Tony Evans had the dairy world at his feet as a teenager, but he became more interested in what was going onto the land under his feet.
Tony gave up a promising career in dairy to focus on a compost business which has grown into a major success in south-west Victoria and continues to work with dairy farmers across the region.
When he started, compost was rarely considered on dairy farms, today he said it might be the industry’s saviour when it came to adapting to climate change requirements.
His farming experience just set the scene for the real love of his life — making the most out of the land and creating healthier, more productive soils.
After moving from Melbourne as a 17-year-old, Tony started his dairy apprenticeship at Bookar near Camperdown in the early 1980s.
He wasn’t a stranger to the region — his grandparents were born in the district before moving to Melbourne and he had local relatives — and he was always keen to work outdoors and with cattle.
He started working in March 1981 and moved to a farming apprenticeship in 1982.
Despite being a city boy, his aptitude for farming was quickly acknowledged and Tony won the Victorian Farm Apprentice award in 1985.
As a prize, he got to spend three months working on dairy farms in Minnesota in 1986.
“I showed initiative in purchasing 256 acres of land at 21, I wasn’t born and bred on a farm and probably presented myself reasonably well as someone who could represent Australia in the US,” Tony said.
“It wasn’t just about being a good farmer.”
He said it was a great experience, including addressing 900 people at the Minnesota State Fair.
“It broadened my horizons as I’d only experienced farming in western Victoria. In those days, we didn’t have access to US genetics in the dairy industry and I saw and milked cows that had phenomenal production.
“Shortly after I came back, we got access to US genetics and saw a leap in productivity.”
After returning to Australia, Tony was married the following January to Angie.
They bought a herd of cows and went sharefarming, next door to his own land which was used for young stock.
They later sharefarmed on a bigger farm at Simpson and grew their herd to 220.
After six years of sharefarming, they leased a farm near Camperdown, but Tony was burnt out.
“We had taken on more leased land and trying to get bigger and better, but I had three young kids and I couldn’t work any harder,” he said.
“We sold the cows and wound back the leases and took some time off.”
That’s when he stumbled upon the composting and waste business, establishing Camperdown Compost Company in 1997 with business partner Nick Routson to process organic waste, including from dairy companies, and build alternative fertiliser programs to assist dairy farmers.
“My father was a printer and did some work for a guy who was trading in worms. We looked at it and saw the potential so we set up a commercial size worm farm,” Tony said.
“They were closing Warrnambool’s landfill and Bonlac Cobden had nowhere to send their waste, so we took the initiative and set up an EPA-licensed facility to accept it.”
It was a case of ‘if you build it, they will come’.
Tony and Nick started working part-time in the business in 1998, started employing people by 2004 and now have 10 to 12 employees and a $4 million annual turnover.
“There was an opportunity and we filled that gap. In our time, nine other facilities have closed, usually due to lack of compliance, so waste kept gravitating to us.”
They planned to use the waste for worm food, but found it was better for making compost.
“In 1999 we met microbiologist Dr Elaine Ingham and she opened our eyes to the opportunities,” Tony said.
“We realised we didn’t have to make worm castings to make a good product — a compost fitted with the type of waste we were taking.”
Farmers approached the company about using compost on their properties so they introduced sales through agronomists on commission.
In 2005 they started to sell directly to farmers.
“The first thing I said to the farmers was you shouldn’t be buying compost from us; you should be making your own. You have all this waste on a dairy farm and you should be using it,” Tony said.
Helping farmers make compost on their farms soon grew into a big industry in itself, and they managed the process for more than 100 farms a year.
At the same time, sales increased because some of the Camperdown compost would be added as an inoculant.
“It lifted the profile of what we were doing and the acceptance of compost into the dairy industry and it demonstrated that you could make compost out of dairy waste,” Tony said.
In 2015 the business was restructured, bringing in an independent chair and board, while Tony and Nick retained shared ownership.
“The business was growing too big and Nick and I were acting as joint CEOs, but you can’t fill your head with everything so you have to delegate,” Tony said.
“The chairman brought in structure and accountability.”
Tony retired from full-time work in the business five years ago at 55, but he remains a 50 per cent owner and silent partner.
They have six board meetings a year and Tony receives monthly reports and is involved in major strategic decisions.
“I was suffering from stress — I was doing too much with the business, our land and cattle and consulting, which led me to travelling around Australia and overseas, and my brain was fried,” he said about the decision to step back from the day-to-day operation.
“My doctor diagnosed stress and said I needed to make some changes, so I stopped work and gave up consulting work.
“I got rid of everything except for the cattle which gave me a purpose and a reason to get out of bed.”
Tony and Angie will transition the cattle to two of their daughters as they continue to lighten their load.
Tony remains convinced of the value of compost.
“We pioneered the concept of composting on farms here in Australia,” he said.
“Most farms don’t use compost, but most farms should.”
While the company moved away from on-farm composting about five years ago, he said farmers needed to look for the right way to use their waste and the best way to improve their soils.
“Dairy companies want to change their carbon footprint. They know we have to look at soil carbon from a climate perspective, but also from a productivity perspective.
It is being driven by consumers and countries that import our products and the Federal Government has signed up to zero methane emissions by 2030.
“If we have to have zero methane emissions by 2030, we need to implement changes in the next 18 months and compost can help that.
“Dairy farmers with a high input system are going to have waste which is a problem if it isn’t managed effectively, but it’s actually a resource they can use as a catalyst for change.”
Tony said farmers could reduce their fertiliser inputs by utilising the resources on their farm.
“They can lower their carbon footprint by hopefully building and sequestering carbon, reducing bought-in fertilisers and by better managing their emissions from ponds.
“We stumbled into it but the more we learnt we realised this was where farmers needed to go.”