Meet the 20-year-old starting his own dairy herd

Tom Hooper will be the first generation in his immediate family to begin farming. He bought 12 dairy calves and has plans to milk 1200.

A 20-year-old Nar Nar Goon North farmer has started building his own dairy herd with just 16 calves.

Tom Hooper has worked in the dairy industry for two years, and is on his way to his dream of sharefarming after completing the 2025 Proud to be a Dairy Farmer program.

“I want a well-run farm that’s well-regarded. Something I can be proud of and people can look at it as a bit of a role model to what they can do if they have a crack,” he said.

“If you want something bad enough, you’ll get it, you can make it happen.”

Tom Hooper is a young farmer at Yannathan.

Tom grew up at Upper Beaconsfield and would visit a relatives’ farm at Linton during his school holidays, where he said he “caught the bug” for agriculture.

He will be the first generation to farm in his immediate family.

“I decided I wanted to do it for a career and give it a go, so I wondered how to get ahead,” he said.

Tom started working at a dairy farm while he completed his high school studies, before he did two harvests in the Mallee, and worked on a celery farm.

He said he loved the day-to-day work in dairy, and was an assistant manager at a Yannathan dairy and reared his 16 calves in his spare time to build his herd.

“I really like animals. All of my calves are pets,” he said.

“It gives me an opportunity to apply what I’ve learnt from work, and give me a bit of independence as well.”

Tom said he hoped to begin sharefarming in 2026, with a long-term goal of milking 1200 cows and understanding more about finance.

“[I want to do] the preliminary look into looking at equity and how much you can borrow, and starting to think about how to go about borrowing money,” he said.

“I hate gardening, but I love knowing how to grow grass and graze grass. The first farmer I worked for said to me we aren’t dairy farmers, we’re grass farmers, and I think that’s very true.

“You can have the best cows in the world, but if you don’t have any grass, you can’t make any money.”

Tom Hooper has worked in dairy for two years and started his own herd at Nar Nar Goon North, with 16 dairy calves to build his own dairy.

He hoped emerging farmers would feel confident to make their own decisions.

“Something I’ve struggled with is backing my own decisions,” Tom said.

“Make sure you back yourself and trust yourself, having trust that whatever decision you make will be the right one.”