Dairy farmers of the year talk 2025 season

Nicole Saunders, Brad Couch and Rob Frampton have all previously hit the dairy big time. So what does the new season have in store?

Glass half-full or glass half-empty?

Ask three former winners of The Weekly Times dairy farmer of the year award and they’ll tell you it all depends on what type of season they had.

And not just the type of season, but which half of the season the rain actually fell.

Nicole Saunders at Tinamba in Gippsland said this season has been better than last, and knows they’ve been “a lot luckier” than those in other parts of the state.

“The previous season for us was really bad. We had floods and were underwater three times, but this season we’ve been in a bit of a sweet spot, catching a bit of rain,” she said.

“It was looking pretty dry up until Christmas … but we were quite lucky to have one of those right east coast lows that really filled up the Glenmaggie Dam, enabling more of that low reliability water.”

Nicole & Brendan Saunders. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Nicole is really positive about the industry, but said with rising costs across the board, it is essential that new entrants into farming have some price security to enable the industry to grow.

“To inspire that growth in the next generation we need to actually see decent returns. If we’re not seeing the right returns at our farmgate, (people) will exit farming,” she said.

On the other side of the state, Brad Couch at Brucknell, who also chairs cooperative SW Dairy Limited, said the season was “almost a tale of two stories”.

“We got quite wet, the mild winter actually suited us. It was very favourable for the first half of the season, and the second half obviously very dry. As far as our business has gone, it has been average,” he said.

Brad Couch (left) with director of SW Dairy Limited Adam Jenkins. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Brad said the costs of running the farm hasn’t been impacted too much, only that the cost of production has jumped up slightly, but is still well under $5 per kilogram of milk solids.

“We’re very seasonal farmers and I guess self-sufficient. I guess that’s why our costs of production have remained pretty similar year-on-year,” he said.

Brad said the lack of transparency from processors towards farmers is a huge challenge for the industry, with the relationship “no doubt fragmented”, likely stemming from the Murray Goulburn and Fonterra fall out from years ago.

“(There are) special deals going on left, right and centre, and typically your seasonal farmer is at the bottom of that,” he said.

However, he said SWDL’s dealings with local processor ProviCo for the past five years had been fair.

“Ultimately, farmers just want to get treated fairly at the end of the day,” he said.

For Rob Frampton at Gawler, Tasmania, the seasonal aspect of his farming business has kept prices fairly low, amid a wet early spring and a dry autumn.

“Every year is different, we’ve had better ones and worse ones. Because we’re seasonal, we got on pretty well, just used more irrigation,” he said.

Rob Frampton at his farm at Gawler, Tasmania. Picture: Phillip Biggs

A fairly low-cost producer already, Rob said the cost of running his farm hadn’t changed too much and that alongside the season, milk price, regulation and trying to get rid of stock were the main challenges facing the industry at the moment.