Taking a road less travelled

Jasmine didn’t grow up on a dairy farm, although she is passionate about working in the industry.

When she was at school, girls were encouraged to participate in work experience at the local supermarket or a hairdressing business.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to work in a supermarket or as a hairdresser,” Jasmine said.

“I’ve even helped a mate prepare cows for showing, and that wasn’t for me either.

“I wanted to try something else and I think it was my dad who suggested farming. And because Rob was next door, it was sort of, like, we’ll give him a ring.

“For me, the attraction of dairy farming was the cows. It’s always been the cows.”

Jasmine grew up at Whorouly, Victoria, and her parents’ house was next door to the Ovensdale Illawarra Stud owned by Robert and Maree Newton.

“So, naturally, I went next door to the neighbour’s farm and did work experience through school,” Jasmine said.

“That’s where it started for me.”

She learned how to milk cows, feed calves, and helped feed hay to the herd.

Jasmine was so impressed that her ambition to work in the dairy industry included owning Illawarra cows. She achieved that in later years, and she owns two Illawarra cows in the milking herd on the demonstration farm.

Jasmine left school three months after the work experience placement and moved to Corowa to take up a dairy farming apprenticeship.

She was 17 years old and spent three years on the dairy farm at Corowa. She moved to Gippsland and worked for a couple more years on another dairy farm, at Giffard.

Then, as happens, life changed and it was several years later and now with two children, that Jasmine returned to working in the dairy industry, as a relief milker.

She then found herself relief milking on three farms, under three separate ownerships.

“I had school-aged children, and I was juggling working on three farms with a gardening job and cleaning work,” Jasmine said.

“Then someone told me the manager at the demonstration farm was looking for a farmhand, so I rang him up, got an interview and that’s how I came here.”

She progressed from farmhand to assistant farm manager at the Macalister Demonstration Farm.

Her work included milking and setting the fences up for the cows to graze new pasture. She was responsible for training and managing relief milkers.

“One of the hardest things on a dairy farm is trusting people to look after cows,” Jasmine said.

So she was always relieved when a trainee was committed enough to learning that they could be rostered on to milk, without Jasmine supervising. It meant she could either concentrate on other work, or take a day off.

Jasmine’s own training has included Cups On Cups Off, artificial insemination technician, the downer cow course, and farm financial management courses. She is also a Don Campbell scholar.

“When I did the Don Campbell memorial scholarship tour, we visited a lot of corporate farms in Tasmania,” Jasmine said.

“We spoke to the CEOs and they talk a lot about how they have people starting as relief milkers, then they progress to become sharefarmers — and how the CEOs nurture that and by that pathway a lot of people have stepped into farm ownership.”

She was impressed by the pathway that began with questioning a relief milker about what they wanted to do, helping them make a plan to achieve the steps towards those goals, and understand what work roles encompass on the farm.

“The experience that has really made a difference to me was the My Farm My Plan course,” she said.

“When I did it, I was the assistant manager at the demonstration farm, and I felt like I’d hit the ceiling and couldn’t see how I could go further in the industry.

“I nearly got out of the dairy industry because I thought, ‘I can’t go any further’.

“Honestly, I thought my goals were impossible.

“But through doing the course, I knew I could step up to farm management and achieve my goals.

“I was able to make some hard decisions and had a better idea of what I needed to do to get to where I wanted to be.”

Jasmine worked in the assistant manager’s role for several years before recognising she had gone as far as she could on the demonstration farm, unless the farm manager’s role became available.

Jasmine moved on to another commercial dairy farm, where she worked for a few more years.

When the farm manager role at the demonstration irrigation farm became vacant, Jasmine asked the board of management to consider her. She has now been in that role for two years.

Jasmine is still enjoying the role of farm manager.

“I really like training people and teaching them about the work on a dairy farm,” she said.

“I’ve done courses in the dairy industry that have helped me along the way.

“I haven’t been in charge of pasture management before this role, and I’m enjoying the challenge of that.”

Jasmine has responsibility for day-to-day decision making, with the board members responsible for strategic decisions. They all meet monthly.

“They [the board members] all have their own farms, so they’re very busy with their own businesses,” Jasmine said.

“They need a farm manager who can just get on with things.

“If the board members want to take something in a different direction, then they’ll talk to me about it, because responsibility for the dairy farm is a team effort.

“My role is similar to one if the farm was privately owned and the owner employed a farm manager.

“I manage the dairy herd. I’m responsible for pasture management and fertiliser application. I oversee the farm worker who’s responsible for feeding calves.

“I also manage relief milkers, when we have them. I’m responsible for training people into their roles on the farm.

“We’ve also got a lease block with young cattle that I have to visit regularly.”

Jasmine is now seeing her experience influence the next generation in her family. Her son, Perry Adams, is interested in following his mother into a career in the dairy industry.

“My son is still at school and he’s keen to participate in an agriculture course through TAFE, which is one day each week,” she said.

“He wants to do that, then get an apprenticeship on a dairy farm.”

Perry has already undertaken work experience on a dairy farm.