain on sale and the carrying value of the investment of a similar amount, which was effectively paid out of retained earnings. This was paid at a helpful time of year, just after Christmas.
During the year, we focused on delivering efficient and effective herd improvement products and services, and importantly, we focused on the right R&D investment to help our farmers' herds' profitability and sustainability into the future. This year, we reported a net profit after tax, or NPAT, of NZD 7.7 million, total dividends of NZD 26.8 million, including the special dividend paid earlier this year, and a final dividend of NZD 8.3 million or NZD 0.0584 per share. Underlying earnings were NZD 13.9 million. Your cooperative continues to have a strong balance sheet with no debt and a year-end total assets of NZD 358.6 million. Underlying earnings were close to NZD 10 million lower than last year, driven largely by three key impacts.
In August and September last year, we saw an understandable reaction to the significant decrease in Fonterra's forecast milk price by our shareholder customers. As a result, total revenue was down 3.3% on last year, driven largely by a decrease in demand, impacting our volumes across key products and services. Our response was also to focus on controlling our costs across the business. The after-tax impact of the semen quality issue during the year was NZD 1.5 million. There was also a one-off impact of a government policy change, removing the tax deductibility of depreciation on commercial buildings. This was a NZD 3.6 million impact within the financial year. In the last two years, we've seen a significant increase in investment into capability across our digital platforms, MINDA software, GeneMark genomics technology, among other initiatives.
To stay ahead of the game, we're always gonna have to invest into technology, but over the last two years, in particular, we have invested into important foundations. We committed to completing these critical pieces of work, even in a challenging year, as we firmly believe these critical investments are in the cooperative's best interest longer term. I'm pleased to say that these foundational investments are almost in place. In this financial year, we expect a revision to more sustainable levels of spend in this area. Investment in R&D was 21.2 million, to almost 8% of revenue, up from 18.2 million the year before, maintaining our position as one of the largest private investors in R&D for the primary sector. David will talk further about some of the key R&D focus areas, including the Slick breeding program and also our methane research program.
We are seeing positive signs in the sector. Confidence is slowly rebuilding. However, it will take time for us to see the results, as short-term cash constraints on-farm continue to make farmers take a considered approach to spend. This view is reflected in our underlying earnings outlook for the 2024/2025 year to be in the range of NZD 16-NZD 22 million. We all will, of course, remain focused on our controllable costs, ensuring our ongoing capital investments are well considered and are at a sustainable level with a focus on the future. Back to you, David.
Thank you, Brent, for the update on the financials. It would be fair to say that farmers had faced difficult trading conditions over the previous twelve months, and that has had a flow-on effect throughout the sector. But as Brent said, as your cooperative, we've continued to try and look through these cycles and invest for the long term. I just want to cover off a couple of those highlights, now. Last year, we significantly advanced the technology that we use to identify parentage and generate animal genotypes. This means more accurate estimates of an animal's genetic merit, for all animals in MINDA.
The advanced technology is what we use to power our GeneMark Genomics product, and it was an incredibly proud moment for the cooperative to launch GeneMark Genomics this year, and I'm pleased to see many farmers signing up for the new service, giving them genomic evaluations to make good decisions on-farm, leading to more efficient, profitable dairy herds in the future. It was even more pleasing to bring the cost of genotyping down by 46%. This is a critical technology, and then to make it widely available and accessible to all farmers is a tremendous achievement. I was talking to the board just recently and the SRG, and reminded people that in August, we uploaded an additional 600,000 genotypes to our reference population, taking the total to over 900,000 genotypes.
As these young genotyped animals start lactating in the future, we start collecting their phenotypes, fat, protein, volume, somatic cell count, among others. They'll make the cooperative's genomic evaluation tool far more powerful, allowing us to select elite young sires with more reliability than ever before, and giving farmers more reliable genetic evaluations on their young cows. This is truly a step change in our genetics program, and it is something we'll reflect on in five to 10 years' time as being a watershed moment in our cooperative's proud history. This also goes a long way to addressing some of the key recommendations raised by the DairyNZ-commissioned industry working group report on genetic gain.
In that report, Professor Hayes estimates that having a genomic reference population of around 400,000 animals is what we should be aiming for, and it is pleasing for us to have surpassed that figure. This all ensures that New Zealand dairy farmers can unlock faster rates of genetic gain and milk the most efficient cows possible. Another achievement in the last 12 months that's worth reflecting on is in the area of data interoperability. In the last 12 months, we released our MINDA Integrations page. This is where we use our modern API platform and those investments we've made into that platform to share data between MINDA and third-party software providers, such as wearable providers. The uptake of this has exceeded our expectation, with over 4,800 farmers connecting in the first 6 months.
We're sharing data with eleven third-party providers and have plans to bring more on board. We have an open door policy when it comes to who we partner with to make farmers' lives easier, and we are pleased to see this collaborative attitude reflected in the sector partners we're working with, too. Over the next twelve months, we'll continue to focus on new and existing research projects with an aim to deliver sustainable advantage for the entire sector. Shortly, we'll hit a significant milestone in our methane research program. We'll determine if the variation in methane efficiency we have seen in our young bulls is passed on to their daughters. From there, the final test will be to determine if the daughters display that trait when they are lactating. We are very encouraged by this research and other similar research from around the world.
Low methane genetics will play a really important role for both our sector and our country as we try and meet our emissions targets. I'd like to acknowledge our partners in this research, MPI and the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, who have helped fund this research. CRV have measured the methane outputs on their bulls, and Pāmu, who have supplied the cows and to be mated, and subsequent progeny that are being measured right now. Also of note is the announcement we made last week on the collaboration with US company, Acceligen, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to explore the potential of gene-edited heat-tolerant cows to improve the productivity of dairy farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
This project is funded by the Gates Foundation, and it's indicative of the quality partnerships and how they are a really important part of our future, and it's great to be able to make that announcement. In the coming weeks and months, we'll be making further announcements on collaborations to improve genetic diversity, deliver better udder traits, and give farmers more options for non-replacement cows. The key message here is that we have ramped up our delivery of genetic gain for farmers, we have improved access to their data, and there are a number of exciting projects in the pipeline to further improve the efficiency of the national herd. Why is this important? Because this is our challenge. It's not only a challenge for our cooperative, but also for our sector.
The rates of genetic gain that we are getting are arguably as important now as they have ever been. We need our cows to produce more milk for every mouthful of feed eaten, and to do this as efficiently as possible. We need them to get back and calf, and we need them to last in the herd. We know that we've improved the efficiency of dairy cows in New Zealand from averaging about 200 kilograms of milk solids in the 1950s to 400 kilograms of milk solids now. And now our challenge is to accelerate those gains to ensure our farmers have the most efficient herds possible. Some of the solutions we are drawing right now have come from many years of investment and patience, and I'd like to give you one example of them. And this is the Short Gestation Length product.
The idea that gestation length was both variable and heritable was first proven in 2000 by LIC scientist, Dr. Ann Winkelman. Since then, we've been breeding a team of bulls specifically for gestation length, with some outstanding results. For the last six years in a row, we have delivered over a million extra days in milk for farmers. And within the next couple of years, I see us hitting two million days in milk in a single year, which will be a fantastic achievement. But it is the synergies between the different technologies and advancements that really drives efficiencies. With the increasing adoption of wearable technologies, farmers are extending AB to weeks ten, eleven, and twelve. And with the use of sires with gestation lengths of twenty-two days, this will make a huge contribution to farmers' profitability.
Using short gestation genetics later in the mating program, the cows will not only calve 10 to 12 days earlier, they'll also have longer to recover before mating the following year, thus increase their reproductive performance and improve their longevity in the herd. More days in milk, better reproductive performance, more opportunities to get back and calve, and by extending AB, improved health and safety outcomes from not having service bulls on farm. The benefits speak for themselves. To be able to deliver this to farmers has required many years of patience and focus, which is why it is important for the cooperative to continue to invest for the long term. But while short gestation length semen improves herd efficiency by generating more days in milk, we still have some massive opportunities to accelerate genetic gain within individual herds.
We need more farmers to closely look at the cows they are keeping replacements from. Too many replacements, heifers, are being generated from poor-performing cows. The evidence is really clear that the best cows with high BWs are more efficient at turning milk, feed into milk. They produce more, they are more emissions efficient, and they have better fertility. You can see here in this table that the best cows right now are generating four hundred and ninety-three kilograms of milk solids, which is the weighted average of the top quartile of herds across the country. If we're going to help our farmers improve their profitability, and in turn, help our entire sector meet its environmental goals, we must breed more highly efficient cows that sit at the top and fewer from those at the bottom.
We've made good progress over the years, but we need to continue on this trajectory and sharpen our focus. Concerning the progress we have made and what we can do with the introduction of genomics, it is incredible to think of the kinds of genetic gains that could be achieved in the future. We are very optimistic about the future, what the future holds for herd improvement. We see more use of dairy beef semen and sexed semen in the first five-to-six weeks of matings, as farmers mate more of their poorer cows to beef semen from day one, and use sexed semen to get the required number of heifer replacements from their best cows in as short a time as possible.
This not only improves the genetic gain, but optimizes the farm operation by getting more heifer replacements early, giving them the best opportunity to grow out well. As more farmers adopt wearable technology, we're seeing more use of SGL semen in weeks six to twelve to improve days in milk, herd reproductive performance, and health and safety outcomes. To this end, we will continue to invest in data interoperability to grow that category so farmers can get more value from their technology investments on farm. For LIC, we will continue to review the fresh semen products to ensure we're getting the most use out of our very best bulls. We'll improve genetic diversity, and we'll look to improve udder conformation, introduce more dairy beef offerings with the convenience of a fresh semen service, and continue to drive performance of sexed semen to make it more accessible to farmers.
There is no question in my mind that the board, management, and frontline staff are all aligned on the importance of improving the profitability and efficiency of the national dairy herd. The results that the best farmers are achieving right now show that if we sharpen our focus on herd improvement, we can continue to have the world's most efficient dairy herd at converting pasture into milk solids. High-producing, emission-efficient cows aren't just a hope for the future, they exist in the national herd today. They are well within reach of every dairy farmer. We just need more of them. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for attending the AGM.
These results are made possible by a great team of people at LIC who are dedicated, passionate, and committed to maintaining New Zealand's position as the world's most efficient pasture-based dairy herd. I'd also like to thank Corrigan and the board for your hard work and support, Mark Hooper and the Shareholder Reference Group for your input and guidance. And finally, thank you to all of our staff at LIC for all of your hard work over the past year. We look forward to working with all of you together for another great result. Now, I'll hand it back to Corrigan.
Thanks very much, David. I'd now like to welcome our Chair of the Honoraria Committee, Ian Brown, to the stage for his presentation. Thank you. Thanks, Ian.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. In accordance with Clause 24.2 of the LIC Constitution, your Honoraria Committee is made up of between two and four farmer shareholders who are elected by LIC shareholders. The current committee members are Shirley Trumper, who's with us today, Gordon Glentworth, Scott Montgomery, and myself. The role of the committee is to consider and recommend to shareholders the form and amount of remuneration paid to directors and Shareholder Reference Group members of LIC. The committee met formally on two occasions this last year in order to perform its role, and it's important to note that the Honoraria Committee undertakes its role on behalf of shareholders, independent of LIC, the Board, and the Shareholder Reference Group.
In arriving at our recommendation, the Honoraria Committee takes into consideration analysis of data sourced from annual reports and director fee surveys compiled by both Strategic Pay and the New Zealand Institute of Directors. We have consultation with the board, the Shareholder Reference group chairs, LIC management, as well as the committee's individual knowledge and judgment of the wider LIC operating environment. The survey size of those data sets is approximately four hundred public and private companies, and encompasses responses from some two thousand five hundred individual directors. Although the information contained within the surveys is detailed and wide-ranging, the Honoraria Committee also more closely considers comparable agricultural organizations within the data set. The committee acknowledges the importance of LIC, both attracting and maintaining a high caliber of directors on its board and members of its Shareholder Reference group.
With the exception of the 2020 year, which was impacted by COVID, the Honoraria Committee have recommended that the honoraria for the board increase slightly each year, recognizing the time and commitment required as a director of LIC, and to maintain relative parity with similar organizations. The objective of your committee is to ensure that director remuneration is relevant to the market, there is some recognition of opportunities forgone, and is sufficient to attract and retain good governors for LIC. The committee recognizes the workload and compliance obligations of the LIC board, given its listing on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. For the board, last year's remuneration increase was approved by shareholders, and the view of the Honoraria Committee this year is to further increase remuneration to maintain relativity to similar organizations and the wider operating environment of our directors.
The committee has considered and recommends an increase to the discretionary pool of NZD 10,000, bringing the discretionary pool up to a maximum of NZD 70,000. The purpose of the discretionary pool available to the board is specifically to compensate directors for extra duties, skills, roles, including committee chairs. This year, the board used approximately NZD 46,000 of the total pool. The committee recommends for this year an increase of 1.4% for the board chair, from NZD 143,000 to NZD 145,000, and 9.2% for directors, going from NZD 65,000 to NZD 71,000. An overall increase in the honoraria of the board of 8.2%, resulting in total remuneration of NZD 783,000.
The role of the Shareholder Reference Group differs from that of the board, in that it is an independent body of shareholders whose purpose is to work collaboratively with the board and LIC management to promote the interests of the shareholders and assist the company to deliver on its purpose and vision. There are few organizations that have a body similar to the Shareholder Reference Group, given its fairly unique role, and as such, the Honoraria Committee has few organizations which it can use for direct comparison. Again, discussions with the LIC management, the board, and the Shareholder Reference Group help inform our view.
Last year, the Shareholder Reference Group's remuneration was approved by shareholders, and this year, the Honoraria Committee recommends an adjustment to remuneration of the Shareholder Reference Group to ensure fair recognition of the commitment to the role and time away from the members' own farm businesses. The Honoraria Committee recommends the following increases to members of the Shareholder Reference Group: the chair, NZD 40,000 increasing to NZD 42,000, 5%. The deputy chair, from NZD 19,000 to NZD 21,000, about 10%, and members, NZD 14,000 going up to NZD 15,000, 7.1%. So an overall increase to the honoraria of the Shareholder Reference Group of 7%, resulting in total remuneration of NZD 213,000.
The committee also considers the daily allowance paid to members of the Shareholder Reference group for days spent on LIC business outside of their normal meeting schedule, and recommend no change to the current daily allowance of NZD 400. I would like to finish with a couple of acknowledgments. First, by thanking Scott Montgomery, who retires at the conclusion of this meeting, for his efforts and contribution to the committee over the years. Scott has brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the committee, and I've personally enjoyed his calm and well-reasoned approach to decision-making. I would also like to thank Melanie Tonkin, who was the secretary of our Honoraria Committee up until her retirement in August this year. The committee found Melanie's contribution extremely helpful when understanding and sizing the changing role of the Shareholder Reference group.
Melanie was always very well organized and professional in her role with the committee. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of my fellow committee members, Shirley Trumper and Gordon Glentworth, for their efforts over the year, and welcome Alan Bartlett to the committee for next year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much, Ian, for that. So now we're gonna get into the resolutions for the meeting today. There are six resolutions for us to consider, and a poll will be held on each one of those. Resolutions four, five, and six are elections for the board of directors and Shareholder Reference Group, and unable to be voted on by the employee share scheme members. Shareholders in the North Island region can vote on resolution four. Shareholders in the South Island region can vote on resolution five. Shareholders in the Upper North region can vote on resolution six. We use the first-past-the-post system for board of directors and Shareholder Reference Group elections, and this means that candidates receiving the highest number of votes will be appointed. All shareholders can vote on all other resolutions. Those are resolutions one, two, and three.
They're ordinary resolutions and require 50% approval. The results from these resolutions will be disclosed to the NZX and available later this evening. So the first resolution is as follows: to receive and consider the LIC Honoraria Committee's recommendation as to the directors' remuneration, and if thought fit, to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to approve the total remuneration of all nine directors to a maximum of seven hundred and eighty-three thousand per annum. Here we have a breakdown of directors' remuneration. Can I have a mover, please, for that resolution?
Happy to move it, Chair.
Thank you, Ian, and a seconder?
Happy to second.
Thanks very much, Shirley. If you're in the room and have your voting papers, please cast your vote by marking your paper. Those online who haven't voted yet, please cast your vote electronically. Resolution two, to receive and consider the LIC Honoraria Committee's recommendation as to Shareholder Reference group remuneration, and if thought fit, to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to approve the total remuneration of all Shareholder Reference group members being increased from NZD 199,000 to NZD 213,000, and the daily allowance remains the same at NZD 400 per day. Here we have a breakdown of the SRG's remuneration. Can I ask for a mover for this resolution, please?
Happy to move it, Chair.
Thank you, Ian. And a seconder?
Happy to second.
Thanks, Shirley. And if you're in the room and have voting papers, please cast your vote on this resolution now. And if you're online and haven't voted, could you also do so, please? So our third resolution this afternoon is as follows: To consider, and if thought fit, to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to reappoint the Chartered Accountancy Partnership, KPMG, as the auditor until the conclusion of the company's next annual meeting, and that the directors be authorized to fix its remuneration. So I'm gonna move this resolution, and I'm looking for a seconder, please.
I will second.
Thanks, Ben. Again, if you're in the room, could you please mark your voting papers and also do so online. Thank you. We'll now move to resolution four, which is for our North Island director vacancy. To consider, and if thought fit, elect one candidate representing the North Island as an elected director to the board of directors, with effect from the conclusion of this annual meeting. So I'm gonna move that resolution, and I'll ask for a seconder. Thanks.
I'm happy to second that.
Thank you, Alison. So I'll ask those in the room to mark their voting papers. Thank you. And also those online to make that vote electronically. Resolution five is for our South Island director vacancy. So to consider, and if thought fit, elect one candidate representing the South Island as an elected director to the board of directors, with effect from the conclusion of this annual meeting. I'll move that resolution and look for a seconder.
Happy to second, sorry.
Thanks, Matt. If you could please mark your voting papers, and also those online, complete that. Thanks. And that takes us to our last resolution. And that is to consider, and if thought fit, elect one candidate from the Upper North Island Territory to the Shareholder Reference group, with effect from the conclusion of this annual meeting. I'll move that resolution and look to a seconder.
I'll second that.
Thanks, Victoria. And I'll ask for the conclusion of those voting in the room to mark their cards and those online. Thank you. So with that, we're now just gonna take a quick break for a couple of minutes, and review any questions that have come in online during this meeting. And I'll look to the team who will be assembling those for me. And then we will come back, and I'll open for general business and take questions also here in the room. If you've got any issues on asking those questions and you're online, please remember our helpline, 0800 200 220. Sorry, everyone, I would just ask for you to bear with us for another couple of moments.
We're just having a few technical difficulties, as sometimes happens with these online meetings, in terms of our online questions.
The online questions, someone else.
Sorry, Gerard?
The online questions.
Just before we get into the questions, there's just an apology for some of the technical difficulties that people have had who have been joining us online. At the end of this, everyone who has been registered will receive a link so they can watch and catch up of any of the parts of the AGM that they have missed out on. So just wanted to acknowledge that in case you had any other comments from shareholders who were trying to get in online.
So have we got any questions online at this stage? We've got two. I'll, I'll take those first, and then I'll, I'll come to the questions in the room, if that's okay.
Okay, the first one is from Ngāt ere Group Limited. It says, "In the annual report, given that it was a tighter financial year, it says that expenses were reduced to maintain a surplus. Looking at statements, both software and HR expenses went up. What are the examples of reducing costs that you were referencing?
Okay, thanks, Maurice. So the question relates in our annual report to a reduction in expenses that we've referenced. You're happy to answer those, both Brent and David?
Absolutely. Yes, good question. What we did very, very early on in the piece is we did a full review of all discretionary spend. We cut back on travel. We looked at any vacancies that came up and were reviewed. We did ensure that all essential frontline worker roles were maintained and were continued. So yeah, overall, we took quite decisive action early on in the piece to ensure that we could keep our costs down as much as possible.
Thank you, David. Anything else from you, Brent?
No.
All right.
That was it.
That's great. Thank you. Maurice, the second one.
The next one's from Gerard van Beek. "LIC profit is highly impacted by the revaluation of the bull team. We've seen significant increases in devaluations of the team over time. The actual number of bull and potential semen delivery is similar year on year, yet we see huge swings. Can LIC change the valuation methodology impacts less on profit?
Okay, and I see Gerard you're in the room as well. Is there anything you want to add to that?
To make it easy, because I gave-
Thank you. Thanks, Gerard. Yeah, who would like to speak to the bull value?
Happy to talk to that, Gerard. Gerard, so just for context, Gerard showed me a graph of a number of changes over the years, which I, I think is also everyone's understanding as well of the valuation is highly volatile. I think there's two points I wanted to make, or three, actually. The first one is, the reason why we talk about underlying earnings, is to exclude the volatility of the bull valuation. So that's the reason why we talk about underlying earnings rather than impact, because it's a better way to compare year-on-year performance. Secondly, the requirement to do the bull valuation is driven by IFRS, so it's one of those things we have to do. It's not a choice, and it's very well prescribed and audited by KPMG in the regard that we do it.
And the third point is that I think if you look at this year in particular, we had a number of quite significant variable changes, and when those variable changes, or when those variables change, it's, you know, a consequence of those. Like, for example, interest rates, our view of semen straws into the future as a five-year forecast. When those variables change, they have a significant impact. So it's one of those, I guess. Well, I wouldn't say it's unfortunate things, but it's just that's the way the process currently works.
Thanks, Brent. David, just wondering, do you have a comment also on the relationship between genomics and our move to more genomic bulls in relation to valuation?
... that's to do with the bull runoff-
Correct.
- profile. And so as we use younger bulls, the daughter proven bulls actually stand up on the bull valuation. We get more use out of them. So with the younger bulls, they have a shorter runoff. So, ironically, it brings the valuation change, the valuations down, as we use more high genetic, younger bulls for a shorter amount of time.
Yep. Okay, thank you. No more questions? Thanks, Maurice. So, I've got a question here, but I'd said to Graham Edwards, I'll take a question from him first, if that's all right. Thank you. So, Graham. Just got the mic there. Thanks very much, Graham.
Nice story presentation, but I guess the rubber hits the road somewhere. Your return on assets, Brent, I've just forgotten your balance sheet footer, but it was at NZD 350 million?
Total assets?
Yep. Yep, that's less than a 3% return, and that's adding back the government's tax adjustment.
Mm-hmm.
That's all the good stories and, yeah, motherhood and apple pie, but when the rubber hits the road, that's not an acceptable return.
Got a comment on that at all, Brent?
No, other than to say that is the result, yes. You know, well, I guess we've talked about the reasons for that, and apart from the, you know, like you said, Graham, the tax change, you know, the volume impact where we had-
I've added that back.
Yeah, but the impact we had around the, you know, reduction in demand that we experienced during the season was a major impact.
Supplementary, Mr. Chairman. How can a 3% revenue decline halve the profit?
Yep. So the question is, how can a drop in revenue of 3%, halve our profit? You're happy to talk to that, Brent?
To me, that's... You must have very high fixed costs-
We do.
That sort of impact.
Yep.
Yep.
It is. We do. We're a business that's driven by volume. We have a high percentage of fixed costs. Yep.
But you're going to have to change that, if that leads back to the first question of, you know, where are the costs reduced? I mean, a bit of travel and so on, that's, you know, relatively trivial in the scheme of things.
So you spoke, Brent, investments being made within the business, particularly right now, and that we'll see a decline in those over the next couple of years. Do you want to elaborate on that further?
Yeah, well, I mean, the way I think about it, you know, if you look at the trajectory of our volume, the season before last was what we'd normally, what we'd expect to be our normal season. Last year wasn't.
Yep.
We know the reasons for that. The early stages of this year, while, as I said in my presentation, there's a little bit more positivity, we haven't seen a significant impact on our farmers' behaviors in terms of those, that demand. In the event that milk price returns back to a normal level when it continues on, we do expect some of that demand to come back. But the issue is for us, you know, this is our busy time heading into it now. People are already locked and loaded.
Yep.
So does that explain the lack of ambition to improve the result? And as indicated in the annual report, that you're only really adding back the cost of the semen issue. That seems a very modest ambition when your profit's basically halved on what it's been the last five years.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it is the end of the first three months of the financial year that we've got a range of NZD 16-22 million, for the reason that we're not sure how that's going to play out. You know, I don't have a good answer for you other than we're aiming for that range, which will be an improvement on last year.
Yeah, we've got NZD 9 milk futures and NZD 8.50 medium forecast from Fonterra.
Yep.
Surely you can get out there and sell the stuff. That's actually not a bad result.
Yep.
Graham, I acknowledge the question, and I guess I've got a view, and I think the board's got a view on it as well. And I think, you know, we definitely take responsibility for one particular issue, I think, which is that we didn't deliver a couple of seasons ago on performance of the sexed product, and that was a key, you know, line on our revenue stream. The team have done a lot of work over the last particularly two seasons and I guess, better understanding and optimizing how that product goes to market.
That's not to say there's not still more work to do and more opportunity, I think, in how we get out in front of it and sell that product, 'cause it's to what a lot of David's talked about this afternoon, it's key to advancing that genetic gain.
Mm-hmm.
It's key to the dairy beef opportunity. But we do have to own that. We didn't get that right, and we've certainly seen the repercussions in that. The other thing I don't want to do, Graham, is stand up here and give you excuses, but I think it is very important to reflect the period of the last sort of two to three years that we've all collectively run businesses through. You know, we're both farmers, and we know the extraordinary inflation that we've been through. We recognize the big response that's come in terms of interest rates to respond to that inflationary cycle and the implications that's meant for a lot of farmers. I think, you know, what most of us talk about at the moment as farmers is, when can we get our interest rates down?
And, you know, the reality is, we haven't had free cash. And while I think fundamentally, you know, an investment in herd improvement at LIC is not discretionary. There is a component of discretion, and I think we've seen that. And honestly, as a farmer, I respect the fact that people have paid interest bills and put food on their table first. So that's not shying away from the fact that we haven't quite delivered ourselves. But I think, and I have absolute confidence, and I know the board does, and certainly in our senior management team, that the sorts of things we're investing in right now will see an improvement in revenue. Will they ultimately respond to, you know, the headwinds we have of declining cow population?
I do not know that, and we're gonna have to continue to work really hard on that. I know that's a subject you've talked to me about, you know, as you look at landscape change around you. You know, the regulatory sort of environment's been a particularly interesting one for the last couple of years, and that's certainly put some headwinds up, you know, people's appetite, really, for taking a punt and having a push. I guess I was quite deliberate in my opening address today because I do believe that an investment in your herd today, in terms of herd improvement, is an investment in the sector going forward and in our competitive advantage as a country.
I don't shy away from your criticism, and I want to see a better return going forward as well, but I believe that that fundamentally will come from building relationships inside the farm gate with farmers and on our product delivery. Yep.
Question to that.
Okay.
What's been the change in the market share?
Can you talk to that, David?
Yeah, we haven't seen a dramatic change in market share for our genetics products. It'd be fair to say that the beef portion or segment of the market is quite competitive, and in different areas it is competitive. But in for farm software, it's still stayed up. I don't have the exact number at my fingertips, and I don't wanna give you the wrong number, but herd testing stayed solid, as has MINDA, the work that we do in DNA. But the genetics market share is in the high seventies, which is a slight improvement on previous years.
Thank you. The question... Thanks for waiting for me down the back. Just wait for the microphone for the gentleman. Thanks. Thanks, Catherine.
Yeah, Rob Dwight. I'm a shareholder from Taranaki.
Hi, Rob.
I promise to be as brief as I can. Just with reference to page eleven of the report, green dots across the page. Yep, just congratulations on that. That's my area of interest.
Thank you.
With regards to sustainability, we all know that good cows are better than poor cows.
Do you mind just holding the mic?
Oh, sorry.
Thank you Rob.
Y eah, but good cows are better than poor cows. I'm out of my depth commenting on Friesian cows, but with regards to the best 100,000 Jersey and best 100,000 crossbred cows in this country, they're absolutely the world's best animals with regards to mainly pasture eating diet. On the other hand, the bottom 500,000, we have 4.7 million cows, are actually worse than the owners of them know. They are truly appalling. They are the result, in main, of the national herd, as we all know, going up 2 million cows from 3 to 5 million cows over a 20-year period. Cows that should have been culled were kept, and they were actually bred from. These are the 500,000 cows resulting from that. The owners of them don't know how poor they are.
The LIC haven't done a good enough job in letting them know how poor they are. Dairy NZ have done a disastrous job in this area. I've attended discussion groups for fifty years. Not once in my fifty years has the subject been good cows. I feel that Dairy NZ treat it a little bit like religion and politics. You don't talk about it in open company. Moving on, I have got a point to make at the end. Moving on, I went to a conference in nineteen eighty-seven. The keynote speaker said, and most people here will find this hard to believe, but I've got a guy over on the right that'll verify it. The keynote speaker told us that by the year two thousand, not only would fat be worthless, we would actually be having to pay for the disposal of it.
The LIC took this on as gospel. They didn't quite do a U-turn in their breeding policy, but they certainly went sideways. It had the potential to decimate the Jersey breed. The LIC brought out Dr. Reuven Bar-Anan, the lead geneticist in Israel. He actually stayed with us for a time during that visit, and he had no humor. He believed that anything short of an E 16 was dog tucker. Moving on to the introduction of genomics, I went across to Stratford, believed what I was told. Well, I don't know if I believed what I was told, but I certainly came home with the fear that if I didn't go with it, I'd get left behind. As we all know, initially, it was disastrous. It was actually coupled also, the double whammy was-...
In the LIC bull team members, there was at least one was from a different planet. So the top thousand cows in the country at the time, probably 50% of them were mated to something better than a donkey, but not much better. You know, I find no humor in it. It was a disaster. The initial thing in nineteen to eighty-seven collectively, probably had little effect on the national herd. This one, with the introduction of genomics, coupled with poor decision making at the LIC, was disastrous for the national herd. Moving on to today, and this is my point to the board and the reference group, I have a lot of contact. I've got no science degree or a geneticist. I have a lot of contact in New Zealand and overseas with, I'm interested in breeding.
I don't quite buy into how far we've been left behind in the genomic race. I accept there's truth in it. I think it's definitely exaggerated. So just kinda-
Just to clarify, that's in relation to the report that came out of the independent working group around whether we were going as fast as the-
Yeah, the rest of the world.
-competitors?
Yeah. Yep, yep. I think it's half true. You know, I think-
Yeah.
I think it is over-exaggerated.
Yeah.
Yep, and just, yeah, just both groups, just... That's just my opinion, unscientific opinion. Yeah, and just kind of moving sideways from that, I hope none of that sort of thing is used as justification for reducing the size of the sire-proving teams. And then, just finally, as an unscientific dairy farmer, I'm uncomfortable with really less than 20% of the size. I would like to see 20% of the size being daughter proven sires, and that's just a gut feeling. But in saying that that's a gut feeling, I have a lot of contact with the owners of the top 1% of herds in New Zealand, and that would be definitely a general viewpoint, so.
Mm.
Yep. But in general, I think you're doing very well.
Thank you, Rob, and thanks for your, you know, your observations and statements in a number of those areas, and I don't think that any of some of those are news to us around some of the missteps that we might have had in the past. And also, I guess, to reflect on your presentation today, David, and the investment we're making in genomics right now, why that's so valuable for the rate of genetic gain going forward, and I think you make the, you know, really valid point around understanding the basis for some of that recommendation and that independent working group report, which really speaks to a very unique population of cows in the world that we have here in New Zealand being cross-bred.
And that, you know, to do that unique population justice, you know, we need a bigger population to understand it from and test it against, which is really the basis for how we're trying to respond in terms of, you know, setting up appropriate mechanisms to address some of those recommendations in their report. Have you got any points to add, David? Like, I know there's some pretty passionate,
Can I just add?
Yep, sorry, go.
I did write a thing, so I've actually missed out one line.
Yep.
With that disastrous introduction of genomics, and personnel, et cetera, it is no wonder that Malcolm Ellis was greeted like a knight in shining armor when he arrived. Thank you.
There you go. There's a vote of recognition for you, Malcolm. I know you're in the room somewhere. And I was just gonna mention, there's some pretty passionate Jersey breeders in the room, too, so-
Yeah
... I'm gonna stay well clear of that subject. But have you got anything to respond to that, David? Because I think, you know, there's some good observations in regard to that, and I guess there's still some good challenges for us in terms of-
Yeah
... delivering this product that we're putting a lot of time and effort into.
Thank you for your comments, and I think they're well made. We've done a lot of learning around running genomic tools on multi-breed populations. We are very cognizant of the role that genetic gain and a more efficient cow will play in our dairy sector's future. And we are absolutely laser-focused on delivering that, increasing our investments in that, and making sure that we put our sector in the best possible position to meet, you know, the people who purchase our milk, their requirements of us. So we have increased the investments we've made in our breeding scheme, both in the data platforms that support it, as well as the programs and partnerships that we've got in the pipeline as well. So absolutely, that's why we've got those metrics around, you know, the faster rates of genetic gain.
We wanna see better than 20% improvement when we take the 10-year average of genetic gain. The last three years has got to be 20% better than that, and each year, as you do that, then that bar keeps rising, and that's what we're aiming for. We're also aiming for not just... I think you made a good point about the mix of traits in our national breeding objective, and I thought it was one of the good parts about the industry working group looking at more forward-looking aspects, 'cause the national breeding objective now is very historic-looking, looking at historic averages to set those weightings.
We think we need to be more forward-looking, because, you know, the last slide that I had was, you know, the matings that we make in 2024, in this spring, those daughters will finish their first lactations in 2028. So we have to have we need to make sure that the sorts of animals we're producing that are finished their first lactation in 2028 are the right ones. Now, we're making those decisions now. So, looking at those traits and making sure that they're properly weighted is good work for the industry to do.
Thanks, David. Yeah, just in the interest of time, I'll probably say we're only going to take one to two more questions. Is that all right? So I've got a question here at the front. Thanks, Chris. If you could take the mic.
My question also relates to genomics, so my heifers have been genomically tested this year.
Mm-hmm.
However, my bull calves were only eligible to be DNA tested. Why?
That's a good question. David, are you able to respond to that in terms of our process around genomics?
Yeah. At the moment, if we have a contract mating out on a bull calf, we will genomically test it. So you can make an informed decision around, you know, whether you take royalty or flat fee. But the IP on our reference population is something that, you know, we're very cognizant of, so we make it available for heifers, but not for male animals widely available. However, we are open for, you know, discussions with third parties if they want to access that reference population. But that has been a significant investment for the cooperative, and it's something that a lot of people would wanna get their hands on. You know, we've invested over NZD 100 million to build up that reference population.
And so there is, you know, we need fair access on commercial terms for that.
Yep.
It kind of seems like a missed opportunity, though.
Mm.
Because if you're genomically testing those bulls that we are potentially using, they would be ones that are being missed, and it could be a sire.
So the question is, hopefully everyone heard it, but just-
Yeah.
Is there a risk when missing bulls?
Yeah, so we're doing a large screen on the female population, so we think we're getting a good view of elite dams, and we do thousands of contract matings each year to make sure that we're screening the best possible pool of male animals to join the breeding scheme.
Thank you. Graham, last question, if possible. Thank you. Oh, sorry, was there another one, Chris? I didn't see the hand up. Graham, can I just go over here first for this one? I'll come back and finish with you. Thanks.
Mark Turnbull, shareholder of Ohaupo. Just a question around LIC's targets on cow efficiencies per kg of live weight. So where are we now? What are your aspirations for that? And also, genetic gain. Yeah, what are your aspirations for shareholders or for users, per year genetic gain rates?
In answer to your first question around the target rate of milk solids per kilogram of live weight, that actually is really driven by the systems feeding systems that a farm would have, so if you're System 1, you can probably have a very, very profitable farm producing maybe 80% or less, whereas if you were doing more intensive feeding, you probably want to be doing 120%. It's probably not up for LIC to determine what the exact target is. It's really more systems driven and how much you want to feed them, but we definitely put live weight in as an efficiency driver.
So if we can improve protein and fat yield and maintain live weight, we know that that animal is not putting a lot of feed into the maintenance of body or body live weight, and they're putting more into fat and protein. So we will still put, as the national breeding objective does, you know, put a try and put a limit on these cows getting larger and larger. It's not always easy, always looking for these genetic outliers, but yeah, that's what we are attempting to do. In relation to your second question around what is the target rates of genetic gain, the way we're measuring at the moment is we take the ten-year average, because every given year, the gains can move up and down.
But if we take the ten-year average as a set rate of genetic gain, we'd look at the three years just being. We average that out, and we say we want it to be 20% better, both in the Sire Proving Scheme, in the Premier Sires team. So there's one in terms of all of the bulls that we'll collect to bring into it, the ones that we make commercially available, and then we measure that also in farmers' herds, in terms of the cows, because at the end of the day, it's the genetic gain in your cows that matters. The bulls are just a way of you getting to a more efficient cow.
We measure that, when we take herds that are well-recorded in MINDA, use 80% or more of LIC's AB products, and have confirmed matings and have more than 200 days in milk. We take those, and we then take that average and make sure we're driving that gain up as well. That's all reported in our sustainability report each year.
Thanks, David. Graham.
David, I think you mentioned that you're gonna return to a more sustainable level of capital spend. Can you elaborate that? You know, just reinforcing my comment that there must have been some very poor investments in the past if we're making 3% or less than 3%.
Yeah, like any organization that's been around a bit, we do have technical debt, and that we need to get over. And we have invested in that, and I think in the last twelve months, we chose to continue to invest in that, to get through that. We've got now a very modern digital platform, which we are migrating our business onto. I think that makes reduces the risk, makes us more resilient in the future. But now we are sitting there thinking about how we reduce that capital burn to make it funded out of cash flow, and then only look at exceptions where we will have to dip into the balance sheet to fund capital over and above that. So that's definitely the plan going forward. Thanks, David. Murray, question?
Yeah, just changing the subject a little. Murray Douglas. We've got quite a few cows in Northland, and we're also significant pastoral dairy farmers in Brazil with my family. So my question relates to the most recent announcement, really.
Mm-hmm.
And you're gonna provide some embryos to subsequently go through a process to then be bred up in Brazil. So I guess the thing for me is that we've had wearables on our cows in Brazil now for about three years. We have a very clear information and operation as to how that heat in Brazil, which is just slightly more significant than Northland, is affecting performance of cows on the ground. We have a couple of slick genes in the herd in Brazil, but it's not enough to be statistically useful.
I mean, I guess the thing that's of interest for me for New Zealand is, as we go through this process, and I know we have a government that is potentially gonna change the rules, what are our options and opportunities through LIC to subsequently to bring this technology to New Zealand for use, if we're allowed?
Okay. Answer to your question: One, we do have a traditional breeding program around heat tolerance, so we are doing that. We think we'll have a commercial product by 2029, with animals that are both heat tolerant as well as high genetic merit, 'cause we don't believe that we wanna trade off BW for heat tolerance. So we're gonna carry on with that breeding program. I think the exciting thing about the announcements we made last week with Acceligen and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is it gives us an opportunity to partner with one of the leading organizations in the world around gene editing, to see how it works, to see what the uptake is from farmers, and to learn a lot from that.
So when the government does change the or modifies the legislation to allow us, we're in a very, very good position to take advantage of that. So we think this partnership gives us a lot of optionality to bring those sorts of solution. If the consumer and farmers want that in New Zealand, when the time's right, we think we've got the optionality to do that through this partnership, so it's quite exciting from that point of view.
Thanks, David. I think with that, I'm gonna close the meeting. Thank you very much. It's been a really good question and answer session, and I appreciate those that have traveled today and made the time to come and ask us questions, and those online. I apologize again for some of the technical difficulties. We try pretty hard with these things, but it sometimes does let you down just when you need it. So in terms of that, I just wanna thank everyone again for their time. For those that have traveled today, we're now going to come together outside for some drinks and refreshments, and look forward to seeing the results come out shortly for those resolutions, which I'll announce then. Thank you.