Twenty. Twenty Jersey cows. That’s all it took for a Queensland family to take an enormous leap of faith and believe their dairy farm could stand alone as a place of independent produce and experiences.
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And in late February their commitment was rewarded, with Kay and Dave Tommerup winning the Australian Farmer of the Year Awards Innovation category.
The sixth generation dairy farm, in the Kerry Valley in Queensland’s Scenic Rim, has turned its back on mass production, generic flavours and big-player supply chains.
Instead, they mix innovative farm practices with old-fashioned passion and a genuine love of the land and their animals, to create a rural haven.
“The focus of everything we do and every experience we offer, is our dairy, our farm and our desire to build a farm business that can be taken on by our children, and their children on this beautiful property that’s been farmed by Dave’s family since 1874,” Kay said, who now sits on the boards of eastAUSmilk and the Queensland Farmers Federation.
“We’ve gone from a dairy farm being propped up by tourism dollars, to a dairy farm leveraging the benefits of agritourism to add higher value to our farm product and now we have a legacy for future generations.”
Kay and Dave made the bold decision to leave milk processor Norco in January 2021 after establishing their own Tommerup’s Jersey Girl line of boutique dairy products in 2019. They had been supplying Norco since 1984, when the company took over the former Logan and Albert Co-Op.
“Like so many others, our journey into agritourism came as a survival tactic for the farm,” Kay said.
“With three generations living on the family property, and Dave and I having just started our own family, dairy deregulation in 2000 came at us like a freight train.
“The dairy should have closed — the numbers told us so. But numbers can’t beat passion, or respect for family and tradition.
“Five generations have milked cows on our beautiful farm, every single day in the same dairy for over 100 years.
“For Dave, giving up that tradition wasn’t an option, no matter what the numbers said. Dairy farming is not his job, it’s who he is, and it’s who our family is.
“Luckily, farmers are masters of taking something they have and moulding it into something they need.
“There are few things that can’t be fixed with a bit of baling twine or fencing wire. Fixing this problem, however, was going to take more than twine.”
Dave said change wasn’t easy for him.
“There are so many family traditions linked to everything I do. Leaving Norco was a difficult decision, but it was the right one,” he said.
“Most farmers are highly innovative, they have to be to survive. It’s a matter of whether they have the financial resources, knowledge and confidence to get where they want to be.”
Six long years after deregulation, Dave and Kay took over the family farm. It was at rock bottom.
“All savings were gone; the maintenance and capital investment had been non-existent since deregulation,” Kay said.
“We not only had to find a new income stream to combat the ridiculously low milk prices, we had to rebuild.
“I wasn’t born in the region, so had relatively new eyes and could see the beauty and uniqueness of life on our farm, often taken for granted by those who’ve only known this life.
“For many farmers, the idea that their daily life could be interesting to visitors is ... quite a stretch.
“When your confidence is diminished from years of being ‘just a farmer’ and at the bottom of the supply chain, it’s hard to realise that what you do has worth to others.”
In 2008, Kay and Dave opened the farm to a little camping, animal feeding tours and school excursions.
“Scenic Rim Regional Council saw potential in our ideas and we joined their business development program.
“Our teacher was none other than the godmother of agritourism herself, Rose Wright. This changed our lives.”
Now Tommerup’s Dairy Farm has key strategic pillars — the dairy, farm stays, meat sales and farm experiences — and they are passionate and highly focused about the future.
Their farm stay includes The Cottage and The Homestead, both built in 1888 and steeped in family history. They are both booked well into the future with cancellations snapped up within hours.
“In the eyes of our guests, our farm is their farm; it’s a genuine place to connect with the land and the farmers, to with where their food comes from, and to make lifelong memories,” Kay said.
School group excursions are a particular passion of Kay’s.
“We’re creating a connection that will shape their future opinions and consumer choices.
“And perhaps, they might just see something that draws them to a career in agriculture — bringing a new generation of enthusiastic, passionate people to our industry.”
During the recent drought, when another round of dairies shut down, Kay and Dave dug in, dropped their herd numbers to focus on quality, and launched their Jersey Girl brand.
As Kay speaks about the milk, cream, butter, milk-fed pork and rose veal they produce, her eyes light up even more.
Because as a micro-dairy, they shouldn’t be surviving — but because of their passion, and support from chefs and customers, they are.
“We now process all of our own milk and cream within a micro, on-farm creamery — an investment funded by the success of our farm tourism,” Kay said.
“We separate the cream in our century-old dairy with an Alfa Laval separator of the same vintage.
“The skim milk is fed to our pigs, and the cream is processed into our award-winning artisan dairy products, including our handmade cultured butter and the long-awaited Farmer Dave’s cream top Jersey milk.
“Every part of the process is done by us, here. Our products are boutique, extraordinary, and command a premium price.”
There’s no wastage on the farm, and the animals are rotated around the farm to have a positive impact on the land.
“Whilst we do have a farm gate, most of our dairy, pork and veal products are supplied to high-end restaurants in Brisbane,” Kay said.
“These chefs have become part of our family. They know us, our farm and our ethics intimately. Our farm, our story and our produce is respected and showcased across their menus.
“It’s really important that we encourage other farmers who might be thinking, ‘we can’t keep doing this’, that we let them know there are other ways to do it.
“When a higher value is placed on products coming from farmers choosing a regenerative journey, it allows more resources to be allocated to those regenerative practices and helps us to continue down that path.
“The whole story — from raising calves right through to working with chefs, schools, visionaries and the organisations creating policy for the future — means our role is more than producing products that taste great.
“We are moving the dial for the future.”
And then Dave said something that makes the penny drop.
“Without diversification, we wouldn’t have a legacy to pass on to our kids,” he said.
“They now want to be a part of our business, and the sense of pride this gives me is indescribable.
“I know the history, the stories, the passion, the bloodlines and the farming craft will live on. The life will continue.”
Back to the 20 Jersey cows.
They all have names — Martina, Brenda, Susie, Tali, Ruby, Sugarloaf, Friday, Rose, Muriel, Margie and more. And yes, they come when called.
So do the veal calves who are named after chefs.
There’s Gordon Ramsay (so named because of his strong personality), Jamie Oliver (he was a sweetie), Guy Grossi (it was the dark rim around his eyes that decided his name — those glasses), Shannon Bennett (he had little white socks that reminded Kay of the sneakers Shannon wore on MasterChef) and Maggie Beer (there’s been two of her so far).
Local chefs star, of course — including Daniel Groenberg, who headed the kitchens at Kooroomba and is now at the newly re-opened Roadvale Hotel; Simon Furley, who is at The Paddock at Beechmont Estate; and Wild Canary’s Glen Barratt — all champions of local produce.
Agriculture or tourism?
“It shouldn’t be a choice,” Kay said.
“I’ve long felt that as agritourism operators we float along almost in no man’s land — not fitting comfortably into mainstream tourism, and not sitting neatly in agriculture either.”
She said it was music to her ears that a national agritourism strategy is being launched.
“I’m very fortunate to live in a region that has embraced agritourism.
“Scenic Rim Eat Local Week, over the past decade, has lifted the profile and the confidence of so many farmers and producers in our region, and been the catalyst for countless ventures into this industry.
“Eat Local Week brings 40,000 visitors to our region, over $3 million worth of publicity, and injects $2 million into the economy.
“On our own farm that equates to almost 3000 visitors and incredible product sales.
“As a region we support, encourage and celebrate collaboration. We’re not competitors, we’re in this together.
“As an industry, we need recognition from all levels of government that agritourism is farm diversification.
“It’s farmers using their resources and skills to build resilience in the face of a changing landscape — environmental, climatic, social and financial.
“It’s not a shift away from agriculture, rather a move to create a farm business that can withstand the challenges of the future.
“Currently, to grow our agritourism business, we are forced to choose between farming and tourism.
“Agritourism isn’t a change of use, it’s a change of mindset. It’s a change in the way we promote and value our industry, our farm product and produce, and it’s time it was recognised that way.
“For independent farmers to keep farming land for agricultural use, change is needed from all levels of government working together to achieve a set of guidelines that allow farmers the right to farm and to build a connection with their customers right there on the farm
“Farmers must have a seat at the table for those discussions to create a meaningful reform process.
“We live this, we know what we need to take our businesses to the next level, to keep farmers farming.
“There are farmers with agritourism businesses across Australia waiting to hit the go button, to expand their offering but they are drowning under overbearing outdated regulatory frameworks that don’t recognise the needs of agriculture in a modern society.”
Kay said the Scenic Rim had become an incubator for farmers wanting to diversify into value-added farm businesses.
“The culture within the region, supported heavily by the Economic Development and Tourism team, encourages farmers moving in this direction and provides platforms such as Eat Local Month.
“The camaraderie between producers fosters innovation, collaboration, a sense of pride amongst our community. Let us keep moving forward.
“We now need recognition, at local and state level, that the current land use planning framework must be reviewed and refreshed to allow farmers to diversify and add value to their core farm business, without the need for a material change of use.
“Farmers moving into agritourism is a change of mindset, not a change of use.”