I suspect our cows had a few opinions about the whole business too. Lots to think about on the hill at Clover Hill
I’ve spent the past few months researching the history of dairy co-operatives, particularly the Jamberoo Dairy Factory and the organisations that eventually became Australian Co-operative Foods.
Jan Todd’s Milk for the Metropolis, published in 1994, has been a fascinating resource. Towards the end of the book, Todd describes how Australian Co-operative Foods (ACF) was preparing for an increasingly competitive market. By 1993, its directors were examining the financial and organisational changes required to operate in a deregulated environment.
Reading about those preparations more than thirty years later has brought back memories of what happened on our own dairy farm.
Farmers knew deregulation was coming. The arguments had been going on for years, and many were determined to fight it. The partners on our farm certainly were. They had invested their lives and their money in a business that operated within a regulated system, and they saw little reason to welcome changes that threatened their livelihood.
Did change happen with farmers or around them?
Farmers are well know to err on the conservative, particularly when it comes to decisions that affect their financial security. Yet some of the most innovative and resourceful people I’ve known have been farmers. Give them an opportunity they understand, and they’ll find extraordinary ways to pursue it.
That contradiction interests me because it says something about how we approach change in agriculture.
For decades, governments regulated the marketing of milk. They established prices for drinking milk and determined which producers could supply particular markets. Farmers borrowed money, invested in infrastructure, built dairy herds and planned their businesses around those arrangements.
The prospect of deregulation challenged many of the assumptions on which those decisions had been made.
By the early 1990s, the industry’s major organisations were examining what deregulation would mean for their operations. There were consultants, feasibility studies, financial projections, merger discussions and proposals for new ownership arrangements.
Todd’s account shows how seriously Australian Co-operative Foods was examining its future. The directors understood that changes in regulation, competition and access to capital would have significant consequences for the business.
I’d love to know how those conversations translated into preparation on individual dairy farms.
The partners on our farm spent a great deal of energy opposing deregulation. Looking back, I wonder what might have happened if someone had helped us devote some of that energy to examining the possible outcomes and deciding how we wanted to respond.
What would our financial position look like without regulated milk prices? Could we reduce production costs? Would increasing herd size improve profitability, or expose us to greater financial risk? What other options were available? What information would help us make those decisions?
These were conversations that deserved time, independent advice and the opportunity to explore different scenarios with people who understood the realities of running a dairy farm.
A dairy farmer cannot change direction as quickly as a government can change policy. Milking sheds, machinery, farm improvements and livestock represent substantial investments. Loans have to be serviced. Families have to live. Decisions about breeding, infrastructure and production can have consequences for many years.
I wonder how much attention agricultural leaders gave to understanding the people they were asking to adapt.
When farmers resist change, it helps to understand what concerns them. Sometimes they have good reasons. Sometimes their assumptions deserve challenging. Sometimes they have spent so long defending the arrangements they know that they have had little opportunity to imagine an alternative.
That is where leadership and engagement become so important.
I have spent much of my professional life bringing people together to explore difficult questions, and I have seen what happens when they are given the opportunity to contribute rather than being presented with decisions that have already been made.
People bring knowledge that rarely appears in a consultant’s report. They understand their own circumstances, their communities and the practical consequences of decisions. They also bring fears, frustrations, prejudices and assumptions. All of those belong in the conversation.
The seven years between the planning Todd describes in 1993 and dairy deregulation on 1 July 2000 provide an interesting period to exam
Dear readers
When dairy deregulation arrived on 1 July 2000, NSW farmgate milk prices fell from around 37 cents a litre to approximately 28 cents (Note these figures are industry averages). A reduction of almost a quarter. Add a drought to that equation and you have a pretty powerful incentive to reconsider how you run a dairy farm.
And reconsider we did!
We went from milking 80 cows twice a day to 400, three times a day. We leased another farm, hired a consultant, conducted research trials with Sydney University, attended conferences and made some enormous changes to the way we operated.
For a farming family whose partners had fought deregulation, we certainly became enthusiastic students of change once it was upon us.
I suspect our cows had a few opinions about the whole business too. Particularly the three-times-a-day milking.