Lynne Strong
Farm: ‘Clover Hill’ and ‘Lemon Grove Research Farm’
Region: Jamberoo, Illawarra, New South Wales
Commodity: Dairy farming
Farming area: Clover Hill – 50 hectares; Lemon Grove Research Farm – 68 hectares
Rainfall: 1500 mm to 2000 mm per year
Email: lynnestrong@cloverhilldairies.com.au
Web: www.cloverhilldairies.com.au
Phone: 02 4236 0309
Farmers can’t control the weather but we can control how we prepare for it. My advice is to be prepared.
Don’t just assume that the rain is going to come because somebody’s given you a long-term forecast. Focus on being able to take advantage of the rain when it does come. For us that means having optimal soil fertility, good pasture cover and healthy cows.
See what Lynne has to say about:
- Farming in a rural-residential subdivision
- Preparing for a change in climate
- Investing in the landscape
- More milk, less emissions
- Protecting cows from extreme heat and rain
- Improving laneways to handle more cow traffic
- Recycling water and waste from the dairy
Farming in a rural-residential subdivision
Our farming situation is quite unique. We are part of a dairy-centric, rural-residential subdivision consisting of 12 housing blocks ranging from 4 ha to 40 ha.
Prime agricultural land in our region is up to $70,000/ha and in the past 25 years none of this land has been bought for commercial farming purposes. But we recognise that the influx of lifestyle farmers provides opportunities to lease land from them at a fair price.
We also lease an additional 250 hectares of land, which we use to raise our young stock. Our landlords acknowledge the improvements we have made through our best farming practices and investment in revegetation.
We realise to successfully farm in this environment it is pivotal to build cross-community partnerships to secure our right to farm. We have formed a Landcare group with our community to ensure our dairy farm is a long-term thriving commercial enterprise and to protect and enhance our waterways and rainforest.
Our business is a partnership between our cows, our landscape and our community and all our decisions have to be flexible to accommodate all three.
Preparing for a change in climate
Our climate-change strategy is to optimise both the productivity of our cows and our landscape.
We run a highly intensive system with 4–5 cows per hectare, and we milk three times a day. This has increased our productivity, allowing us to further reinvest in the landscape. In doing so we have fenced off 50% of Clover Hill to increase biodiversity as well as protect the rainforest and waterways.
Successful business people always focus on what they can control.
Farmers can’t control the weather but we can control how we prepare for it. My advice is to be prepared. Don’t just assume that the rain is going to come because somebody’s given you a long-term forecast. Focus on being able to take advantage of the rain when it does come.
Climate models show that climate change is going to result in a more favourable climate for this area. We are expecting slightly warmer temperatures and more stable rainfall.
Even though we are in this lucky position, we still intend to use climate-change strategies similar to those that we used during the drought. They help us use our rainwater more effectively and make good environmental and economic sense.
Lynne discusses the impact of climate on her business
Investing in the landscape for sustainability and long-term profitability
We focus just as much on our landscape as on our cows.
We have undertaken extensive tree plantings and established shelterbelts to protect and shade the cows, and native animals.
We have installed off-stream gravity-fed water troughs in all paddocks and fenced off all of our waterways. This has resulted in improved water quality for our cows and the wider catchment as well as less erosion.
We have optimised our pasture’s growth rate, energy content and yield. This allows us to run 4¬–5 cows per hectare (twice the industry average) and helps improve the water quality, because good pasture cover means less nutrient runoff during high rainfall events.
We regularly conduct soil tests allowing us to create nutrient maps. Our advisor has created a nutrient budget for us and this allows us to time our fertiliser application, and reduce unnecessary costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Improving farm efficiency and productivity of pastures has enabled us to fence off 50% of our rainforest country for conservation purposes. To protect and enhance this area we have employed a part-time bush regeneration officer.
We have spent a lot of money on doing these things but if you don’t invest in the landscape you can’t possibly be sustainable. Having done all the groundwork we expect increases in both productivity and profit in years to come.
More milk, less emissions
The jury is still out on whether cows are part of the problem or solution with respect to greenhouse gases and climate change. If there is a problem, it is not the cows’, but the way farmers manage their cows and their farms.
By selecting cows that are more efficient at converting pasture to milk, we have increased milk production and decreased our stocking rate.
To improve this further we supplement their pasture diet with energy-dense grains. This means they are converting more feed into milk than into waste products like methane and nitrous gases.
In 2005 we moved from milking twice a day to three times a day. This increased our milk production by 20% and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 30% per litre of milk produced.
Protecting cows from extreme heat and rain
We are getting more extreme heatwaves and bigger rainfall events. For example, it’s not unusual for us to get 10 inches of rain in one day. Three or four years ago, we had three 42 degree days over Christmas.
Cows like very temperate conditions, especially dairy cows. They really struggle during extended hot and humid days and their milk production drops dramatically. Over the years, we’ve increased the number of trees and shelterbelts to protect and shade the cows during these extreme weather events.
Improving laneways to handle more cow traffic
With a three times a day milking schedule, the cows are using our laneways 50% more often. This was contributing to lameness and impacting on our laneways and surrounding areas.
The cows were moving slower and we were getting large deposits of effluent on the laneways, which was potentially ending up in the creeks and waterways.
The extra traffic was also eroding our laneways.
To overcome these problems we implemented a series of strategies to allow the cows to flow faster to and from the dairy. We made our laneways more durable by using recycled slag and we concreted laneways that run through our wetter rainforest areas.
Recycling water and waste from the dairy
Half of the water we use is used in the dairy and we recycle and reuse most of it.
We use recycled water to cool the milk before it goes into the vat and to operate the hydraulics for the entry and exit gates.
We also created an effluent reticulation system fuelled by the water we use to wash down the dairy. We irrigate 6 hectares of farm land from it.
These strategies have helped us to become one of Australia’s most water efficient dairy farms, producing 125,000 litres of milk per megalitre of captured water, which is 35 times the industry average.
Interview date: 19 July 2010
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