Mustering up an audience

Bryce Templeton entered the dairy industry with a 22ha Trafalgar farm. He has since grown his landholdings to 83ha, and milks 140 cows.

Bryce’s farm is located on the productive river flats, which are regularly inundated with floodwater. This means he needs to select cultivars and manage his calving pattern to optimise grass cover.

Ben Damschke achieves pasture utilisation as high as 10 tonnes/ha, using a mostly perennial rye-grass base, supplemented with some hybrid cultivars. Ben uses a high stocking rate, with 420 cows on a 110ha milking platform, and an equal support area for silage, young livestock and dry cows.

Ben said he sticks to a single calving, which matches his pasture growth. He manages cow health by drying off cows during the wettest time of the year.

Pathways and progressions

A panel session discussing the pathways and progressions available to youth and farmers in the dairy industry attracted a wide range of ages. Mother and daughter, Louise and Stephanie Paul, were speakers alongside Tom Glen and Hamish Bill.

Louise Paul, from Hill End, is from a multi-generation farming family.

Louise has a Diploma of Agriculture and is passionate about making time for training for herself, her family and her staff. She identified courses offered through TAFE, GippsDairy and Dairy Australia.

Stephanie Paul is a member of Gippsland’s Young Dairy Network and participated in the 2023 Don Campbell Memorial Tour to Tasmania.

Stephanie recognised she needed to leave the farm to gain experience of other workplaces — her parents encouraged that in all their children. She completed a Bachelor of Commerce and a Diploma of Agricultural Science and works in the agribusiness banking sector.

Stephanie’s goal is to find her own farming niche in the future, and she hopes to return to the family farm.

Hamish Bill, originally from New Zealand, and his partner, started their dairy careers in northern Victoria as farm managers, then moved to similar roles in Gippsland. They moved into sharefarming roles in 2016.

Hamish has built his equity in farming with a 400-cow split-calving herd, at Bona Vista.

Tom Glen completed his plumbing apprenticeship while working weekends on a dairy farm. He progressed to managing, then more recently started sharefarming on a dairy farm at Poowong North.

Tom is a member of Gippsland’s Young Dairy Network and was a participant on the 2023 Don Campbell Memorial Tour to Tasmania.

Succession planning

Discussing the future and how to step back from dairy were Graeme Paul, of Hill End, Colin Wright of Phillipsons Accounting and Financial Planning, and Andrew Balfour, from Willow Grove. Colin is a consultant to many farm businesses in Gippsland.

Colin brings his own experience growing up on a farm to his four decades of experience working with farmers to manage and grow their businesses. He believes it is never too early to begin discussing succession, including children in business meetings, and encourages his clients to have off-farm investments.

“When you include children in business discussions about the farm, they understand what cash flow means, and why sometimes they can’t have or do the same things as their friends — who are not on farms,” Colin said.

Graeme Paul, of Hill End, came from a dairy farming family, and began farming independently with his wife, Louise, in 2002. Since then, they have grown their farm business, purchasing a second farm at Trafalgar in 2016.

In 2022, Graeme and Louise brought in sharefarmers to the Trafalgar farm, to enable them to slow down their own lives. Last year, Graeme and Louise invested in the Hill End farm to make changes for their future.

“It’s now a one-person milking shed,” Graeme said.

Graeme and Louise have also encouraged their three children to study for other careers, or take up apprenticeships. This plan was irrespective of their interest in the family farm, where they also have roles.

“It’s important for your kids to work for other people,” Graeme said.

“They learn respect in ways they won’t learn it at home.”

He and Louise have also included their children in discussions about succession.

Andrew Balfour, a dairy farmer at Willow Grove, with his wife, Carolyn, have progressed from sharefarming to leasing, then to farm ownership. They milk 850 cows.

Seventeen years ago, Andrew and Carolyn entered an equity partnership with another couple to buy a dairy farm in the Macalister Irrigation District.

Andrew and Carolyn have actively invested in off-farm equity. They own a holiday home at Lakes Entrance and Andrew said its usage has grown to regular long weekends every fortnight.

“It’s enabled me to step back from working so hard every day,” Andrew said.

“I now only do four milkings a week. The biggest change, though, is how everyone else has learned to not rely on me being in the workplace.”

Colin recommended the chief piece of advice he gives his clients.

“People need to be able to talk to each other,” he said.

“You can have conversations about the farm business at the farm. But when you get away from the farm, you need to be able to talk about other things.”

Mixing it up

Talking about operating farm businesses in a changing environment were Janine Waller, executive officer of Australian Dairy Products Federation, Anna Thomson of the Dairy Feedbase 2023-28 program, dairy farmer Neil Joiner, of Newmerella, and Dawn Dalley, senior scientist in the Farm Systems research team at DairyNZ.

Neil spoke about his experience growing mixed species in a high rainfall farming district near Orbost. He used grazing to manage pasture density and growth.

One of his first forays into diversifying pasture was adding plantain into his seed mix.

“It was cheap per kilogram per hectare,” Neil said. “With seeding and through manure, it spread naturally across the farm.”

The next diversification was chicory, about 15 years ago.

“It was resilient in dry seasons and held on through pasture renovations,” Neil said.

His experience was reinforced by Anna, who has been researching mixed pasture species within systems to reduce emissions.

She is leading a project measuring the differences in production from the cow grazing 12 forage species compared to rye-grass.

The project began in 2023, sown in autumn, and yield will be measured over five years.

Anna also mentioned a project at Ellinbank that would be testing methane-reducing dietary additives in the cows’ diet.

Janine said emissions reduction was a priority of government policy, with a short time frame to achieve 43 per cent reduction by 2030.

She said the Mandatory National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007, when implemented, would require accounting for everything along the production supply chain.

“This could be as early as 2025,” Janine said.

Sustainability was heavily influencing the trading environment for dairy products, with emissions reduction, animal welfare and human rights among the key indicators.

Janine said human rights would be assessed against safe workplaces.

“Consumers will want to know Australian dairy as a trusted partner and product of choice,” she said.

However, the market signals for what farmers should be doing at the farm level were still unclear for many.