Kangertong dairy family back where they belong

Opportunity knocks when imagination and perseverance is there to answer, as the Dwyer family can testify.

Dynamic destiny: Innovatory dairy farmers Eddy and Lisa Dwyer on their farm at Purnim. The couple feel a strong historic family tie to the land and say diversity, planning and perseverance have been the keys to their success. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

A SHORT 30-minute drive separates the hamlets of Hawkesdale and Purnim in Victoria’s Western District.

So when Lisa and Eddie Dwyer made the move from their previous Hawkesdale base to their new dairy farm at Purnim, closer to Warrnambool, it wasn’t such a stretch.

In fact for Lisa, a well-known dairy industry leader, it was almost like coming home.

Their current Purnim property, Kangertong, was originally established by Lisa’s great-grandfather.

“My grandfather farmed there, my father was born there and when we bought the farm, my son Harvey became the fifth generation to live and work there!” Lisa said.

“I really think it was all meant to be.”

Situated between Warrnambool and Mortlake, the Kangertong milking platform is 184ha with an additional 123ha of outpaddocks.

The Dwyers milk 400 cows and the southwest Victorian couple have been farming for 17 years.

“Unlike my husband Eddie, who has been around dairy his entire life, working on the family farm, my background is in management in the thoroughbred racing industry,” Lisa said.

“We bought our first farm in 2004 — 344ha farm in Hawkesdale,” she said.

“We sold that and bought our current farm in Purnim in 2018 — this was an opportunity to expand.”

“When we received a completely unexpected offer to sell, we did!

“That then left us in a rather uncomfortable spot with 400 cows and nowhere to go.”

Like so many opportunities in agriculture, the Fonterra suppliers heard about the opportunity to buy Kangertong (in Purnim) on the bush telegraph.

“We were really lucky to hear about the Purnim farm potentially coming on to the market via the industry grapevine and after walking through the second paddock, knew it was the right one for us,” Lisa said.

DIVERSITY THE KEY

A key lesson from Lisa and Eddie’s years in Hawkesdale was the value of adaptability in agribusiness.

“Given the nature of agriculture generally and the variables that we are unable to control such as seasonal variation, price, pests et cetera, we learned very early on that it is a good idea to diversify income sources,” Lisa said.

“Three years after buying our first farm and extending ourselves even further with the purchase of an outpaddock literally days before the Global Financial Crisis struck (in September 2008), if it wasn’t for a group of 40 F1 calves that we had reared, I’m not exactly sure how we would have pulled through at such an early stage of our business investment.”

The Dwyers have continued to rear calves of any description and have often purchased cattle they felt offered a future profit margin.

“Combined with the importance of the live dairy heifer trade, this aspect of our business contributes an important component to our overall enterprise,” Lisa said.

With the lush pastures of the Western District, rain is only a concern during drought years. But like most of southern Victoria, seasonal conditions for dairy have been ideal during the past 12 months.

The average rainfall has been around 750-780mm annually at the Purnim property.

SEASON TO CHEER

“In our 17 years of dairy farming, this season has been hands-down, the best ever,” Lisa said.

“We had a great spring break, the highest pasture harvest ever and consistent enough rain events to keep pastures green until late February.

“We’ll take a season like this every year.

“(In the past), we’ve had years where the autumn break occurred in early March and not until June.

“We’ve had years where a wet winter was followed by nine months of dry weather and years like this year where it has just kept on raining.

“The only identifiable trend is that there doesn’t appear to be one.”

What is reliable is the excellent topography of the Western District, particularly around the pastures north of Warrnambool.

Flat, clear of stones, grey loam soils, the Dwyers say the region has an amazing capacity to grow and maintain pasture and recover during wet spells — perfect for dairy.

“(The soil) is grey loam that you could grow spuds in if you were so inclined, to slightly lighter country at the back of the farm,” Lisa said.

Life goals: Lisa Dwyer is happy with what they are achieving at their farm at Purnim. Picture: ROBIN SHARROCK

FEED FLUSH

“Majority (of the paddocks are) sown to perennial ryegrass, with cropping undertaken for renovation purposes before being resown again to perennial ryegrass

“We have a total of 48 paddocks on the milking platform with an average size of five hectares.”

“We have so far direct seeded a number of new plantations with a farm plan in place to accommodate annual plantings on an ongoing basis.”

The Dwyers have a 178-megalitre licence at Purnim supplying the dairy, livestock and newly commissioned two centre pivot irrigators covering 17.2ha each.

“This investment was undertaken to provide for seasonal risk mitigation and to extend the spring and kick off the autumn, rather than provide for a comprehensive irrigation program,” Lisa said.

“We generally manage to grow sufficient pasture crops for our needs throughout the year, achieving 11 tonnes DM/ha between grazed and conserved feed in the 2019-20 season.

“We are aiming to extend that harvest with the introduction of irrigation. Supplementary grain costs are our biggest annual expense with 2.1 tonnes/cow fed.

“We were fortunate in that the new farm has had a strong fertiliser history, taking some pressure off this cost imposition initially, however we are stepping back into a targeted fertiliser and lime application plan in the current year.”

As is the case with most Victorian farms, electricity costs continue to rise.

“But we are doing everything we can to contain these increases by undertaking the state government-supported energy audit and the implementation of the recommendations made, including improved milk cooling efficiency, lighting and waste heat recovery,” Lisa said.

PLAN IT FORWARD

The Dwyers keep a close eye not just on their paddock work but their bookwork too.

They undertake monthly reviews and annual forecasts.

They also praise Fonterra area manager Andrew Martin as a valued resource for industry guidance.

“For us, planning has helped us set goals and have targets to grow towards,” she said.

“We have a business plan that we take out every couple of months and tick the things off that we’ve achieved and add some new things that need to be done.”

The Dwyers are also part of the Dairy Farm Monitor Project where they provide their performance data as part of a wider report to all farmers across the region.

“The program allows you to monitor costs — see how we’re tracking against other farmers in our region and to identify any outliers in our business,” Lisa said. “Good planning and making informed decisions at every level of our business helped us increase profits and achieve an average in excess of $2.00 earnings before interest and tax per kg of milk solids across the past five years.”

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

While Lisa has been in the dairy sector less than two decades, she has emerged as an industry leader through her previous work as a director of Dairy Australia and a non-executive director of Murray Goulburn Co-operative.

She’s also non-executive director of the Australian Live Export Corporation and now serves as the chairman of the Great South Coast Regional Partnership, as a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors advisory committee for the Great South Coast region, a member of the Victorian Agricultural Climate Change Advisory Council and to top it off, a fellow of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation.

Lisa cites the words of dairy industry legend Shirley Harlock as inspiration for her work outside the farmgate: “If you’re not involved, you’re part of the problem.”

“Every day I see the symptoms of an agricultural sector not realising its potential because people don’t desire to learn, seek to better understand or grow by entertaining another perspective,” Lisa said.

“Despite the inevitable and unfortunate criticism anyone fulfilling a position of responsibility receives, I’d much rather know that I’ve done my best to make a positive contribution than sit in the safety and anonymity of the sidelines and criticise.”

Whenever she’s asked by those inside and outside the industry about why she loves working in the dairy industry, the answer is simple.

“In a word; opportunity,” Lisa said.

“Although it is not the easiest way to earn a living when you consider the number of major impacts upon which we have no control, what I love most about agriculture is that the opportunities are limited only by your imagination and your determination to pursue them.

“When we started out, the only thing we owned that was new was probably my rubber boots,” she said.

“We’ve encountered drought, the Global Financial Crisis, disease and the industry downturns, yet I can’t think of another business or sector where we would have been able to achieve the things that we have outside of dairy farming.”

MORE

SYNLAIT MILK PROFITS FALL AS INFANT FORMULA MARKET HIT BY COVID-19

DAIRY AUSTRALIA’S NEW CLIMATE PLAN RELEASED

OCEAN ROAD PASTORAL PROMOTES INNOVATION, FARM SOLIDARITY