Marleigh Park: Water efficiency farm’s greatest profit driver

LEIGH ‘Skeeta’ Verhey has never met a number he didn’t like

In the thick of it: Angela Turner and Leigh “Skeeta” Verhey with daughter Zara and dog Poppy on their dairy farm at Koondrook.

LEIGH ‘Skeeta’ Verhey has never met a number he didn’t like.

With impressive ease and accuracy, the 41-year-old innovative dairy farmer from Marleigh Park at Koondrook in northern Victoria can rattle off a raft of figures, from return on investment to milk solids production to tonnes of dry matter per megalitre of water used. All while keeping a close eye on the single most important number of all — the one on his bottom line.

Skeeta and partner Angela Turner milk 350 cows on 176 hectares of irrigated land and 120 hectares of leased country, the latter of which is used to produce feed for a herd of Aussie Red, Jersey and Holstein cows. The herd has produced up to 520kg of milk solids annually over the past four years and is on track to hit 550kg this season, well above the regional average.

Skeeta sees water efficiency as the farm’s greatest profit driver. “We need to grow more with less water and aim for a low-cost production system which is relative to our debt level,” he said.

In an example of his mathematical approach, last season Skeeta calculated the value of feed produced by the cost of his annual water use of between 850 and 900 megalitres.

“We were spending $260 to $280 a megalitre on temporary water,” Skeeta said.

“We worked out that we were going to be producing 1.7 tonnes of dry matter per megalitre of water.

“So that equated back to $183 a tonne for feed when you include wastage, which was cheaper than what we could buy that feed in from elsewhere.”

Skeeta considers home-grown feed the most cost-effective for his business. “It is about production per hectare and production per megalitre, not only production per cow,” he said. “We are conscious of not running big cows that aren’t as efficient.”

Return on assets for the past five years has averaged 6.25 per cent, with one year rising to a whopping 14 per cent. They’re numbers that would stack up in any business.