More than 600 delegates descended on Hobart for the Australian Dairy Conference in mid-February, with highlights including dairy market updates from the Freshagenda consultancy, and a moving account of a tough period in the business of Western Australian dairy farmer Dale Hanks.
Freshagenda director Jo Bills pointed to the millennium drought, the global financial crisis and the fact Essendon hasn't won a premiership since 2004 as contributors to the country’s precipitous collapse in milk production during the past two decades.
She said more recent factors included a drop in the number of farmers, caused by surging land values that incentivised stakeholders to cash out and leave the industry.
Those same higher land values posed a new barrier to entry for those younger would-be farmers trying to gain a foothold in the sector.
Western Australian dairy farmer Dale Hanks gave a moving account of his brush with business failure in 2016 to 2018, when Brownes Dairy exercised a clause to end a milk purchase contract with his and three other local farms in 2016.
“The first of October came around, and there were suddenly no Brownes milk tankers there, we had 300 cows in-milk, and what were we to do with this milk in the tank,” he told the conference.
Dale said the state agriculture department rang one day to ensure that he was still milking the cows on animal welfare grounds.
The next day, the WA Environmental Protection Authority rang him.
“They said, ‘you cannot dispose of that milk on the farm — if you do, we’ll be able to fine you’. I said ‘thanks — how about talking to your minister about finding a home for this milk’.”
Dale said it was a stressful two years for him and his wife, Leanne.
“I was done, I was no longer going to be a dairy farmer, I was in a pretty bad place mentally for a while there.”
After surviving by selling off much of his 300-cow herd, processor Lactalis began buying his farm’s milk again in 2018.
University of Melbourne’s Professor Richard Eckard gave a presentation about Australia signing on to the global methane pledge, committing the country to reducing methane emissions by 30 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030.
He said with the right incentives in place, Australia’s dairy sector could reduce emissions by 50 per cent “tomorrow”.
Other topics included succession planning, debunking the myths on cattle and methane, and the challenge of producing food in ways that are socially acceptable, environmentally friendly and economically viable.
The event included a pre-conference tour of farms in Tasmania’s north, the Young Dairy Scientist Award (see page 22) and a gala dinner.