When Nathan Shannon returned to the family dairy farm at Katunga after a successful career with Agriculture Victoria in Wodonga, his mission was to find somewhere else outside the Goulburn Valley to build on his family’s legacy.
Mr Shannon spoke at the ‘Future for our food and grocery industry’ forum in Shepparton on Tuesday, September 3.
He said his role at AgVic was to connect dryland dairy farmers with research and development, but he returned to help his parents with milking 500 dairy cows and start to shape the farm’s future.
“After probably eight years over there, I decided to come home and go farming,” Mr Shannon said.
“The big question — I probably had to make this decision — was do we want to stay here or move?
“Dad’s very keen on buying land and developing it but I’m keener on the cows and always have been.
“So I wanted to provide a sort of better life for the cows I suppose.”
Mr Shannon said he looked at other options in Tasmania, south-west Victoria and Gippsland and chose the state’s north-east.
“I wanted a mix of flats and a mix of highlands, it was very close to town and the ski fields.
“But it was overpriced and to get a large enough area that I wanted wasn't going to happen.”
Shannon Pastoral decided to stay in the Goulburn Valley and remould itself.
The farm has now transitioned the 1200-head dairy away from dependence on irrigated pasture to irrigated fodder cropping.
“A bit of the challenge was probably eight or nine years ago, when the policy around water was definitely changing — there was going to be less of it — we needed to get more efficient,” Mr Shannon said.
“We want to do the best we can with it, and I found irrigated grazing wasn't going to get me there.
“One tonne (of product) per megalitre wasn't going to cut it; I wanted to push closer to four, and there's been a significant capital commitment, I suppose, to get there.”
Mr Shannon’s expertise is in the welfare of cattle, and he and his father successfully transitioned the farm to directly process the cattle feed, before a study trip to the United States saw them design and build suitable shelters, which has resulted in healthier cows and better milk.
Mr Shannon said he was reminded of the measure of his cows’ welfare whenever a gate was left open accidentally.
“Yes, cows have escaped and they run around and they do their thing for probably 10 or 15 minutes and then they want to come straight back in,” he said.
“So that's the sign to me that they would rather be inside in fresh sand beds, all the food there they want, fans to keep them cool and misters that are climate controlled.
“If I was a cow, I would like to come back — that's the ultimate test for them, I suppose.”
In terms of future sustainability plans, Mr Shannon said he had no intention of ‘solar-ing up’, choosing instead to investigate options with using a manure digester for energy needs.
“A lot of our work is done in the dark, so solar's not going to help us,” he said.
“We're creating a lot of manure or potential ingredients that go into a digester, but the next question is: how much capital do you throw in it?”