Dairy industry's bright spark

MIKE SCOTT/Taranaki Daily News

Steve Corkill (left) and Vern Coxhead, of Opunake company Corkill Systems Ltd, with some of the dairy shed pumps they make.

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Steve Corkill is one of those rare people with the ability to turn an idea into an opportunity - and the New Zealand dairy industry is a better place because of that uncanny knack.

Not that it was dairying he planned to get involved in when, as an Opunake lad, he started an electrical apprenticeship - he wanted to work in the oil industry. Living within sight (on a clear day) of the Maui rig, he could see the opportunities that were available in that industry and, as soon as he finished his apprenticeship, he was off overseas and ended up working on rigs in the North Sea.

He couldn't get the yellow and black out of his blood, though, and when he had made his pile he came back to Opunake and set up his own electrical business.

A lot of his jobs involved working for dairy farmers and listening to them gripe about the cost of running their cowsheds.

Steve got to thinking about where the power use was most inefficient and came up with the idea of a system that would control the cowshed's vacuum pump so that it used only the required amount of power for the number of cows being milked. From that, the Varivac vacuum pump control system was born and now more than 1200 of them are operating in cowsheds around New Zealand, as well as also being sold to dairy farmers in Australia and the United Kingdom. The company took orders for 40 at this year's National Agricultural Fieldays, alone.

From the start, Varivac was a success - but its reputation continues to grow and will be enhanced shortly when the results of a two-year test in Southland, funded by Dairy InSight and the Sustainable Farming Fund, are published. The initial findings have been communicated to Steve's company, Corkill Systems Ltd, and confirm what he and his sales manager, Vern Coxhead, have always know about Varivac: It doesn't just save power - it increases production and reduces somatic cell counts.

The software in the Varivac system runs the vacuum pump motor at about a third of its normal speed, bringing savings on electricity costs of up to 25%. Further reductions come from shorter milking times, because of cows being more comfortable and easier to handle. The comfort factor is also thought to be behind the reduced somatic cell counts, which in some cases have come down from about the 400,000 mark to 150,000. While CSL gives a guarantee of reduced SCC with each Varivac sold, Steve and Vern are non-committal about how this comes about.

"It is something farmers noticed from the very start and it has remained a consistent feature, which is the reason for the guarantee. But there is still a little secret about Varivac that we are keeping to ourselves," Steve says.

It is about the only thing Steve isn't prepared to talk about, unless you try to get the exact location where he landed the giant contest-winning snapper that is displayed on the wall of the CSL offices at the southern end of Opunake's main street.

"Off Oeo," was all he would reveal. There's a lot of Tasman Sea off Oeo ...

Varivac isn't CSL's only product. Since the mid-1980s, Steve has been doing business with a pump manufacturer in China and one of the lines that is a big seller for the Opunake company is a purpose-designed and -built agitator for home sewage systems in Australia. The company now supplies them in container lots of 1800 at a time.

The company also makes and assembles cowshed pumps and other equipment - "just about everything other than lines, pulsators and cups", is how Steve puts it. But he is always working on something new.

Right now it is further research into stray voltage in cowsheds, which is a major bugbear for dairy farmers, because cows are highly sensitive to electricity and will behave and milk better if the problem can be eliminated.

"What is upsetting them can't be seen or felt. Ninety percent of it can be fixed relatively easily but it is the remaining 10% that is of interest. I'm working on coming up with a system based on harmonics (electric currents), so we can identify what is happening."

It is a slow process and involves long hours in cowsheds before, during and after milking, checking all the various pieces of equipment in the sheds and even the sheds' construction to see what is contributing to the problem.

At the moment, much of the work is still under development, but just as he did with the idea of the Varivac, Steve Corkill sees nailing that last 10% as an opportunity ... one that will earn him the gratitude of the whole dairy industry if he can come up with a solution.

- © Fairfax NZ News