Lilly Hammond wants to continue a family tradition of farming that goes back five generations in Australia.
She is the third generation of her family to work on the family farm at Buln Buln, returning a couple of years ago after studying a double degree at university and working in hospitality.
She now works full-time on the farm.
Lilly’s siblings Adele and Finn have responsibilities as well — Adele is involved in the finances and Finn becomes more involved with the farm during harvest season.
Geoff and Helen Hewson were milking with a 20-a-side herringbone dairy with automatic cup removers when their daughter Trudi and her husband, Darryl, took over the farm.
Trudi and Darryl have been milking their herd using a Lely six-unit robot dairy system since 2015.
“Mum had me in a pram at the age of day dot, out getting cows,” Lilly told Dairy News Australia.
“There’s not a time in my life where I don’t remember working on the farm.
“I started working in the calf shed at about eight years old, when I could carry a grain bucket. It just kept going from there.
“I started milking when I was tall enough, I was a teenager by then.”
The robots were installed when she was 15 years old.
“At that time it just got a lot easier on the farm, so I started doing more. My siblings and I would take it in turns on the roster to clean, wash, sort the cows, all that sort of stuff.”
Lilly went to university and studied a double degree in arts and science, majoring in archaeology and psychology.
After that, she worked in hospitality for a year, then realised farming was her true calling.
“I wanted to do university because I thought I wanted to do something else,” Lilly said.
“I really enjoyed it, but then I realised I actually like the life and culture of farming.
“I know how to farm, I’ve done it for a while. But also, with family farms, when you lose them, you don’t get it back.
“You have to put the effort in to keep going, and I couldn’t imagine, like, not having that to go home to.”
Lilly realises there are challenges to farming, including climate and weather, commodity prices, environmental care, and input and maintenance costs.
“My dad, he’s an excellent farm manager, he does it very well,” Lilly said.
“I’ve always done a more maintenance sort of role, but I’m learning a lot about what’s involved with managing the farm by working with him.
“I’m now the shed manager and I’m responsible for the cattle, getting them up to the shed, making sure they’ve been milked every day, and keeping an eye on their health.
“We get health reports on the computer that I need to check, and note any cow who is dropping production, or has risen production, and the cows cell counts. I also change the collars if one of them is broken.
“I do a lot of cleaning, like hosing down the robots, and making sure that everything that supports the robots is clean and working.
“I can do pasture management to an extent. I make sure the cows are on new pasture every six or so hours, because we use the three-way grazing system.
“I can do a lot of basic tractor work, feeding out and stuff like that.
“And then you’ve got your seasonal jobs too.
“We’ll be going into pregnancy testing. I’m the one who’ll be getting in the cows and making sure everything is ready for when the vet arrives to preg test. I’m also responsible for making sure the data entered is up-to-date for that job.
“Mum looks after the calf shed, which is a big job, and we’ve recently moved to once-a-year calving to take the pressure off her.”
Lilly also implements the paddock rotation of dry cows, young heifers and beef cattle, as well as the milking herd.
“Dad makes the decisions about where they’re going, and I make sure it happens.”
With her parents’ support, Lilly has become the person representing the family farm at discussion groups and participates readily.
She has also completed some short courses to improve her skills, including chemical handling certification, a business management course through GippsTAFE, calf rearing, and pasture 101 and lameness workshops provided by GippsDairy.
“I’ve taken on going to a lot of the discussion groups and the Young Dairy Network.
“I’m keen to improve my knowledge, because my role has to expand on the farm.”
Lilly has been left in charge of the farm a couple of times, a position she relished.
“I managed the farm by myself for a month or up to not quite two months, and that’s enabled Mum and Dad to actually have time off the farm every year for holidays.
“My poppy, who is 80 years old, is still very active on the farm, and Adele and Finn are usually around unless they’re on holidays as well, and we have an amazing set of neighbours around here that really help out with any stuff that falls through the cracks.
“But usually it’s all right.”
Lilly has recognised her shortcomings and is keen to address them.
“I’m not mathematically minded, so I didn’t do the second business management course because it involves finances,” she said.
“But I can’t be like, I can’t do it. I need to just shake that, because I have to learn about the financial management if I want to take over the farm one day.
“My next step is to become a part of the actual business. At the moment I’m still just working, but I would love to be able to make more of those bigger decisions.
“Dad has given me a lot of freedom and he’s very encouraging of me to make decisions on the farm.
“I want to have a financial stake in the business as soon as I can.
“I’d like to focus more on genetics. I think that’s something we can do better.
“And I want to learn more about different crops. We get those parts of the year when it’s a little drier, and I want to set the farm up for any kind of weather, because the weather is weird now.
“We also plant a lot of trees on the farm for protecting the cows from heat and looking after their health, and I’ll continue doing that.
“Dad’s ordered a lot more trees for next year and I’ll be planting them.”