Neil has joined Genetics Australia as a beef and dairy breeding consultant after a ruptured disc in his back curtailed his ability to farm.
While Neil and his wife Simone continue to oversee their dairy farm, he can no longer milk or do heavy work.
However, he has taken on a job with Genetics Australia that returns him to his main love of farming – breeding.
“Being a farmer, we always want to do something,” he said.
“Sitting home and doing nothing doesn’t help my recovery. The best thing I can do is go down the paddock and see what has to be done, organise the staff and then come home and get on the phone and do something positive to help the beef and dairy industries to move forward with genetics.”
The newly created position means Neil will get to reconnect with contacts he amassed over his decades working with the dairy and beef industries.
Neil grew up on a dairy farm, but spent his teenage years to his mid-20s breeding Limousin cattle and a total of 22 years selling cattle semen.
“On leaving school I returned to my parents’ property where I started my own Limousin stud, Riverlea,” Neil said.
Seeing a gap in the market and having confidence in his capability to select suitable genetics, he started his own company Riverlea Advanced Genetics at age 17 and began sourcing, importing and marketing Limousin semen.
He later returned to dairy and Neil and Simone, who is currently in her second three-year term with Dairy Australia as a non-executive director, have had their own stud herd, Currajugle Holsteins for 24 years.
They started out as sharefarmers and have owned their 283-ha farm since 2008.
They currently milk 320 cows in a year-round calving system. Having commissioned a barn 14 months ago, they are on a growth trajectory towards 400 cows and robotic milking.
During his time with the Currajugle stud, Neil has bred and sold dairy herd bulls commercially as well as a number of bulls into the AI industry.
While he still loves farming, Neil’s future was under a cloud when he ruptured a disc in his back two years ago in an on-farm injury lifting bags of fertiliser.
The injury hurt, but “being a farmer, you grunt through it,” Neil said.
“It hurt at the time, and then it never went away. Two months later, I was making some hay feeders and rolling them around; the next day I couldn’t get out of bed.”
Neil had four weeks on the lounge before surgery and recovery has been very slow.
He won’t get back to milking cows, but at age 52, the thought of leaving farming never crossed his mind.
“My Dad sat with me to watch some TV and said I could sell the farm and buy rental properties and live off them. I said `that’s not on the horizon, Dad’.”
Neil is now up and about, though still somewhat restricted.
“I’m still strong,” he said.
“The frustrating part is that I could pick up a 20-kilo bag off a bench and move it, but I couldn’t pick it up off the ground.”
But one setback can lead to an opportunity.
“I still love the farm life and breeding cattle,” Neil said.
“Breeding has always been my favourite part of farming and I’m basically back to what I was doing.”
Neil and Simone have three full-time employees responsible for day-to-day farm operations so he has plenty of time to pursue his new Genetics Australia role.
“I’m looking forward to getting out there and talking to my old networks from years gone by and helping the beef and dairy industries to move forward with genetics,” he said.
Neil believes genetics and genomics will be the cornerstone to growth for both dairy and beef industries.
“They will play a huge role in the future. In the dairy side, genomics are everything and they are coming into beef. Not everyone agrees with the data, but the trends are being backed so much by reliable science that is showing they are correct.
“The early adopters of genomics in beef will be way in front.”
While Neil will work mainly across NSW, he will also follow his networks Australia-wide.
“This is what I used to do because it interested me,” he said.
“It’s like a hobby as much as work, but we have something positive to offer.
“Genetics Australia has been at the forefront of genomic technology and has a strong team of beef and dairy bulls and the joint venture with URUS also enables us to bring in top-quality genetics that makes the GA line up second to none.”
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