Moving Day today on June 1 is a big day in the farming calendar and requires good planning and communication to ensure success.

It involves not just moving a household of stuff and people, but a farm-load of stuff and animals too. The June 1 tradition is timed to coincide with farmers starting new contracts at the beginning of the dairy season.

Every farmer has to ensure that all their equipment leaves the farm clean and disinfected to manage health and biosecurity risks. This is especially true for vehicles and machinery. This year there is so much more for farmers to consider due to Covid-19, and required a great deal of planning ahead of Moving Day.

Anyone involved with assessing or moving stock completes the ‘Moving Day Participation Record'.

'This annual movement is a critical part of the dairy industry – an industry that contributes more than $18 billion per year in exports to our economy, and provides jobs for around 46,000 people in our rural communities,” says Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor.

'Since the Alert Level 4 lockdown was announced, and dairy farming was deemed an essential service, the Government has been committed to finding a way to enable it to proceed.”

The Minister says his government had been working with sector leaders from organisations including DairyNZ, Fonterra, Federated Farmers and FMG to find solutions that work for those in the sector and protect the economy, without jeopardising anyone's health and safety.

'MPI then worked with the Ministry of Health and MBIE and found solutions that allow Moving Day to proceed under any alert level.”

Now that New Zealand is in Alert Level 2 family and friends are allowed to help – but they need to follow social distancing and good hygiene practices as much as possible.

Moving Day is a key time in the dairy calendar, and motorists are advised to take care when travelling across the region during the day.