Tasmania offers dairy farmers chance to grow

Aged in their forties, the couple has amassed 800 hectares and 1500 milkers at Smithton and still own the 500-cow dairy farm they left five years ago in New Zealand's South Island.

Mr and Ms Field worked their way up through farm management to share farming and, ultimately, ownership.

"We're proof that you can get farm ownership but it's not an easy road and you've got to be passionate about it, have the drive and motivation to do it," Ms Field said.

"And coming over to Tasmania, we just see so much opportunity over here."

The move to Tasmania was triggered by frustration with the fragmentation of their NZ farm and the inability to find suitable local land.

They wanted flat land, to have their replacements and milkers in one manageable parcel, irrigation and scale.

And, one night, when Ms Field returned from a meeting, she came home to find her husband had found the perfect property online. Just not in NZ.

The farm came up for sale just as the Duck Irrigation Scheme was planned and the security it provided sealed the deal for the Fields.

It's made the milking platform pretty much drought proof, with the reliable 1200-millimetre annual rainfall complemented by bores and an 800-megalitre water entitlement under the Duck Scheme.

"It can get very dry in summer," Ms Field said.

"It's a shorter irrigation season in comparison to mainland Australia where you're irrigating flat out for a fair chunk of the year; more like three or four months of the summer.

"And it's not consistently every day for the three or four months, it can be off and on."

Aside from the initial $1200/ML investment in securing water under the scheme - which has 95 per cent reliability - the ongoing cost of delivered water is $117.40/ML.

"It gave us certainty and helped us justify what we needed to do to get scale; we know how much grass we can grow and how many cows we can milk," Ms Field said.

They've been building the herd ever since and Ms Field reared 600 heifers last year.

It's left little time to explore the island state with daughters, Rhiannon, 14, and Charlotte, 11.

"The farm we bought in New Zealand was a farm we developed further, so it was flat out doing that," Ms Field said.

"And we've bought this farm and developed it up to the next level, so it's been flat out again for the last four-and-a-half years.

"We had to get to a point where we can actually take a step back, otherwise we'll burn ourselves out."

It's been an ongoing battle to find suitably skilled people to staff the farm, which has a team of six full-time employees, Ms Field said.

"A lot of people go through the ranks and learn about cows and grass, but lack business and HR skills to get the best out of people," she said.

"The pool of people that want to actually do dairy as a career versus just a job that's a means to an end is pretty small."

But, in February, sharefarmers on a 33 per cent arrangement moved in to take over the work on the milking platform, allowing Mr and Ms Field to "step back a little".

Not that the Fields have any grand plans for their leisure time.

Running the dry cows and replacements is a serious undertaking, and the couple still have a lot of improvements in mind for the farm.

Top of the list is humping and hollowing. The farm can get rather wet in winter and spring, despite its dark, organic-rich sandy soils.

Pasture utilisation was 9.3 tonnes of dry matter a hectare for the 2018-19 season and they're currently targeting 12tDM/ha, something Ms Field thinks better drainage will see climb further.

The Field's business is still evolving in other ways, too.

They moved to once-a-day (OAD) milking about three years ago in a bid to reduce lameness and lift fertility in the split-calving herd, while keeping staffing at a manageable level.

Cows can walk up to 2.5 kilometres each way from the dairy and some of bigger cows in the "liquorice all-sorts" herd benefited from the shift to OAD.

Production's yet to settle entirely but they're aiming for 380 kilograms of milk solids a cow with just over a tonne of supplements fed in the bail.

While the herd remains diverse, the Fields are using LIC genetics to create their ideal of a solidly-built, black crossbred cow.

With the OAD herd's fertility increasing, they're moving away from split calving to a fully seasonal pattern this year, too, starting on August 20.

The Fields are grateful for the opportunity to flourish and make those changes without all the constraints facing NZ dairy farmers.

"Over here, we haven't got the same rules and regulations restricting us yet," Ms Field said.

"The regulations will come but there's still room to move and get ahead."

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