In opening the recent Dairy Australia annual general meeting at Lardner Park, we showed a video featuring Stuart Griffin giving a guided tour of Gippsland’s dairy regions.
While watching it, it struck me that we can sometimes forget that, while it’s cows that produce our milk, it’s also the people who make this industry great.
As chair of GippsDairy, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with hundreds of people like Stu who give up their time for the betterment of their local dairy community and the wider industry. They are putting their hands up to be on extension committees. You’ll find them at discussion group meetings and on support groups at Focus Farms. They’re the people who gave up their time to contribute to the Australian Dairy Plan consultative meetings earlier this year.
You might not hear about it, but they could be spending an hour or two to help a neighbour who’s doing it tough or at a working bee at their local sporting club.
During the AGM and the tour afterwards to the DairyFeedbase project at Ellinbank, I met many of these people who help make this industry what it is today.
It was a good initiative by Dairy Australia to bring their AGM to the regions where many Gippsland dairy farmers attended.
I’m a bit biased, but I reckon these green, rolling hills were a great place in which to showcase the dairy industry for those who came to the AGM from further afield. We do hear a lot of negativity about the dairy industry but there are plenty of farmers out there making a good life for themselves by milking cows.
So well done to Dairy Australia for making the AGM more accessible for farmers and celebrating one of the world’s premier dairy regions. We’ve got a great story to tell, and it was a pleasure to have so many people come to Gippsland and see what we are achieving here.
-GippsDairy chair Allan Cameron