Today Young Farming Champion Jess Monteith and I went to visit her friends Tim and Natalie Cochrane. You can read an earlier post about Jess here
Jess wasn’t born on a farm but after meeting people like Nat and Tim who own a dairy farm at Terara just north of Nowra and helping them show cattle she fell in love with all things dairy . Jess’ little herd of registered Holstein and Illawarra cows now live at Tim and Natalie’s property with each new drop of calves helping set up a future for Jess to start providing milk for lots of Australian families just like her friends.
The visit today was to get some more photos for Jess’ Archibull Prize in school presentation. Jess is being sponsored by Paul’s Milk and will visit Caroline Chisholm College at Glenmore Park in her role as a Young Farming Champion.
Jess and her favourite cow Eve
I was struck today by all these young people full of hope for a bright future in the dairy industry not just Jess but Tim and Nat who have two small children
Tim and Nat milk four hundred cows. Generations of farming families and cow families make them and their cows the team they are today
The next generation wait their turn to join the herd
Everybody waiting and wondering if there will even be any dairy cows let alone farming families on the flats at Terara if the crippling milk price wars don’t stop soon.
Jess’ favourite cow Eve on the day she was born
People in the dairy industry have a very close relationship with their cows. The nature of the industry means husbands and wives work side by side and often their children join them in the dairy.
This photo says it all
Dairy farming today is technology rich and phenomenal efficiency gains mean we can produce 60% more milk from 50% less cows than we did 50 years. They tells us if we do x,y, and z we can achieve further efficiency gains and maybe even survive this senseless round of milk price discounting being conducted by Coles.
But we can only work so many hours a week, what we need is smart young people like Jess working in agriculture and we need a milk supply chain culture that values people
The dairy industry needs to be able to invest in our young people and nurture them. Tell me Coles how we do that on milk that is being valued at 15c/litre.
Help the dairy industry invest in Jess’ future Coles. You can do this. Its easy
STOP USING MILK AS A LOSS LEADER
