South East SA farming family has stopped using fertiliser as they shift to regenerative practices

Radical changes in their farming practices over the past eight years is paying big dividends for this multi-generational South Australian farming family. See their story.

Penola’s David Galpin admits he used to pick his audience when talking about how his farming practices have changed.

“Everyone said that if you don’t put out fertiliser you won’t grow grass and you won’t be able to fatten your stock – that’s what I was taught,” the fourth generation farmer said.

“But, we have found you can do things differently.”

And doing things differently has improved the bottom-line for the South Australian farming family and given them a renewed enthusiasm for farming.

The Galpins are well known for their Warrawindi Limousin and Poll Dorset studs, but in the past decade have decreased the focus on their studs, their breeding numbers, and switched to regenerative farming and livestock trading. They say this has led to greater profit, less stress and healthier, heavier animals.

Their 1200ha farm, which normally receives around 650mm annually, supports three generations of the family and they recently added an accommodation and tourism element to their business.

The farm runs 400 Poll Dorset stud ewes, 1500 East Friesian-Border Leicester ewes joined to the Poll Dorsets, 70 Limousin cows and 50 commercial crossbred cows.

They trade a further 1000 black steers and sell 150 rams and 2500 prime lambs, 20 bulls and 50 calves annually.

Ellis Galpin, Sophie Wilson, Henley Galpin, David Galpin, Alison Galpin, Spencer Gartner, Chelsea Galpin with baby Quinn Galpin, Jordan Galpin, Addison Wilson, Ruby Gartner, Mason Galpin, Ben Brooksby with Cleo Galpin-Brooksby. Pictures: Nicole Cleary

BIG CHANGES

The multi-generational farming family radically changed their practices over the past eight years, and are not looking back.

The decision, made gradually, and at first, reluctantly, has seen them cease using synthetic fertilisers and soil testing and move away from breeding to trading, to give the business a better chance to match paddock feed to stocking rates.

They also don’t buy in grain or pregnancy scan.

This approach led to higher stocking rates, better weight gains and healthier animals, David said.

“I never used to tell people that because it doesn’t sound true,” he said.

According to David and wife Alison, the changes were vital and came as agriculture’s terms of trade tightened, making it harder for farmers to derive an income solely from the farm.

“We’ve farmed for 30 years without any outside income, but you can’t do that now. Along this road, every farm but us are trucking companies. It seems to be happening in the US and UK too – farming has got to the point when you need other income to be reliable,” he said.

The variability of price and weather made business even harder.

The business supports a broad family base – David’s parents Dean and Joan living across the road and sons Jordan and Mason and families are also involved.

Off-farm, another son Bentley is an accountant in Adelaide, while daughter Kimberley farms with her husband locally; Teegan, works on a local farm and Aimee was a teacher.

“It is a family farm, it has to function. Ten years ago we got to a point where our traditional farming practices were going backwards, we couldn’t make it pay,” David said.

“We had to find another way. It was by chance we had an old fella, an agronomist, Jim Seabrook, from Gippsland buying rams and he noticed our lucerne, which I thought was really good, he said ‘it’s got a problem’ and told me the issues with it.

“We were spending a lot on fertiliser, chemicals, minerals to try to keep stock healthy.

“But the concoction in the end was poisonous.”

David Galpin.

HEALTHY SOIL

The biggest change was grazing management – paddocks are spelled for a minimum of 50 days and up to 90 to build energy reserves.

“It’s no different to picking an apple or taking wheat off two weeks early – if you graze early you don’t get the full sugar content in your plant,” he said.

Spelling allowed roots to develop, and mobs could graze paddocks not for three or four weeks, but three months.

“That just has a snowball effect. It’s just nature doing its thing. Root systems are bigger, you’ve got more microbes, more worms, more your soil’s active; it’s alive,” he said.

“Before our soil had got to that stage, it was almost dead, and we had to add the nutrition to it, otherwise it had nothing.

“It was frightening to turn that (fertiliser) tap off, but it is just pouring money down the drain.

“It was totally against what I had learned, but it is nothing new – people have been doing it for a long time but it’s just it’s not really accepted.”

Social and cultural norms also made the decision complicated as the family no longer buy product from service providers in their local town.

“The local guys are great, but in farming we have big companies that will sell you anything and make it sound as though you need it, they have always been big but now they are mega companies and marketing specialists.”

Eight years in, with liquid humates applied instead of fertilisers three to four times on irrigation lucerne and once a year on dryland at an annual cost of $15/ha, David said the proof was in the paddocks.

“Well we’re not in drought; its dry but our cows are gleaming,” he said.

“We don’t take soil tests anymore. One of our blocks at Lake Mundi, the soil tests there are the worst of all our soil tests but the lambs there are always heavier, calves heavier but the soil tests say it is lacking in pretty much everything – so that tells me the science is not measuring what is important.”

Those areas had fungi and mushrooms, more worms, and smelt “like soil, not sour”.

They also don’t supplementary feed grain now. Instead, livestock had stable, grass-based diets.

“We were all breeding and now we are half breeding, half trading and that gives us ability, like last year when we got to June and all the trading cattle went and we spelled from the beginning of June to the end of September,” he said.

“Over grazing was our biggest problem but now it’s not.”

Mason Galpin.

STOCK TEST

Crossbred ewes achieve weaning percentages of 155 per cent last season, and the two previous years, 172 per cent.

“We also don’t scan, as we know they’ll be there,” he said. “Our fertility has improved that much – they are healthy, we treat everything as multiples.”

Ewes run in large mobs until three weeks before lambing and are then split into 150 lots.

Post-lambing, ewes with two-three day old lambs are gently drafted out of lambing paddocks to prevent mismothering. “I reckon we pick up 5-10 per cent doing that,” he said.

“The boys just do it on the motorbike. It’s not too hard. Just quietly sneak around through them.”

Targeting supermarket weights of 23-25kg, 50-60 per cent of lambs are sold by Christmas and the remainder put on pivots.

“It’s just not cost effective to take them out any higher, 23-24kg (carcass) seems to be easy, but to get 25kg is a fair weight for down here.”

The farm runs 70 Limousin cows and 50 commercial crossbred cows.

The Galpins buy 280-300kg black steers to trade, grazing for 250 days to get them over 500kg.

The numbers they run depend on available paddock feed, without using too much hay.

“Hay is a cost, it doesn’t matter whether you grow it yourself or buy it in, and it’s still a cost.”

“We can always offload, a black steer is always worth something at any time of the year.”

“We could buy steers in heavier weights but those lighter steers put on more weight per kilo of food consumed.”

PLANNING AHEAD

David said he turned down the chance to buy more land a few years ago as he could not see how money could be made off it once interest payments were made.

Instead, the family invested in two new high-end accommodation buildings on their property, and said that income sits outside agriculture and would be more reliable. It would also provide for retiring family members.

David said they started succession planning several years ago.

“I’ve seen lots of farms that are now non-functioning and owned by different families because succession wasn’t done properly; let alone the families that don’t talk to each other,” he said.

“We discuss what’s happening now, but also the other (off-farm) family members also know that if you want to be part of this business (a beneficiary), you have to be in it. Otherwise it explodes.”

“They (off-farm) will get something. But it cannot be to the value of what the land is – land is only worth its value if you sell it.

“When you’re on the inside, all you see is income, you don’t see asset value; but when you’re on the outside, all you see is that land worth $10,000 an acre and that’s where greed comes in and when all families fall apart.

“There’s plenty of people around that bought at the peak and the interest rates are killing them now,” he said.

On the tourism business, David said it had not only injected an outside income, but also a renewed pride in farming.

“We were doing farm tours unpaid with family and friends for 10-12 years – there are a lot of people, whether they are from Mount Gambier, Melbourne or overseas who have never even been on a farm.”

Now, they run tours at a charge, with farm tour package options accompanying the accommodation. But David said the family also benefited from the interactions and it had revived his passion for farming.

“It’s exciting to share what we have,” he said.