Supporting Your Dairy Business

Dairies are complex businesses requiring a very broad range of skills to manage. In today’s environment, good business management skills are more important than ever. This is recognised by industry organisations whose role is to support farmers such as the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Dairy Australia as well as farm consultants who provide individual farm support in various technical areas. 

Jane Bower, who is an Extension Officer and Engagement Lead with Dairy NSW joins me to discuss some key support programs for available for dairy farmers. We cover off on the Dairy Business Support Services program, staffing or workforce programs to help you find staff and retain them, Our Farm Our Plan for getting a plan together that will get everyone on the same page and all driving the business in the direction needed to achieve your identified goals, and much more!

Links to useful resources related to this podcast:

Contact Jane Bower or the Dairy NSW Team (Jane 0427 929 694)

Wellbeing and Safety | NSW DroughtHub

Business Support Services Project 

Dairy Farm Jobs Board 

Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts

Our Farm Our Plan (Starting 2nd or 10th October, National Online programs)

Dairy Farm Business Analysis National Online October 2023 | Dairy Australia

Farm Business Fundamentals National Online November 2023 | Dairy Australia

Farming with My Team - Online 2023 | Dairy Australia

Farm Business Snapshot | Dairy Australia

DairyBase | Dairy Australia

Dairy Australia Farm Business Program information. 

This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit – please visit for further information and resources.

It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services

Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com

Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include:

NSW DPI Dairy Facebook page

DPI Intensive Livestock Twitter feed

NSW DPI Dairy Newsletter

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Transcript

The Business of Dairy 

Episode #29 Transcript – “Supporting Your Dairy Business”

Sheena Carter: Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast. I'm Sheena Carter, Development Officer with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Team. I've said it before and I'll say it again, dairies are complex businesses requiring a very broad range of skills to manage in today's environment, good business management skills are more important than ever. This is recognised by industry organisations whose role is to support farmers such as the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Dairy Australia, as well as farm consultants who provide individual farm support in various technical areas. 

Jane Bower, who is an extension officer and engagement lead with Dairy New South Wales, joins me to discuss some key support programs available to dairy farmers. We talk about the Dairy Business Support Services program, staffing or workforce programs to help you find staff and retain them. Our Farm, Our Plan for getting a plan together that will get everyone on the same page and all driving the business in the direction needed to achieve your identified goals and much more. 

Welcome to episode 29 of The Business of Dairy podcast, Jane, it's great to have you as our guest this month. Could you just give me a bit of a history on your background over the last, I don't know, decade or so? 

Jane Bower: Maybe a few more decades, but thanks, Sheena. Thanks for having me along today. So a little bit about me. I am a born-and-bred cattle farmer's daughter from northwestern New South Wales. Headed off to the big smoke when I finished school to go to business college and while I was there a local bank manager tapped dad on the shoulder and suggested I try a job in the National Australia Bank, which I did, and that led me to a 25-year career with NAB. And of that I spent 18 years in agribusiness, so working with farmers every day, which was fantastic. Also done a brief stint in succession planning where I worked just with farming families, trying to help them navigate through the very tricky business of transitioning their farm assets and the farming business. And then in December of last year, I jumped on the opportunity to work with Dairy Australia. So that brings me to your podcast today. I didn't have a particularly deep knowledge in dairy, so I was really keen to learn a lot more and share with dairy farmers the agribusiness experience that I brought to the table and hopefully have started helping them with.

Sheena Carter: Fantastic. I think that you're going to be a tremendous asset to the dairy industry with those skills. I think we've seen, you know, businesses get much more complex in the last 20 years or so, for all sorts of reasons, so, you know, business management and having your finger on the pulse is certainly important these days. And so obviously you've had lots of experience with rural businesses in that banking role and you will have seen a broad range, I would imagine, a broad range in operators and operators that do things really well and perhaps some that don't do things so well, can you speak to that? And what are some of the differences that you see between the really successful businesses and those that, perhaps, struggle a bit? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think a lot of farmers are realising now that there is more to working on the business than just working on the day-to-day operational side of the business. The truly successful businesses are ones that are sitting down and really taking the time to get to understand what drives their business, what works from a profitability and performance point of view, and what maybe doesn't work so well. They have a really good grasp of their business, and I think that's what sets them apart. Having said that though, a lot of farmers are keen to do that, they just don't know where to start. So I think that's where my role can come in and help them start that process of getting to know their business better and spending some time on the business, not just in it. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess as an industry, the dairy industry has a lot of resources available that are specific to dairy farming to help them understand their businesses. And this is exactly what this podcast is about, to help signpost people towards some of the industry resources available out there and, you know, obviously we're going to be just talking about a few initiatives that are currently available, and predominantly in New South Wales, but there are, of course, many other avenues that farmers can go to for support and it's about finding the right support for them and their need and their business. But I think, you know, you've touched on a couple of things around farmers being aware of their performance, so, financially, are they profitable and also physically, how well are they using the resources they've got? They've got land and they've got water, mostly, often, sometimes the water's a bit limiting, but that land and water, how well are they utilising that to grow feed for their cows and more importantly grow it and utilise it, utilise it well, and on that physical side of things, have they got cows that are productive and efficient? It's a complex thing. There's the financial side, but it's driven by a lot of the physical inputs really, and the management skill set of the farmers. So expanding on that, I think we've got an initiative in New South Wales which is available to New South Wales farmers around the state. It's being administered by Dairy New South Wales, which is the Regional Development Program in New South Wales. We have three Regional Development Programs in New South Wales, but this Dairy Business Support Service is available to all New South Wales farmers. This is an initiative that is now in its second iteration. We ran it for a couple of years prior to this financial year, in the same format where it was administered by Dairy New South Wales, it was funded by New South Wales DPI, and in that initiative there were over 150 farms that took up the opportunity to have a consultation, a one-on-one consultation with a consultant in a technical area that they wanted to address, and there were also ten group based activities as well. Could you explain, Jane, to the listeners how this program works and what's on offer for farmers? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. So it's the Dairy Business Support Service and as you said, Sheena, it has been funded by the New South Wales DPI, which is fabulous, and it essentially offers farmers the opportunity to access some farm business management service to support their farm business and it's all at no cost to them. So essentially we're offering one-on-one support from farm consultants to assist in the, more business planning and business performance related activities, so things such as, everyone has an accountant that has suggested to them to set up things on Xero or MYOB or any of the other platforms, and sometimes it's hard to know where to start, so this support service can actually put you in touch with a consultant that can literally sit down with you one-on-one and set up that Xero for you, or MYOB, and set it up with the Standard Chart of Accounts for dairy so that you're comparing, you know, your business with, with other dairy businesses very similarly. Also, looking at some of the programs such as DairyBase that a lot of people are using and Farm Business Snapshots, so just really, one-on-one to help you set that up so that it's specific to your business. And then once you've got that data, they can help you analyse it, so looking at the data coming out of there, again, looking at profitability and productivity, what's driving your business? What's potentially holding it back? Identifying areas that you can improve your business with, and then helping you create a plan to put that in action and create some positive change. So yeah, it's the one-on-one aspect and it’s all around that business performance and business planning. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess, I think one of the things to highlight that underpins a lot of that, you mentioned the Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts, and we'll put links at the end of the podcast to a lot of these resources, but if you've got your accounting software set up with the Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts, it makes business analysis much easier using tools like DairyBase because if you've got your costs and income in the dairy chart of account categories, it is much simpler to use and automatically transfer the totals, you know, herd costs, shed cost, feed costs, what's included in each of those and where does it go? If you've got the Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts, it's a pretty easy transfer across to put them in the right category, so yeah, it's an excellent resource. And I think the DairyBase and Farm Business Snapshot, for listeners that don't know, Farm Business Snapshot is a simpler version of DairyBase. DairyBase is very detailed, but with the Farm Business Snapshot, you can still get some really important information out about your business performance, requiring a bit less of that physical detail. So with the consultations, Jane, what do these look like? 

Jane Bower: I think the best part about the Dairy Business Support Service is it can literally be around the kitchen table, so you don't have to pack up your computer and take it somewhere to learn about this, you know, someone will come to you. They can sit around the kitchen table and using, you know, your resources and your data, at your fingertips, at your desk, and actually work through it with you one-on-one in that way. It is also available virtually, so sometimes the very best people to speak to you on some of these issues are not so close, so it's great to be able to offer that virtually as well. And it's six hours of consultation, so it's a really nice big time frame to really work through and get some information and some great results and, you know, we're putting the best people in front of these farmers to make sure that they're getting the best information possible and the best support. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, excellent, and I think, looking back at the first round of the program when it was run, the farmers were asked for feedback as a result of their consultation, and over 80% of the businesses that had a consult indicated that they were going to do something different within their business as a result of it, so yeah, they're getting good information and good pick up there, which is really good. 

Jane Bower: Yep, absolutely. 

Sheena Carter: So, Jane, I guess a consultation for a business is going to, you know, people might think, gosh, there's a lot here that is on offer, but what isn't on offer? You know, obviously there's day-to-day things that, perhaps, you know, we're not really trying to service here. 

Jane Bower: Yeah, we are trying to keep it specifically to the business performance and analysis. So what we're probably trying to keep out of this, and what won't be eligible for this round of funding, are those regular operational consultants such as, you know, a veterinary service, a routine agronomy advice that may come around annually or twice a year or even, you know, the dreaded annual accountancy bill, unfortunately we can't just cover that one. So those things that come around regularly that are generic in their value, we're not looking to cover in this round of funding. 

Sheena Carter: So it's that more strategic stuff that's going to help the business, business management, I guess.

Jane Bower: That's it. Absolutely. 

Sheena Carter: Can you give me a couple of examples of how businesses might have used it in the previous round, or even currently, because it has been running over the last couple of months? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, it has. So it has kicked off again and I'd have to say, probably the most popular is the set-up of programs such as Xero, getting their information in there for the first time and starting to have a look at that data and planning based on that. So yep, setting up the Chart of Accounts and, you know, being able to do it uniquely to your business, if you may have some, you know, hay sales, beef cattle sales, whatever other bits and pieces may be unique to your business, people are setting them up correctly from the very beginning and then using their own records to understand how the business is travelling and then budgeting and planning based on their individual data. So that's been really, really popular. And I'd have to say in the last two weeks, a lot of the requests or applications for funding have been based on drought preparedness. So looking at their data to say, okay, if we have additional input costs, how will our business sustain that? What can we sustain? And so really starting to forward plan based on what the season looks like it may be for the next 12 months. So a lot of application and interest in that aspect. And as you say, a lot of people are actively implementing the change and the suggestions that are coming out of these sessions. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, that's great, which highlights, you know, for some parts of the country, we're heading, well, we are officially in El Nino, so it is becoming a bit tight again, unfortunately. But yes, and I was just going to say on the Chart of Accounts, I think, you know, we're in August currently as we're recording, but if you're going to change a Chart of Accounts, or interested or refining, now is a very good time to start doing it while we're still at the beginning of that financial year period. If I'm a farmer, how do I access this service? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, well, there's lots of different ways. Obviously, if you are very familiar with your Regional Extension Officer in your region, so, we've got Alicia on the south coast, Jane Woolacott down on the far south coast, myself here in the Hunter, as well as the central west of New South Wales, and we've also got contacts on the mid coast area. Feel free to reach directly out to them and we'll have all their contacts at the end of this podcast as well. Also, I convene the entire program, as far as Dairy New South Wales is concerned, so anyone can reach out to me directly, as well as, obviously, if you fall into the Murray dairy region of New South Wales or the subtropical region of New South Wales, feel free to reach out to your Extension Officer in that area as well. But always great to just come straight to me, I can chat through the eligibility criteria, chat through what you're looking to achieve and give it a tick, hopefully, and send you on your merry way. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent, thanks Jane. And for those listeners that haven't met Jane, you can hear that she's very approachable. I think that's great to have a point of contact that, you know, you can identify as a person rather than a number. And how long does the program run for, Jane? 

Jane Bower: It is only until June of 2024, unless all the funds are allocated prior to then. So my advice to everybody would be, if you are considering this, have a chat to us really, really quickly because I don't imagine that it will last long. We have allocated a quarter of the funding already at this stage through the year, so jump in and make contact with us and we can get you in the system and start adding that support for you. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent, thanks. That's great to hear that uptake level already. So the program is through funding through the Farm Business Resilience Program that's come through New South Wales DPI and your Regional Development Program staff, and Jane in particular, are your key contacts there. I think if we might just move on to another… it's a broad area around labour management on farm. Very instrumental in running successful businesses, having good staff, but sometimes it can be difficult to access them and difficult to retain them as well. And we know through industry data that, you know, labour cost on farm is the second highest cost, second highest operational cost, I should say, after our feed costs. And just looking back at the 21/22 financial year in our New South Wales Dairy Farm Monitor data, that highlighted that for the farms in the program in that year, for every dollar earned $0.41 went into paying feed costs. And in terms of labour, it was $0.22 paid for labour, that's paid and imputed labour. So it's a valuable resource that we need to manage well to, you know, have productive labour in our businesses as well. I think, you know, the labour markets are challenging one across all sectors at the moment. But what sort of support is out there to help farmers, both manage their workforce, and retain them as well, Jane? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, and Dairy Australia has recognised this is such a critical element of the farmer’s business and something that's a key issue for them in attracting and retaining staff. So we've actually got two Workforce Attraction and Retention Officers in New South Wales – we've got Tania in the southern region and Laura up in northern New South Wales. So they're supporting farmers to, one, attract staff through a variety of activities such as promoting to school students, university students, just letting people know what is really involved in the dairy industry, sometimes bursting some of the myths that are out there that it's all about, you know, a 3 a.m. wake up and that there's a lot of opportunity out there. And so they're attending a lot of expos, they're going to a lot of school talks and really talking up the dairy industry and letting people know what's available, setting up some pre-employment programs to upskill jobseekers so that when they hit the dairy they're ready to go with some really basic skills. And a key element of attracting staff is actually – we've created the Jobs Board, which is the Dairy Australia Dairy Farm Jobs Board, and that advertises local jobs and any vacancies that are out there in the industry. So that's a great place to pop up ads and get people to know about your job. And then the second element of their role is the retention of staff. So this is delivering some training to farmers to help them become employers of choice, offering some guidance on staff training opportunities as well, so things like traineeships, apprenticeships, things like that. So really supporting the farmer to help attract great staff and retain them once they're on farm, make sure that they want to stay on and that they're getting a really good support network. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, I think the dairy industry, like you say, it's more than just the 3 a.m. start. There's so many aspects to being involved in the dairy industry and there's a lot of technology used on farms these days that, you know, would potentially be of interest to younger people trying to get into the dairy business, all sorts of things, you know, cow collars, even up to, you know, automatic milking of cows with robots, all sorts of stuff, and the data and how people use data within their business as well. So yeah, and if you're that outdoorsy person, obviously the outdoors aspect is, I would say, a key drawcard for many as well. On the jobs board, how do people access the jobs board? 

Jane Bower: So it is through the Dairy Australia website, or you can purely search “Dairy Australia Dairy Jobs Board”, that'll take you through to the jobs board. So far to date, I think we’ve filled 80 odd positions in New South Wales through the work that those two attraction and retention employers have been doing with farmers, so that's really great. As well as getting young trainees into certificate threes in ag studies, things like that, so that role is really working out well. And the jobs board is just taking farmer’s jobs from just the local networking, local advertising, and promoting them really broadly, and people are picking up employees that are moving into their area from other areas. So they're sending a wider net to attract, sometimes more experienced staff, if that's what they're looking for. So it's just creating a great network and a great buzz. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent. Obviously, if you're getting that level of uptake and placements, it's really hitting the mark, I would imagine. So now we'll touch on another initiative, which is the really big picture stuff around business planning. There's a program that's been out there for a while now, Jane, called Our Farm, Our Plan, and I did do a podcast, it was episode 12, which was, gosh, probably over a year ago now, with Greg Duncan, who manages Our Farm, Our Plan nationally for Dairy Australia. So it was Greg Duncan and myself and Sarah Wake, a dairy farmer from the Hunter Valley, and we were talking with Sarah about her experience with Our Farm, Our Plan and how it had helped their business. And I think there's lots of quotes out there about planning ahead, one that really I quite like is, “always plan ahead, it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.” So you know, it is prepare, prepare, prepare. Think ahead. What direction are we going in and how are we going to get there? Our Farm, Our Plan can be used in a multitude of ways, can you explain to our listeners how it works? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. So Our Farm, Our Plan is possibly one of my favourite programs that Dairy Australia run. I just see it resonating with every different element of farm, farm owner, share farmer, employee. There's just something in this for everybody because it's essentially about getting a clear view of your long term business and personal goals, because so often in farming those two overlap – your personal goals and your business goals. So it's about creating, you know, a really good, clear view of that long term plan so that people are able to make really great decisions to help themselves get there, especially some of those really big decisions. So it keeps it pretty simple. It just takes those plans, puts it on a page, looks at the, you know, how are we going to get there? What actions are we going to take to help us achieve that really big long term plan? And the best part about it is for two years, you've got someone keeping you accountable for it. Be that people like myself who are local to you that are checking in, saying, how are we going with that? Are we achieving our actions? Are we getting things done? Are we still on track? If we've changed, how are we adapting our plan to still meet our long term goals? As well as the actual consultant that runs the course from the very outset. They are involved for that two year period to just keep you accountable, keep the farmer on track and help them see their plan through. 

Sheena Carter: It is excellent that it is resourced like that because so often people will sit down and do a plan and it is definitely a set and forget. It gets written down and put away and never seen again. And I think the other thing I like about Our Farm, Our Plan is really, sort of, bringing the team members together that are involved in the business so that, I think sometimes, possibly, it's the first time that they might have had some of these conversations about what everyone is thinking about the business. It's not until you have those discussions that you might discover that some business partners had a completely different idea to someone else in the business. So it gets that alignment and, I guess, a focused direction, doesn't it? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, there are some really different views between, be it, you know, husband and wife in what they’re long term trying to achieve. So it's not about one being right or wrong, it's about, okay, how can we try and achieve both of your plans in the long term? And sometimes just talking about it and getting it out on the table, rather than just your own thoughts keeping you awake at night, let's have a chat about it and let's actually put in a real plan on how to achieve it. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent. And again, reach out to extension offices? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. Reach out to your extension officers, or myself again. And you know, there's always a Dairy Australia events page, so we're often running online events in this space so you can jump in with farmers from all over Australia and really get to know different areas, and yeah, sometimes sit with a different group of people and have some discussions, which is always nice, or you can sit down face to face and sit in on a workshop locally. But yes, stay on that Dairy Australia events tab on the web page and you'll see what's coming up in your region or reach out to your extension Officer. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent, thanks Jane. I think, you know, we've touched on a few key programs that are well supported by industry, some of them are only available in New South Wales, but you know, the workforce and Our Farm, Our Plan are certainly national initiatives that are available for farmers. I think one thing, or a couple of things, that we haven't mentioned, and I know you've got online versions of these coming up, is some of the Farm Business Management programs?

Jane Bower: Yep. So there are some Farming With My Team style workshops that are coming up. They are generally online options where you can sit down for an hour a week over a series of weeks and get some help around, you know, making sure that your team are being upskilled correctly and that everything is working out nicely from a team point of view, with your supervisors on your farm, or yourself as a supervisor on your farm, so that's a great opportunity. As well as that, we've got some farm business analysis workshops coming up where you can literally get into the numbers of the farm and, using DairyBase, start to analyse your data and learn how to do that in a way that suits your farm and your business. Some great workshops coming up there and I'll pop some dates and things in the end of the podcast as well to ensure that we're sharing this with our listeners so that if anyone's interested, they can jump in and find out more about that, or reach out to me. And there's always Our Farm, Our Plan running online, as well as I'm hoping to run a succession planning style, people looking to step back from farming in some capacity, look into share farming or what their options might be once they're ready to step back from full time farming. So I'm looking to run an intensive course face to face later in the year on that as well. So lots of things coming up in the farm business space. 

Sheena Carter: Excellent, plenty on offer. And I think, you know, we need to acknowledge also that obviously there are private consultants out there that have clients that they support really well and are available to other people within the industry if you're after some sort of, you know, technical information to help move your business forwards. Also, we've got the rural financial counsellors available and, you know, coming into times of drought and tough times, there's lots of mental health support available out there as well. And we can put some links in the show notes, as you've mentioned, Jane, to help signpost people towards those. Are there any key points you'd like to make for farmers around business support as we wrap up? 

Jane Bower: Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to encourage everyone to get to know their local Dairy Australia officer. One thing I have noticed since working with Dairy Australia is there is such a huge amount of information, tools, support services like the ones we're talking about today, that are genuinely there to help the farmer. And as extension officers, we have the role to deliver workshops, which everyone is quite traditionally familiar with, but our role is also now around farm engagement. So it's around really getting to know the farmer and having genuine conversations. So we want to really know what you need in your business so that we can hopefully create a connection back to something that Dairy Australia has at their fingertips and that is available to you to support you in that. So get to know us and get to know some of the resources that we have on offer, because I'd have to say, if we can't measure it, we can't manage it. So let's really get in and get to know the business so that you can help to manage and make really good decisions moving forward. And before, you know, you engage somebody, feel free to reach out to us. There may be a way we can connect you with somebody that is a specialist in this field, and don't feel that you need to, you know, try and work everything out yourself. Ask us any questions because there's a strong chance that we can connect you really quickly to somebody that knows all about whatever you're looking to find some information on. So please give us a call. Reach out to us. 

Sheena Carter: Thanks, Jane. And I think the dairy industry is a fantastic industry and one of the fantastic things about it is the people within the industry, whether they're the people operating the business or the people trying to support the business, everyone's trying to achieve the same thing and that's a successful industry. And it's good to know that there is so much support for people, for businesses, in New South Wales and Australia-wide, to help them, so yeah, I'd second that, please reach out to people that can help you in your business because there is plenty of support there. Thank you, Jane, very much for joining the podcast today, it has been great to have you on the show and introduce you to the industry more broadly via the podcast and some of the initiatives that you're involved with. Thank you. 

Jane Bower: My pleasure. Thanks so much, Sheena. 

Sheena Carter: Thank you for listening to this month's podcast produced by the New South Wales DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit. This series is brought to you with funding and support from the Hunter Local Land Services. The show notes to this episode include links to all the programs and resources discussed in this podcast, including key contact details, the Dairy Business Support Services Program, the Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts, the Jobs Board and our Farm, Our plan, which I would really encourage you to follow up with and make the most of. We'd love you to share this podcast with your networks and feel free to send any feedback or suggestions for future episodes to thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com. You can also subscribe to our Facebook and Twitter feed and view or subscribe to our DPI Dairy Newsletter using the links provided.