Warracknabeal farmers’ invest to ‘level the playing field’ in hay export

Warracknabeal farmers Paul Johns and Scott Somers will face their first season with new venture Quality Australian Hay.

For two Warracknabeal growers, a large-scale venture, state-of-the-art facilities, and new ways to honour farmer contracts will help “level the playing field” in the hay export sector.

Warracknabeal mates and mixed farmers Paul Johns and Scott Somers will face their first season with Quality Australian Hay or QA Hay Pty Ltd, and hope to deliver new options for growers. The facility is still being built.

“We’re outsiders coming in, in one aspect, but we’ve been in the industry for quite some time on the other side,” Mr Somers said.

“This is a couple of growers moving to the next step to help people on the farm, and it’s convenient and better for everyone to do it on a large scale.”

Warracknabeal growers Paul Johns and Scott Somers at the new QA Hay facility. Picture: Rachel Simmonds

They are both growing wheat, barley, canola, oat, hay and lentils this season.

Mr Somers is a sixth generation grower, who started in carpentry but returned home during a drought and spent 13 years shearing. He returned to the family farm about 16 years ago.

His family were original settlers on the main farm, and are now managing a 8000ha mixed farming operation, and supported by eight employees. Their soils range from sandy rises to heavy clay flats.

The farm has 3000ha lentils, 2000ha canola, with the remainder divvied between wheat, barley and oats. They manage between 5000 to 10,000 lambs for trading on an opportunity basis, with almost 100 per cent clearance currently to allow for a break in labour.

“We’ve been really good this year, the buying price was a good thing, there’s plenty of room to move and the job has been reasonably good,” he said.

Mr Somers said they could cut between 7 to 8 tonnes/ha for oats and hay this year, with good canola at 2t/ha and poor canola at 1t/ha.

“We’re okay east of Warracknabeal, they could use a drink but they’re quite good still, west of Warracknabeal it’s in desperate need of a drink,” he said.

Mr Johns had a career in computer technology before he came back to the family farm as a fourth-generation grower.

They have about 5000ha to share their cropping and lamb operations, with 1000-1500 lambs for trading, and mixed country with lighter, sandy soils to heavier soil types.

He said they hoped to start cutting within the next couple of weeks, if about 10-20mm of rain fell. He said he expected about 4t/ha for oats this season.

Mr Johns said being farmer-owned had helped shape their business.

“We’ve been on the other side of the ledger and we want to do the right thing by growers and look after those sort of people as best we can,” Mr Johns said.

He said the project would create about 60 ongoing jobs, between casual and full-time positions.

“It’ll be extremely good for the district and the community,” he said.

GIVING BACK

“We want to try and support the community and local jobs as much as we can.”

Mr Somers said the idea started about six years ago with his brother as a small on-farm operation.

Now, the facility will run 24-hours a day, five-days a week.

The press has a maximum output of 28 tonnes an hour, with an expected 10,000 tonnes a month throughput and 120,000 tonnes of hay overall.

He said there would be 35,000 tonnes of storage on site between three sheds, with the main shed containing 8000 tonnes.

“We can hit a button and know exactly how many bales are on site, (in) tonnes, and where they are in the world,” Mr Somers said.

“The idea is it’ll have huge capacity so we don’t have to say ‘no’, if people want to grow for us, we’ll find a way to accommodate them.”

Currently, they were concreting the facility after the main production shed roof was lifted in August. Three others will be erected next year.

He said there were several export options for growers, but they offered a “different avenue”.

“You find with those operations, the goalposts shift all the time,” he said.

“Hopefully what we’re building here can accommodate the highs and lows.

“We want to level the playing field.”

Warracknabeal growers Scott Somers and Paul Johns at the new QA Hay facility. Picture: Rachel Simmonds

DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL

He said they had aligned themselves with domestic markets, as well as new international markets to honour contracts.

There are 50 growers already contracted for this season, with 40,000 tonnes of hay signed so far.

Mr Johns said they had a strong focus on occupational health and safety since the business’s inception.

“We decided if we wouldn’t be comfortable working in there, then we shouldn’t have employees working in there,” he said.

“We’ve seen an opportunity to do the right thing by growers and I think it’ll stand in really good stead for our business.”

Mr Somers said the newly-designed machine would require half the average maintenance, the factory had air-conditioning and a state-of-the-art dust extractor.

“We’ve taken ideas out of the food, shipping, logistics industries and added them all into our own program which will be the first of its kind,” he said.

The facility yards would also be entirely concreted.

“It’ll mean trucks can run out of here rain, hail or shine,” he said.

Mr Somers said the current perception of the hay export industry was “not great”, and there was a need to change its image.

He said with the dry in Victoria and South Australia, dairy and livestock industries were in short supply with no carry-over, meaning a “seller’s market”.

He said the Australian dollar had stayed reasonably well, and exporters would be able to secure enough to meet demands depending on any incoming rain.

“We’ll start taking hay as soon as the season arrives, we’re buying hay at the moment,” he said.

Mr Somers believed their business model would become more common.

“It needs to be equalled out. Farmers are so big now with quite a wealth behind them in size that they might be able to afford to do this,” he said.

He said they hoped to hit each available export market and create new opportunities, with ties forged in Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

“We know what we don’t like about the industry right now, so we’ve tried to come up with a system that deals with everything in-house so we aren’t upsetting our growers,” he said.

“Every year is a challenge with hay or grain, it’ll rain when you don’t want it, and it doesn’t rain when you need it, it’s the nature of the beast.”