Glen and his brother Drew manage the family dairy business their dad started over 50 years ago near Cohuna.
Back then, dad Ross milked 180 spring calving cows on 200 acres while mum Jeanette worked as a nurse at the Cohuna Hospital.
Today the business has grown to encompass 1600 head of cattle managed across 1000 acres and includes a milking herd of 850 cows producing close to 10 million litres of milk annually.
Glen and Drew employ eight full-time staff while supporting 27 local businesses.
Three years ago, the family invested significantly in infrastructure to build a sand bedded freestall barn.
This decision was based on two things — cow comfort and water efficiency.
“Our cows live in a luxury five-star hotel with a feed alley cleaned out every morning and a fresh total mixed ration so the buffet never runs out,” Glen said.
The sand beds are raked and cleaned twice a day, with fresh sand added twice a week.
The cows are kept comfortable by 65, 72-inch fans throughout the barn and a climate controlled sprinkler line — there is no mud, no heat stress, no extreme weather conditions and no competition for food.
Building the freestall barn has importantly improved water efficiency.
“Thirty years ago, the focus was on how much dry matter you could grow per hectare, while today we calculate how much dry matter we can grow per megalitre of water, because access to affordable irrigation water is our most limiting factor,” Glen said.
“Moving to a housed system has enabled us to change the crops we grow.”
Prior to the barn the milking cows were grazed on annual ryegrass using around 5Ml/ha to grow around 10t dry matter. Today across the same hectares, they grow 25t of corn over summer and 5t of vetch through winter using 8Ml, producing 3.75t of fodder per megalitre of water used.
“Since the implementation of the basin plan, water has left our district at an alarming rate and taken many of our smaller dairy businesses with it,” Glen said.
At its peak the Murray dairy region produced 3.1 billion litres of milk. Now it is down to around 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion litres.
In 2012 the Torrumbarry irrigation district used 420Gl of productive water and 15Gl for the environment — today the productive use has more than halved while the environment now uses over 100Gl.
“If we can’t produce affordable milk, eight people will be without full-time jobs, 27 businesses will be directly impacted and the money which flows from our business through the community every single year will evaporate, because there is no other industry that can replace what we do,” Glen told the members of parliament in attendance.
“And we are just one farm.
“When we have water, northern Victoria is the best place to milk cows; when we don’t, it’s awfully tough.
“We have invested significantly in our business to ensure we are efficient and sustainable but we are worried about what the future holds for us and our community.
“Australia should be supporting our dairy industry and staple food production, not tearing it down.”
Glen said growing up on the family farm in the 1990s was a much simpler time.
“We grew up helping Dad on the farm, feeding calves and helping with chores before and after school,” he said.
“We had green grass every day of the year and Dad grew summer pasture for the cows.
“We had a standard water allocation of between 150 and 200 per cent and in winter, Dad would dry the cows off and we would all go on a family holiday.
“Now we milk every day of the year, and getting away becomes harder and harder every year.”
