Thought Leadership and Opinion Archives - Page 35 of 35 - Clover Hill Diaries

Russian latte–opening the farmgate has many advantages

We have been opening our farm gate to international delegations for over ten years.

There is no denying hosting visitors to your farm is a lot of work. It can also be very rewarding and enlightening

I grew up a country town in NSW. I met the first person who couldn’t speak English when I was ten. I was fascinated by the new girl at our school who was Italian and didn’t speak one word of English. How brave was she. We didn’t mean to but I am pretty sure we all made her feel like an alien.

I learnt French at school so was very comfortable travelling to France when I went overseas but I must admit sadly I have favoured visits to overseas countries where the majority of people speak English.

So hosting delegations of farmers who speak no English is quite an eye opening learning experience. Whilst they always come with a translator invariably the translator knows little about farming.

Dimitry the translator knew little about farming but he made up for that with lots of personality and good humour

The farmers always take lots of notes

take hundred of pictures

not only video cameras but and Ipads as well

and ask a lot of questions

and like all farmers love big pieces of machinery

and love to share their farming stories and this weeks visitors from Russia were no different.

Our consultant Dr Neil Moss was on hand to explain the technical details

Come to think of it I don’t think I have meet a Russian before and these farmers where so Russian. Why was I so flabbergasted when the bottles of vodka were bought out for morning team

There was vodka for the Russian Lattes

Straight vodka and vodka on the rocks

Russian and Aussie icons go down well together

This Russian delegation was from the Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) region and they were very proud of their heritage presenting me with a replica of the famous Motherland Calls statue.

The history of this statue is fascinating. Briefly in 1967, the Soviet Union dedicated a towering monument to one of its great World War II triumphs. The Motherland Calls stands 170 ft., hoisting a sword to the sky that measures another 108 ft. 200 steps lead to the base of the statue to commemorate the 200 day battle of Stalingrad where the Red Army broke a German siege, only to surround and defeat the invading army. Motherland is not fixed to her base, though, and seeping groundwater has caused the plinth to lean nearly eight inches.

I also received a bottle of Russia’s finest and I have since had a few Cosmopolitans to remind me of our new Russian friends

салют

Two way conversations are the key

As anyone who knows me will tell you I have very strong opinions about the way forward for sustainable agriculture.

Today my post reflects on the importance of both talking and listening.

Sadly Australia is complacent about the challenges to food security. There is a lack of appreciation by society in general of the interdependence of environment, agriculture, food and health.

However if we are to progress and fuel the mushrooming food needs of the cities while meeting the community’s expectations for environmental sustainability and animal well being, then both rural and urban communities must have greater mutual empathy and respect.

This I believe is the real challenge facing farmers in the immediate future – how do we fix it?

As I see it we can do one of two things

We (farmers) can sit back and lament that we are victims or we can actively acknowledge that farmers are business people selling a product and successful businesses recognise marketing is the strategic part of doing business.

Marketing doesn’t mean every farmer needs to write a blog, join Twitter or Facebook it simply means being customer focused. This means you have to understand your customer and their values and your business has to BE the image you want your customer to see.

Every sector of the food system whether that be farmers, manufactures, branded food companies, supermarkets or restaurants is under ever increasing pressure to demonstrate they are operating in a way that is consistent with stakeholder values and expectations. Farmers cannot expect to be exempted from this scrutiny just because we grow the food.

Businesses are built on relationships. This means we (farmers) have to get out there in our communities and start having two way conversations with our customers

Excitingly I know that once farmers embrace the concept they will discover like me that it can be very rewarding talking to your customers. They are interested and they do care.

There are so many ways farmers can share their stories. This one is very quirky and I just love it. Check it out you will too

Cobargo Dairy Farmer Stephanie Tarlinton shares her story via YouTube

When humans interfere with nature

As part of my Christmas at the Dairy post I mentioned we made the choice of interfering with nature by choosing to artificially hatch out a clutch of eggs two of our chooks decided they were no longer going to sit on after the first four chickens were born

New life – Four healthy chickens and 17 eggs still to hatch out ( Hen on the left is a Peking and hen on the right is a Silky)

Broody chooks will not only sit on their own eggs but also tend to gather other chooks eggs over the next 21 days. So when the original clutch of eggs hatch the chooks have to make the decision to look after the live ones or continue to sit on the remaining eggs until they hatch and hope the live ones can look after themselves.

Not surprisingly they chose life over potential life – sounds pragmatic to me

However humans have the capacity to help them do both and being big softies Michael and I chose this option.

Chicken eggs in incubator

Its pretty simple to do and very rewarding bringing new chickens into the world

Once they hatch they stay 24 hours in the incubator and then we move them to their next home

We use a plastic container like this and cover the bottom with pine shavings or in this case rice hulls

We supply them with fresh water and chick starter

and a light to keep them warm

Then we have to make the big decision as to when is the best time to give them back to their mums

By this time you are getting pretty attached and you tend to keep putting it off and putting it off

So by now the 2nd batch ( they are still hatching) are almost two weeks old and it was now or never

So we decided to put the first 5 out on dusk just as mothers and the chickens they were looking after had gone to bed.

We were very excited as you can see we managed to tuck “our” chickens under their mums with their brothers and sisters (B&S)

But it was a different thing next morning. The mums and B&S went off and did their own thing and left “our” chickens to their own devices.

But we are so proud of our offspring. They are resilient little champions. They have embraced the “chook palace” like they were born there.

Our cows are just fascinated by chooks

They have figured out how to get fed

and watered

They have gone on some big adventures

Climbed a rock face

In the meantime they are are not being completely ignored by their mothers and B&S who have walked by many times.

and are now staying very close by

With the silky chook keeping a very close eye on their activities. Tomorrow is another day and I wouldn’t be surprised if this silky chook has new family

In the meantime another chicken has hatched in the incubator !!!!!!

The humans should get their act together and collect the eggs more regularly and we wouldn’t need to play mums to other animal’s children would we??

Touching moments

Yesterday Michael and I went to get the cows in for the midday milking and I captured these touching moments between one of our cows and the next door neighbour’s horses

A little banter over the fence

Com’on girl time to go home for milking – OOh cant she stay

Not listening?

Kiss goodbye

Long forlorn looks

Till next time

Christmas at the dairy

It always amuses me when people assume the cows get a day off for Christmas. Do breast feeding mothers get Xmas off? I don’t think so.

After all when you take on the responsibility of caring for other living things whether they be animals or children it is 365 and 24/7.

No-one is complaining at Clover Hill – though Michael is not quite sure how he scored the midday shift at the home farm but then that still leaves 21 hours to celebrate.

On our farm Louise coordinates the Xmas cheer.

Louise is just one of those people everybody loves having on their team. Louise brings the festive spirit to the dairy like no other

For the babies she looks after

and this one just 4 hours old

for Sean

for Martin

There is also rumour Louise has pictures of Michael and Nick with antlers on. They are yet to surface but rest assured I am on working on it. WATCH THIS SPACE

The girls waiting to be milked think all of these hijinks are highly amusing.

Though they are a bit jealous when they find out Louise has Antlers for Eileen but not for all of them!!

But then Eileen’s face is adorable and lends itself to superb photo opps don’t you think?

Princess Eileen

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Its not all play and no work. The babies still get fed and weighed to make sure we are taking just as good care of them as their mums do.

The Calf Crèche

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and back at the Chook pen new life has arrived for Christmas

But the girls got off the eggs before they had all hatched. So the farmers took over from nature and bought a few more into world

Which we will give back to their mums in a few days

Craig saved Christmas for our next neighbour by finding and fixing her broken water pipe

Michael said thanks Craig with a few beers.

The grain arrives and gets unloaded and Col is still trying to find out why all the parts haven’t arrived from NZ to install the new 30,000 milk vat. OMG Can you believe someone can put a vat this size on a ship and let it sail it across the ocean and left all the other bits that make it work sitting on the dock which now all have to be put on a plane and flown over. All that CO2

There is always so much happening

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And what do you know? Its dawn and its all happening again.

The girls say “Do we really have to go down that big hill this morning?

Such a big hill!

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and Nick and Sean bring the springers (cows calving in the next 3 weeks) home

And next thing you know the girls are back in the dairy waiting patiently to be milked.

Sean’s on the job

365 24/7 can be very rewarding

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Wouldn’t give it up for quits.

Mary says I’m fabulous let me show you how

When we called this cow Mandelyn Fabulous Mary this wasn’t quite what we had in mind as her claim to fame.

Hello World, Welcome to my world

My name is Lynne Strong and I am a woman with many, many hats. Some I wear better than others I readily admit.

The one I wear most proudly though is my farmer hat. I will be the first to admit it isn’t a hat that I saw myself wearing as a little girl.

I grew up on a farm and even though I enjoyed being hands on in the day to day running of the farm and the lifestyle that comes with it the idea of being a farmer was most definitely not on my list of top 10 professions.

I farm today because the people I most care about in the world farm and they are in it for the long haul.

Farming today is no walk in the park. Feeding, clothing and housing the world now and in the next 50 years is going to require an extraordinary effort. This means we need extraordinary people to take up the challenge. My husband Michael, my son Nick and our farm team (and our cows) have put their hands up to take on the challenge and I want to work side by side with these extraordinary people.

So why write a blog. Well my family have been farming in the Jamberoo Valley on the South Coast of New South Wales since 1831 (and in Ireland and Scotland probably for centuries before that). That is 7 generations of farming families and 180 years of blood sweat, tears, passion and commitment that have gone into what is now producing milk for 50,000 Australians everyday

That’s 180 years of great stories waiting to be told. And I knew from my interactions with our friends and neighbours that the community wanted to hear those stories.

They just needed the right vehicle. So Art4Agriculture was conceived and Art4Agriculuture has its own entire wardrobe of hats.

But people keep telling me there was still a gap missing, we need more farmers to share their stories to help provide the community with real farmers they can relate to.

Writing a blog is indeed a great way to open the door to our farms, share our ups and downs, the frustrations and challenges, the passion and commitment but most of all show the community that the faith they have in Australian farm produce is warranted.

I am writing this blog to join other inspiring farmers who are opening thier farmgates and help inspire other farming men and women to share their stories. To help show them the community does love farmers, that they do want to hear our stories but they maybe a bit concerned about modern farming practices and whether the way we farm today fits into their rural idyll.

Lets not forget farmers are people and not all people are perfect but there is a whole nation of Australian farmers who get up everyday and say “today I want to move one step closer to being being a perfect farmer”.

What is the definition of perfect farming? That’s the challenge – that’s the two way conversation I would like to have with my readers.

I will put this one out there as a definition this morning “We believe that responsible farming is not only about ‘doing the right thing’ but makes sense – for our animals, our landscape, our people and our communities”.

So lets start the conversation I invite my readers to write me a mission statement for their “perfect” farm