Kyabram farmer Russell Crow on why he supplies Goulburn Valley Creamery

Kyabram farmer Russell Crow supplies dairy start-up Goulburn Valley Creamery, with the smaller players keeping the big processors accountable.

Hollywood’s Russell Crowe may have starred in A Beautiful Mind — but his dairy farmer namesake reckons he’s the one with a beautiful set of numbers at the farmgate this season.

Kyabram’s Russell Crow has supplied Goulburn Valley Creamery for the past few years and is pleased the start up is offering one of the highest farmgate averages at $9.70 per kilogram milk solids.

Only bested by the top performers supplying Bulla at $9.95 and some longer-term exclusive fresh contracts, GVC was one of the stronger price performers in the farmgate race over June.

Kyabram farmer Russell Crow is a supplier to Goulburn Valley Creamery. Pictures: Zoe Phillips

Processors were mandated to list their opening offers on June 2 but had a full month until July 1 to improve their pricing, under the rules of the federal government’s mandatory dairy code of conduct.

A veteran of three decades in dairy, Mr Crow said farmers were more likely to “shop around” for a better farmgate return rather than stick with the same processor.

“The first supplier meeting I ever went to was Nestle 30 years ago,” he said. “It wasn’t a great welcome - that year, Nestle were dropping the price and lots of farmers were jumping up and down. The Nestle representative didn’t care, he said ‘that’s the price, if you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else.’

Kyabram farmer Russell Crow is a supplier to Goulburn Valley Creamery.

“That’s the lesson I learned all those years ago, you can go somewhere else and I’ve supplied five or six different processors, some that are still around, others no longer here.

“We’re supplying Goulburn Valley Creamery because they’re giving it a crack, they want more supply and they’ve kept competitive on price.

“Some of the other processors don’t want to be as competitive and that’s fine but more farmers are likely to vote with their feet and go elsewhere.”

The Crow family milk 240 cattle, scaling back from a peak of 600 last decade in order to diversify into the egg industry. The Kyabram farm is now also home to between 6000 and 8000 chickens.

“Diversifying has been great for us, spreads the financial risk and with drought years like this one, it’s been good not to have all your eggs in one basket, which is a good phrase when you’re in the egg industry!”