Successful farm couple tell how they grew business despite low prices

Operating a successful farm business takes a mindset of controlling what you can and tightly analysing financial and production data for this Dunkeld pair.

Woody and Craig Oliver, Dunkeld.

Running a successful farm that supports a successful farming family is about the nuts and bolts of production decisions, analysed to match the enterprise.

But just as important as a driver of the farm’s success, and the people it supports, is the mindset of the farm’s managers and where they focus their efforts.

On both these fronts, Woody and Craig Oliver approach their superfine Merino enterprise, and the landscape that homes it, with an understated confidence.

When you step onto their Wandobah farm at Dunkeld, just to the south of the Grampians – a highly productive business run on a property that is lauded by environmentalists for the biodiversity it supports – nothing feels forced or rushed.

It all just seems to work.

But that doesn’t mean the Olivers are off-hand in their management – the opposite is true. Science informs each step.

Woody’s grandparents ran the general store in Dunkeld before growing the farming side of the business, which she and Craig took on and grew from her mother and father, Garland (nee Simpson) and John Woodburn.

Woody said her mother was also a passionate farmer and tree grower, a characteristic she clearly inherited.

After school, Woody studied at the University of New England and then worked as an agricultural scientist. Craig was from a farming background in the Riverina and studied at Glenormiston and UNE.

Through the depressed 1990s, they took the “100 per cent necessary” step of both working off farm for about 10 years to sustain enough income as they built, managed the farm succession, growth of their own business and raised two sons, now in their early 20s. Woody worked for the Department of Agriculture and Craig for Pfizer.

FINE LINE

The Olivers built up their holding to 1100ha, running only sheep – 4500 Merino ewes averaging 16 micron for superfine wool production, joining around half the ewes to Alderside Border Leicester rams for first-cross lamb production, on the 650mm annual rainfall property.

Ewes average 4kg a head of “stylish, white and bright wool,” and the September lambing flock scans at about 110 per cent, with 95 per cent marked.

Shearing occurs three times a year, in May, September and February, to produce the optimum fleece and animal welfare.

Having witnessed a 40 per cent fall in wool prices in recent years, the Olivers have concentrated their business management on the production efficiencies they can control on farm.

“Price is not really something we get too worried about, we have good agents who let us know what is going on in the market and they keep us in touch,” Woody said.

“We try not to worry about what we can’t control, be that the weather or the prices.”

MADE TO MEASURE

The Olivers hone their production costs by their involvement in benchmarking. They started off in the South West Farm Monitor program then 15 years ago joined Aggregate Consulting’s benchmarking program.

Craig said this intensive benchmarking and reviewing really forced he and Woody to rigorously assess each measure of their finances and production, in comparison to other farmers in the benchmarking group.

For 20 years they used Petali genetics, using Australian Sheep Breeding Values for selection, with an emphasis on worm resistance and resilience.

After that stud’s owners retired, they moved to bloodlines from another early adopter of ASBVs, Yalgoo at Walcha in NSW.

Two years ago the Olivers did flock genomics profiling on their Merino ewe weaners and now plan to use AI to breed their own rams. Their breeding objectives include a focus on worm resistance (a major labour saving), increasing wool cut and polled characteristics.

Sheep are rotationally grazed at an average annual stocking rate of 13.5 dry sheep equivalents/ha but as country is further developed, Craig estimates this will increase to up to 16 DSE/ha.

GRAZING PLAN

Soils are a diverse mix with a creek running through the farm and pastures are phalaris and sub clover based with some plantain and clovers, as well as brassica fodder and grazing oats crops for first-cross lambs and pasture renovation.

“The phalaris just lasts forever, whereas when we had ryegrass we would only get two or three years out of it,” Woody said. Phalaris pastures also helped avoid a bottleneck of feed demand, utilizing moisture and making paddocks more trafficable during really wet periods.

“We rotationally graze, we did do some block grazing but find rotational grazing our 20ha paddocks with 1500 ewes works best,” Woody said.

The Olivers have invested in setting their farm up to reduce labour costs – laneways connect the small paddocks, and an impressive sheep handler sits in the undercover yards, taking much of the backbreaking toil out of sheep work.

Other than contractors for major events like shearing and crutching, the couple handle the workload themselves, and, although they love dogs, they don’t currently have a sheep dog, finding the sheep calmer and easier to manage.

Grain is supplementary fed, especially red wheat and beans, but no hay is cut or fed with Craig and Woody preferring to protect paddock standing dry matter than to cart it in, having developed a keen eye for visual assessing pasture and moving sheep on before the pasture base is overgrazed.

The Olivers were previously involved in the Bush Broker program where an area of the farm was put into trees and protected, with payments made for 10 years. Along with a very active involvement in the local Panyyabyr Landcare group, Craig said the increased vegetation on the property had a huge benefit to the environment they lived and worked in, as well as stock health and biodiversity.

Woody said they leave fallen timber in the paddocks, under the large, 200-300 year old red gums dotted across the landscape.

She said the timber provided habitat and supported a healthy ecosystem of flora and fauna. “It is a non-European approach,” Craig said.

“We don’t look at the paddock and think we need to go out and clean that all up.” This also protected the tree roots and gave sheep extra shelter.

While the farm’s soil organic carbon levels have “always been high as they are under permanent pasture”, the Olivers can’t see that aiming for carbon neutrality, as a production or marketing tool, will be a priority for them.

With 13 per cent of their farm planted to tree cover, and little diesel or electricity input, Craig said they were still a long way from being emissions neutral.

As yet, there wasn’t a marketing program worth considering changing the business’ goals to make carbon neutrality the aim. “Premiums offered through marketing programs often seem to be elusive,” Craig said.

The Olivers also continue to mules their Merinos, believing the practice produced the best animal welfare outcome, and that there was no significant wool price discount associated.

Woody said while their focus was not trying to guess what climatic or weather patterns might do in future but on building a resilient system that could adapt, and along with it, a headspace that allowed that.

“We have to concentrate on what we can control,” Craig said. “Animal health is a big one and maintaining ewe body weight, which we learnt through the Lifetime Ewe project.”

Looking ahead, the couple said they were open to both or either of their sons Leigh and Lachy one day joining the farm. But for now, it is business as usual. “We are both really enjoying what we get to do every day,” Craig said.

Craig and Woody Oliver, Dunkeld