On the farm - behind the farmgate Archives - Page 11 of 15 - Clover Hill Diaries

Today I am embarrassed to be a Dairy Farmers’ supplier

Today I saw for the first time the new advertising campaign by Lion for their “permeate free” milk and I was devastated

The lowest from of advertising is to denigrate some-one else’s product to sell yours and when I saw this add I was embarrassed to be a Dairy Farmers’ supplier. It would appear from the add the “evil” milk is UHT but the media gives me to think its the “No name or House Brand” fresh milk they are referring to.

This is what happened on our farm the day Dairy Farmers milk went permeate free.

We had to put 25,000 litres of our milk down the drain. This was because Lion didn’t have the capacity to pick our milk up. No explanation just a phone call. “Let it all out”

First it was the 5,000 litre vat.

Then it was the 30,000 litre vat.

It was a 24 hour process to ensure it went onto the paddocks as fertiliser and not into our waterways. The look on the staff’s faces when we had to do this was devastating. Thank god the cows didn’t know.

I just shake my head. My social conscience went into overdrive. 1 billion people go hungry every night and we are asked to tip the perfect food cocktail down the drain.

Curious about Permeate then you can read about it in a former blog post I wrote here or find out more by watching this catchy little vid Dairy Farmers have also kindly put together to keep you informed

Its interesting when Permeate burst onto the scene with great fanfare back in 2008 industry reaction was “no comment” Now its “trendy” and it apparently sells milk to talk about it.

By the way I cant find a dairy farmer who knows the “dairy farmer” in the add so it would appear at this stage he is an actor. Somebody please tell me I a wrong as we certainly don’t need people pretending to be dairy farmers as well

Friend or Foe

In our region almost 90% of prime agricultural land is owned by lifestyle farmers. They represent a major and growing sector in the Australian rural landscape and now play a critical role in the protection of Australia’s natural resources.

Lifestyle farmers have diverse views, drivers and values. Many are new entrants to farming with little or no background in agriculture, and their knowledge of land management and agriculture tends to be poor. Their local knowledge is also limited and they lack the practical or tacit knowledge that larger farmers have such as good agronomic knowledge, identifying soil types and weeds, applying fertilisers or herbicides, building fences, operating machinery or vaccinating cattle.

Growing concern has been raised over the level of knowledge and skills within the lifestyle farm sector, and the ability of these farmers to manage their property in an ecologically sustainable fashion.

Depending on your point of view and who you mix with lifestyle farmers could be viewed as potential threats or possible allies for maintaining healthy, viable landscapes. I tend to mix with the one’s who care about Australia’s natural resources with a fervent passion and take every opportunity to up skill

In our region we are lucky enough to have the unique personality that is Richard Scarborough. Richard is a knowledge hub on all things natural resource management like no other and he takes every opportunity to share his vast expertise with those who want to learn and there are plenty of lifestyle farmers in our region who want to learn.

Richard Scarborough at Clover Hill sharing his knowledge of the pros and cons for planting wildlife corridors.

Richard has drawn this diagram to show us the SMART way to plant trees to achieve the best outcomes for the landscape, the native animals and the farm animals.

In our region Richard on behalf of Landcare Illawarra is conducting the Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest project which means locals have a wide diversity of tree species to pick from. A wide diversity of trees means a variety of food sources for wildlife and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Richard tells me rainforest tress DO NOT need a pioneer canopy and its very important not to use wattles in this capacity. Why you ask? Well wattles are very fast growing and will compete with the rainforest trees for nutrients and water

So if you want to use Eucalypts and wattles Richard says its important to segregate them and create competition free niches for rainforest trees.

If you follow Richard’s clever strategy you will have wattle and eucalypts for farm timber, furniture making and fence posts and superb rainforest trees for eternity.

Here is a tip: Rainforest species will grow faster in response to light competition and its ideal to plant the trees far enough apart to allow slashing with a tractor or ride on mower.

Thanks Richard for sharing. You are a natural treasure

Also check out this video which showcases some other people who are inspiring their neighbours and pooling their skills for the beneift of the natural resource base and the wider catchment

Local knowledge for local problems

Last Saturday we hosted a field day at the farm on behalf of Landcare Illawarra. The event was organised by the delightful Megan Rowlatt from Conservation Volunteers Australia

Megan Rowlatt at the farm

It was a great day. The weather was kind. The experts were all there to share their knowledge and the participants engaged and fun to be with.

Participants were engaged and ready to learn

On the home run – Picasso Corner Laneway

I shared with the participants the challenges, the mistakes and success stories of our journey to enhance and manage our native vegetation alongside improved farm production outcomes

A range of representatives from organisations such as Landcare Illawarra, Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, Conservation Volunteers, Small Farms Network as well as local project officers, bush regeneration officers, and landholders were be on hand to discuss the range of techniques used and the funding available to landholders to help them work with and manage native vegetation on private land. See details below

I am confident the highlight of the day was the waterfall tour which took the participants deep into our untouched and pristine rainforest country to one of our many magnificent waterfalls.

One and a half hours later the hardy participants climbed there way up from the bottom of the rainforest

If you live in my region (Southern Rivers CMA) here is a short blurb on the natural resource management bodies who can help you ensure healthy landscapes and clean waterways on your farm

Landcare Illawarra

Richard Scarborough, delivers the Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest project

Landcare Illawarra is a community-based organisation which helps Illawarra residents living in the 3 local government areas of Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama on the NSW South Coast to get involved in a broad range of environmental activities.

The Landcare Illawarra Management Committee assists groups and individuals involved in environmental activities. Its objectives are to:

Coordinate information and support for groups and the community involved in environmental activities in the region
Support applications for environmental grants
Apply for and direct funds to selected activities
Provide a connecting voice between the community and the Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority
Provide a linkage between state government authorities, local councils and the community

The Landcare Illawarra project officer, Richard Scarborough, delivers the Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest project. Part of his role is providing landholders with a range of advice on native vegetation management, tree planting activities and weed management.

Native tube stock is available to landholders in the region who would like to extend the diversity of rainforest or woodland tracts on their properties free of charge as part of this project thanks to funding from the federal government and SRCMA.

For more information visit www.landcareillawarra.org.au or contact Richard Scarborough on 0438 988 387 or email richardscarbrough@dodo.com.au

Small Farms Network

Andrew Britton from the Small Farms Network

The Network’s primary role is to organise and deliver training/workshops on sustainable land management, including weed control, pasture and livestock management and the deliver of on-ground incentives to landholders on behalf of the Australian Government, Southern Rivers CMA and the Sydney Catchment Authority. Membership exceeds 800 landholders with weekly email updates keeping all landholders informed about a range of training events, funding opportunities and members activities.

The Small Farms Network currently provides support to all rural landholders in the Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama and Shoalhaven Council areas.

For more information visit www.smallfarms.net.au or contact Andrew Britton at abritton@southerncouncils.nsw.gov.au p. 02 4232 3200 m. 0437 134 736

Escarpment to Sea program – Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority

Michael Andrews delivers the Escarpment to the Sea program

This program can offer a number of biodiversity conservation services to landholders within priority corridors or for those with remnant patches of rainforest or woodland vegetation present on their properties. Increasing the connectivity of vegetation, especially at the landscape scale, improves the prospects for sustaining long term biodiversity and helps maintain habitats and protects animals that may be affected by the effects of climate change.

For more information about this program visit http://www.southern.cma.nsw.gov.au/htmleditor/documents/Escarpment%20to%20Sea%20flyer.pdf

Contact Michael Andrews at michael.andrews@cma.nsw.gov.au or 02 4224 9715

Conservation Volunteers Australia

CVA co-ordinators Renae Riviere and Jess Zickar.

Conservation Volunteers recruits volunteers from Australia, New Zealand and around the world to join important environmental and wildlife conservation projects. Founded in 1982, this non-profit organisation has grown to become the largest practical conservation organisation in Australasia with offices in most capital cities and many regional centres across Australia and New Zealand.

In the Illawarra, Conservation Volunteers has supported a number of landholders in the region to carry out a range of restoration activities including weed removal from creek lines, tree planting and fencing activities to improve biodiversity on private land.

For more information about regional projects contact Wollongong regional manager Renae Riviere at rriviere@conservationvolunteers.com.au or call 02 4228 9246 or for more information about Conservation Volunteers visit www.conservationvolunteers.com.au

Where possible these organisations will work in partnership with each other to deliver a range of projects which aim to deliver the best outcomes for the catchment and the wider community.

Some further great info can be accessed in this brochure “Working with Landcare”

Splendour in the Rainforest

Fountaindale Dam is a beautiful area bordering our farm but was sadly suffering from benign neglect and we have taken it upon ourselves to build community partnerships to help rectify this.

Erin Lake with the support of Tay Plain from Clearcut Productions and Ann Burbrook have created this superb video to show you the magnificent outcomes .

It is so rewarding to have played a role in this fantastic project

I documented the journey in an earlier post which I have reproduced here

This important community area covers diverse environmental zones including the headwaters of Fountaindale Creek which flows into Minnamurra River and wetlands.

Red circle indicates area of Fountaindale Dam at Jamberoo

Whilst the dam borders our farm it is actually owned by Kiama Council who built it a long time ago in the hope of supplying Kiama with water. An expensive pipe dream as it turned out.

Lots of farm generations have had fun playing under the dam wall

Above the dam are a number of hobby and lifestyle farms and many small mountain streams which bisect significant areas of high conservation value remnant rainforest feed into the dam. The hobby and lifestyle farms unfortunately in the main don’t fence their cattle out of the waterways and this has led to considerable degradation of the upper stream beds during the drought.

The region is also habitat for the spotted quoll – a beautiful little native animal (which also has a penchance for chooks)

…

Spotted quoll cute and endangered but don’t let him near your chickens

Zieria Granulata is an endangered shrub found only in the Illawarra region of NSW and also thrives here.

With the support of Kiama Council and funding from a Community Action Grant and Erin’s expertise we cleared the invasive evil lantana from the banks of the dam.

Lantana is considered to be one of the ten worst weeds worldwide but it is so entrenched in the Australian landscape its thickets now provide a substitute habitat for a range of animals, including bandicoots, whipbirds, quail, wrens, birdwing butterflies and brush turkeys, where it has replaced the natural understorey vegetation.

Every wise landholder knows removing Lantana is a waste of time unless cleared areas are revegetated with native trees or pasture immediately and regular maintenance is a must until the vegetation is well established.

Once we had cleared the Lantana we sowed ryegrass in the open areas and did spot spraying of secondary weed nasties in the rainforest understory.

We ensure all our paddocks around the dam have a permanent pasture coverage which helps keep the nutrients on the pasture where they should be and not washed into the waterways during major rainfall events.

This weekend Erin and her eco warriors have planted a further 400 rainforest tree species such as Black plum, bleeding heart and myrtle ebony as part of a new wildlife corridor.

Petrol powered plant auger makes light work of digging the holes

We even landscaped the backyard of our friendly neighbourhood wombat

Michael bravely put his hand up to plant all the Giant Stinging Trees (Dendrocnide excelsa)-

The purpose of these plantings is to strengthen the existing wildlife corridor that links the lower rainforest to the rainforest around the dam. Once the trees in the wildlife corridor are established we will be planting rows of native grasses to act as a nutrient buffer zone between the pastures and the dam. This will ensure minimal farm runoff can get into the community waterways and help reduce the nutrient load on the waterways.

All the rainforest trees that have been planted here have been provided by Landcare Illawarra as part of the “Illawarra Rainforest and Woodland project”.

This project aims to increase the genetic diversity of plantings in the Illawarra which has the potential to increase the level of fruiting of individual species. This is an important project as it aims to ensure genetic variability in the many species selected. Landcare Illawarra has collected seed from multiple locations to guarantee this.

Many hands make light work and another great effort from Next Gen Eco Warriors

Well done Erin

Ausagventures Steph Coombes First Day at the Dairy

Our guest post today is from Stephanie Coombes who has come to the rescue in our hour of need. Refer previous post

Posted on June 19, 2012

Hello from Clover Hill Dairies!

Yes, i am in Jamberoo (NSW) working on a dairy farm! Does this girl ever sit still i hear you ask? Clearly not!

My friend and industry mentor Lynne Strong gave me a call last week and said they were a bit short staffed, as her son and daughter in law were on their honeymoon, and seeing as i was due to come to the farm for a workshop in a few weeks, how would i like to come early to work? Well that was that, i jumped on an aeroplane the next morning, and caught the train down to the south coast of NSW.

Paradise. Lynne always says that Mandelyn Holsteins (home of Clover Hill Dairies) is her little piece of paradise and she is not wrong. The farm is superb, lush green rolling hills. natural rainforest, and ocean views. Shame it’s a bit on the cool side (oh Bahrain and your hot weather how i miss you!).

So… my job at the dairy. Lucky girl i am, i get to look after the BABY COWS!1 Yes… BABY COWS! Oh gosh, haven’t i already posted enough videos and blogs about baby cows? Trick question, because the answer is no! You can never post enough about baby animals (I’m planning to go visit some lambs next).

Anyway, so at the farm the babies are looked after from a very young age. Between birth and moving to the grown up (teenagers) paddock, they go in 5 different areas around the farm, which have been designed to cater to their social, health and nutritional needs during the different stages of growth.

First up is the ‘colostrum’ shed, where the iddy biddy little babies go. They are all bottle fed cow milk, including fresh colostrum. Colostrum is the very first milk the cow produces after birth, and it is filled with all sorts of goodies, which give the babies immune system a kick start. It is essential that the babies have the colostrum, as it reduces their chances of getting sick.

After a couple of days they go into the ‘duck’ shed (i have no idea why it is called that!). They have these adorable individual little stalls with heaps of wood shavings to make it all warm and comfortable. They also have see-through walls, so they can see their mates and talk to each other. It is here in the duck shed that the babies are gradually weaned off of cows milk and onto powdered milk. The process takes around 9 days, and is taken in small steps. This isn’t just to get the babies used to the taste of the powdered milk, but to allow the microorganisms in their stomach to adjust to the new formula.

After the duck shed they go into the ‘hay’ shed, where they are still fed powdered milk, but are also introduced to pellets and hay. There are a couple of pens in the hay shed, all in a row, so as they get older they move up the shed. Sort of like a primary school, you move from kindy to the junior block, to the middle block, and then to the senior block.

Now i have to write about this awesome piece of technology that allows the dairy to raise these calves efficiently, without having to spend all day every day hand feeding. It’s an automatic milk feeder that works with the electronic tags in the calves ears. So every calf has a tag, and it is put into the software system. When the calf comes up to the feeder, the machine reads its tag, and knows how much it has had to drink that day, how many times it has come up looking for a feed, how much it drank yesterday, and how aggressive it was during feeding.

Louise show me how to operate the computer and check the data

What is really cool though is that you can go through the computer and see how much every animal has had, so you can pick up if anything is starting to get sick, or needs more help learning how to use the machine etc., because you cant run 24 hour CCTV on the calves!

Robotic Calf Feeder

After the hay shed, the “pre-teen” heifers go out into a grass paddock, where they are supplemented with hay and pellets. Then once they are big enough to have babies, they go out to another paddock to do that (gosh from the size of these babies, i think a human baby doesn’t look so bad now!).

So my job is to feed all the babies each day and make sure they are comfortable and healthy. I love feeding the little little ones, as they can get quite curious and eager to play. They suck on anything and everything, so never wear half decent clothes around them! On my first afternoon i was having a lay down in the pen with them, and they were all crowding around me trying to figure out why i was laying on the floor. I thought it would be funny to let them chew my hair…. so i did. I mean, they were chewing all my clothes too, so what more was a pony tail?…. WRONG. That night as i washed my hair, a good chunk of it fell out in matts! Yuck! They actually chewed my hair off! Now I’m already down half a head of hair from the boat trip, so i couldn’t believe i was losing more!!

Playing with baby dairy calves

Stay tuned for more about life on a dairy farm!

A breath of fresh air

A breath of fresh air blew in from Perth this week in the from of one of Art4agriculture’s Young Farming Champion Steph Coombes who wrote us this very popular blog earlier this year.

Steph’s arrival was celebrated by all the farm team as firstly we are short staffed with Nick and Emma on their honeymoon and secondly she has such a bright bubbly personality and is all smiles just like Louise

On her first day even the sunrise welcomed her in a spectacular way

Which turned into a very misty morning

Steph has never worked on a dairy farm before but she was right into from the start. When she discovered the baby cows as she calls them she was in seventh heaven

And they seem pretty fond of her too.

Steph will be blogging about her time at the farm on this site as well as her own site Ag-ventures of a city girl gone country and we are all looking forward to her Clover Hill Dairies Diary musings

Fruits of the Forest

In partnership with Landcare Illawarra we are opening the farm to members of the community on Saturday June 23rd 2012.

On hand to answer the community’s questions and conduct guided tours will be a range of representatives from organisations we work with such as Landcare Illawarra, Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, Conservation Volunteers, Small Farms Network as well as local project officers, bush regeneration officers, and landholders to give you a guided tour through the property and discuss the range of techniques used in working with native vegetation on private land.

One of those people will be the fountain of all knowledge on The Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest Project Richard Scarborough who was at the farm today to collect seed from our Yellow Ash and found a plethora of fruits of the forest.

On the left we have Native Jaffa, some blue gum seed and some orange thorn, with the yellow ash on the right. At the top of the photo is celery wood seed.

Also on hand will be the gorgeous Erin who has had an integral role in us playing our part to help increase the genetic diversity of plantings in the Illawarra and potentially increase the level of fruiting of individual species.

If you would like to join us please contact Megan Rowlatt at Landcare Illawarra by email communitysupport@conservationvolunteers.com.au or by phone on 02 4229 7526

Farmer Gets a Wife

It was a very big day at the farm yesterday our only son Nick got married to the gorgeous Emma

The Bridal Waltz

So here are my favourite photos from yesterday – Yes I ran around with a camera. It kept me busy and meant I only shed a few tears rather than buckets (thanks to Annie B for the shots in the church)

The official photographer had at least six cameras and a similar size team of photographers and hot chick whose only job was to hold the flash and I am highly confident I will do another post when they arrive. (Forgive me in advance)

Emma entering the church

The back of the gorgeous dress

The bridal party

The Reception

The Cake

The bouquet

Bridesmaid’s Bouquet

Gabby – Emma’s sister

Natalie – Emma’s best friend and Chief Bridesmaid

Mr and Mrs Nick Strong

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Next Gen Heart Throbs

Farm Day Oz comes early in Paradise

Young Farming Champion Heidi Cheney has just landed a new job with Pfizer Animal Health and scored the dairy industry as the key area in which she will work with farmers.

Heidi’s mum and daughter Pippa get an early Farm Day OZ experience at Clover Hill Dairies

So where better to get hands on dairy farming experiences – well Paradise of course.

Autumn tones at Paradise

Heidi grew up on her parents beef and sheep farm but her children Hunter and Pippa are like most kids these days they learn where yoghurt comes from through pages of a book or the TV screen .

Pippa and Hunter just aren’t just yogurt fans, they love cheese and milk

So Heidi took the opportunity to bring Pippa and Hunter and her mum Lynne with her so they could learn first hand where milk comes from. So whilst Heidi worked alongside Nick and Emma to get an inside look at dairy farm and cow management. Pippa and Hunter got friendly with the chooks

First Hunter decided he should collect all the eggs and was eyed off by this rooster

Heidi in the meantime was checking out the dairy

Where she caught up with Emma and they went through our procedures for drenching and vaccinations

Emma has just done an evaluation review of all our procedures with the team to ensure all our information is up to date

She is very pleased that task is almost ticked off

Then it was time for the whole family to see where their milk comes from

Farmer Nick has a soft spot for little kids and enjoys showing them how the dairy works

Then it was off to visit the baby calves and see how the robotic calf feeder works

Pippa and Hunter soon got the hang of it and made great friends with the baby calves

Robotic Calf Feeder mimics the natural experience

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The weather forecast says its going to rain in the next couple of days and so Michael is putting out some nitrogen fertiliser to see if we can get this recently sown pasture to get a wriggle on. Hunter was pretty taken with the really big green tractor.

But then it all got too much and Hunter says its time for a siesta

The sun goes down in the trees.

I enjoyed sharing paradise with Heidi and her family as will many other faming families with their Farm Day OZ visitors this weekend

I am also pretty confident cows will get due credit for the dairy products in the fridge at the Cheney household from now on

Frontbenders or backbenders – Being flexible in an inflexible market place

Contortionists according to wiki “have unusual natural flexibility, which is then enhanced through acrobatic training, or they put themselves through intense, vigorous and painful training to gain this flexibility”.

So how does this relate to dairy farming? Quite a bit in fact! Cows and farmers are living things that ideally should be able to operate in a flexible environment to achieve the best outcomes for their health and wellbeing. However more and more they are both finding themselves operating in a totally inflexible market place and quite a bit of intense vigorous and painful training is going on to help them bend and weave and duck to cope

Let me explain

Dairying systems in Australia are probably as diverse as they get and they depend on a combination of factors which include the best options for the cows, the milk market you supply, where your business is located, and your soil and the types of pastures you can grow, the amount of rain, the temperature range, your access to grains and other bought in feed. I could go on forever.

This diversity of production systems also means a diversity of calving patterns. These include batch calving, seasonal calving, split calving and year round calving

The most common is seasonal production where cows calve during the peak period of pasture availability. This system is used by nearly two-thirds of Australian dairy farms and is most prominent in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia.

Graeme Nicoll who farms in Victoria and writes the excellent blog Montrose Dairy has written a great post about the ins and outs of his seasonal calving pattern here

Most of Australia’s milk production is concentrated in Victoria with the second biggest milk production state being NSW

The second most common production system is year round production. Under this system, calving is spread throughout the year, which means that milk production is stable during the year (or as close as it can be.) This production system is most prominent in areas like ours which supply fresh milk for domestic production.

Hello welcome to my world

We supply two different milk processors (Parmalat and Lion via Dairy Farmers Milk Supply Coop) who both process and supply drinking milk for the Australian domestic market. This means they need a consistent supply of high quality fresh milk close to their processing plants which are invariably located either in or as close to the major capital cities as possible

Producing milk consistently all year round is not as easy as it might sound. It fact it’s damned tricky. Milk production is essentially the conversion of pasture to milk.

The paddock in front of my house was planted with ryegrass and oats 3 weeks ago and its not growing near as fast as it should be

Hopefully we will get a nice drop of rain, a bit of warm weather and it will look like this again shortly

So pasture is the Holy Grail and the best pasture is available in spring and early summer so logically cows produce more milk during this time of the year.

As you can see milk production goes up significantly in Australia in Sept – December

To encourage farmers who supply the domestic market to balance this and achieve a “flat supply curve” i.e. less milk in spring and more milk in the autumn/winter we are paid a higher price for autumn/winter milk for the milk we supply Parmalat

Lion/Dairy Farmers Milk Supply Coop. on the other hand have a two tier system (as Malcolm Fraser said “life wasn’t meant to be easy”)

Tier 1 milk prices are paid on milk supply volumes representing an allocation of what Lion (formerly National Foods) have estimated is their fresh drinking milk requirements (“anticipated full demand” or AFD). That is you are essentially allocated a milk quota

To discourage you (and believe me it’s very discouraging) farmers who supply milk in excess of these contracted Tier 1 volumes attract Tier 2 prices.( which in the main are half the price you get for Tier 1)

For farmers, the pressures arise because they must make investment decisions about the size and composition of their herds and their infrastructure investments more than nine months in advance. Those decisions necessitate a longer term investment horizon and exposure to ongoing fixed costs. Consequently, farmers look to the processors to provide guaranteed cash flows over the farmers’ investment horizons. However, the processors are not able to commit to supply arrangements with farmers until the processors have finalised their contracts for house/private brand volumes with the supermarkets.

The processors are exposed to the risk of significant loss when their milk supply arrangements with farmers extend beyond the term of their house brand contracts. In 2011, Lion claim changes in the configuration of demand for fresh white milk caused them to lose approximately $20 million on its fresh white milk contracts. On top of this Lion lost the Woolworths house/private label supply contract which was a whopping 20% of its milk intake and they have subsequently written down their business by $1 billion, this is on top of a ½ billion dollars write down in the previous financial year. Scary stuff

Milk producers like us contracted to Lion (through direct supply contracts or milk supply co-operative DFMC) currently suffer from the combined effects of a rationalization of Lion’s processing requirements in dairy products (other than fresh milk) and the loss of private label volumes.

Our business is doing the very best it can to listen to the market place and we are focused on changing with the world. We are not unique in this respect.

We have outsourced expertise to help us manage risk and adopt new technology and farming strategies that improve efficiency.

We have found novel ways to grow the businesses and have built strong natural resource management partnerships and have undertaken extensive Landcare projects to adapt to climate variability and build carbon in the soil

We have innovatively grown our business in a peri urban environment where 90% of the prime agricultural land is now owned by lifestyle farmers without large injections of capital through procuring lease land

We are actively working to secure markets for our products by working with the processing sector and supplying the companies that best fit our farming system. That is DFMC/Lion on the home farm and Parmalat on the lease farm.

We are also thinking of hiring a full time physio/chiropractor because the constant balancing act ain’t getting any easier