NSW dairy farmer James McCrae on reducing waste to boost profit

Boosting profitability in dairy requires several different money-making methods, NSW farmer James McCrae says. See what innovations he has made on his Barrington farm.

‘Spending money to make money’ is an age-old maxim of many in business — but James McRae says that’s only part of the dairy dollar story.

The NSW dairy farmer says a number of innovations on his property at Barrington, near Gloucester, had boosted productivity while improving the farm’s environmental credentials.

Alongside his wife, Lauren, James oversees a 184ha enterprise with his father Chris working in a 50:50 partnership.

The family supplies milk to Norco, milking more than 100 cattle with 120 lactations a year and year-round calving.

“Ten years ago, Dad and I sat down and worked out some broader triple-bottom line goals — that’s planet, profit and people,” James says.

“Reducing waste has long been a goal of ours. It can really boost dairy profitability — you spend a bit to make a bit more.

“It all started with Dad, he started planting trees 40 years ago when he noticed erosion of a number of the gullies around the farm. That’s what sparked Dad’s interest in conservation, working with Landcare in the 1980s and 90s, planting a variety of native trees.”

Barrington NSW farmer James McRae.

In more recent years, the McRaes have installed a 24kw solar system, established a dairy solid trap with the resulting mass used as fertiliser as well as undertaken a stewardship agreement with the Biosecurity Conservation Trust for 60ha of forest on farm.

“We recently installed 22 kilowatt electric effluent pump which runs through the day,” James says. “That solar system effectively offsets that energy usage whereas before, we were running a PTO (power take off) diesel powered pump for the effluent, which was pretty inefficient when it comes to emissions.

“So every time we make an investment, we think ‘how can we utilise the energy we’re already producing’ and ‘how can we off-set that with an electric device’ rather than a diesel powered device.”

Examining the government and private conservation opportunities available to agriculture, particularly dairy, has been a focus of the McRaes for the past decade.

“Most of our large investments in terms of emissions reductions are grant funded,” James says. “The effluent pump was funded by an Australia-wide, federal grant to replace inefficient on-farm equipment with energy efficient equipment.

“With tree planting on the farm, we’ve had council assistance and there’s also funding available at federal level. My recommendation to any dairy farmer is to do your research on the grants out there — there are a lot of opportunities out there for conservation, which is a win-win for the environment as well as the profitability on your farm.”