Joseph Conheady has been making hay as the sun shines during the past few seasons — but his investments all have a clear purpose.
On the back of good seasons and fair prices, Joseph has drawn up an infrastructure list and is well on the way to achieving his goals.
The priorities have common threads — a return on investment, making the farm more profitable and easy-to-run, and addressing ongoing labour problems.
“I need this job to be profitable but also simply easier for us all to run every day of the year. It’s also nice if we can get away for a holiday,” Joseph said.
Having successfully navigated share farming, Joseph is a strong advocate of the system and he’s keen to encourage young people to at least consider dairy farming.
“If you enjoy farming, there's an enormous amount of opportunity ahead for you in dairy,” he said.
“Existing equity in the industry needs youth and energy to drive it forward. Older generations are looking at their exit strategies, and opportunities such as sharefarming or equity partnerships are a great stepping stone into farm ownership.”
Joseph is one of seven children, with four brothers now farming, and he is in the process of buying his Garvoc farm.
One of his main challenges has been staffing, a situation worsened by COVID-19 reducing access to short-term staff, plus two of his staff recently caught the virus.
He thinks it’s time to reposition dairy as a career of choice.
“We’re in dairy’s heartland but only three of about 60 in my Year 12 level went dairy farming,” Joseph said.
“There was no mention of it at school. I studied ag science at La Trobe Uni and at the end of that course in 2011 of about 60 students, only three of us are full-time dairy farming.”
However, money talks and Joseph believes it’s time for dairy to get more attention.
“We’re making profits now which is really good but there have been hard years. I’m lucky my parents kept the faith and encouraged us to pursue agriculture, but other kids in my generation experienced the exact opposite.
“There’s so much talk about not being able to get into farming because it’s too expensive, but sharefarming offers a pathway where you can get in with nothing but your experience and your energy.
“Land prices have gone up so much and milk prices have taken a step towards being more fairly valued, so compared to years ago, the landowner is now putting in more than they were and profitability is higher for the young farmer who doesn’t necessarily need any equity at all. Still, both parties can make good profits working together. I think it’s not a bad deal for the younger person.
“Agriculture provides such an enormous opportunity. When it comes to the future of Australia, we need to encourage more young people to invest in farm land as an asset and farming as a career because of what it does for the economy.
“Dairy farms are very expensive, but there is a truckload of milk to show for it every single day. They are productive assets which go on to create jobs and income for thousands of people down the line, not to mention the quality food we all need.
“On the other hand, thousands of Australians are enticed by our tax laws and markets to pour millions of dollars into non-productive assets such as a house in Carlton which essentially goes on to create very little economic activity.
“Comparing the two, farm land still excites me.
“We need to point out there is a globally competitive dairy industry here and we are very good at it.”
Staffing issues came to a head last year during a difficult calving season, which was also impacted by facilities and more numbers.
Joseph has six staff members on the books, but only one full-time and would like to grow this number. The staff and Joseph like the flexibility that part-time work brings. “Employees tell us how much and when they want to work and we design a role around them,” he said.
“I see labour and what people bring to the business as a great investment. We are definitely always looking for good people to join our team.”
Joseph said the move to a more reasonable milk price and the good seasons meant farmers could now better invest in animal welfare, infrastructure, labour management and environmental sustainability.
One of the problems he is addressing is calving, with 12 new calving paddocks and shelters being established.
He aims to rear more calves for export and bull sale opportunities, while maintaining herd numbers between 570 and 630 Friesians and crossbreeds, depending on the season.
Joseph also has a new effluent pond and irrigation system now covering 60ha, cup removers, feed heads in the dairy, new tracks, upgraded stock water systems, heat collars and sub-surface drainage for low-lying swamp land.
Mostly the investments are designed to make money and save labour.
Cup removers were an instant hit.
“That was one of the best investments. For not a huge outlay, I could halve the labour needed to run the dairy. It meant I had an extra four hours in my pocket to invest in other projects more valuable than taking the cups off.
“The heat collars weren’t a high return on investment but there’s more than money in some of these decisions. If I can make similar profit but my life is much better, I call it profit equivalent.
“I’ve never been happier to have basic labour-saving infrastructure than in 2021 when we were trying to rear more calves with less people.”
Joseph, his wife Anna and young son Finbar plan to budget for annual holidays with the new focus on labour savings and simple systems.
Joseph had a baptism of fire not long after starting sharefarming in 2017 when about 80 per cent of Tullagh was burnt and 86 cows were killed.
But the fire bought long-term benefits, with Joseph reconsidering the calving pattern and land management.
“Traditionally we would start calving in April and finish in September, yet we called ourselves autumn calvers; now it’s nine weeks and we’re at 80 per cent in-calf rate this year,” he said.
“I need grass and don’t want to push the system too hard by calving out of season to chase off-peak incentives.
“The tighter calving is super-busy but for a shorter period and is part of a strategy to make it easier and address the cost of feeding by having as many cows as possible being as profitable as they can be.”
Although helped by good seasons, the farm has gone from growing 4.5 tonnes per hectare to eight tonnes after changing grazing and fertiliser strategies and introducing summer crops, most successfully with rape.
“A lot of it has been influenced by the fires,” Joseph said.
“Eighty per cent of the platform was burnt so I was left with only a small portion of the farm, milking 630 cows on 10 paddocks through winter.
“I had to bite the bullet and sacrifice those paddocks but that spring we had an amazing harvest because we had looked after the re-sown platform and the pastures came back better than ever.”
He also added a conveyor arm to the silage wagon to use the feed pad more appropriately and stop feeding in the paddocks.
Joseph now uses a similar sacrifice policy for wet paddocks, more summer crops and more feeding on the pad.
“It’s exciting to make these investments now there is more cash flow to do it; we’d probably have liked to do some of these basics a long time ago,” he said.
“It’s a good time to be a dairy farmer. We’d love the opportunity down the track to grow our business through share farming or by helping someone else.
“Growth isn’t attainable without people and there are always options on the table to work in with other people.
“The amount of investment in dairy farms over the past couple of seasons is testament to a simple truth for the future of our industry: profitable returns at the farm gate are the foundational security and future for processors, the entire supply chain and supporting industries,” Joseph said.
“If everybody is going to share a slice of milk’s value, we need profitable farmers to create it in the first place.”