Aidan Curtis
DAIRY professionals got together in Mount Gambier / Berrin as part of an annual conference on the latest industry innovations.
The 2023 DairySA Innovation Day bought people from around the region together with industry leaders from both interstate and overseas.
The people attending listened to a range of guest speakers on topics including the current market, education and sustainable practices.
Farm 4 Life Hub founder Tangaroa Walker was one of the most highly-anticipated speakers, having come from New Zealand to talk on how education and entertainment can shape the next generation of dairy farmers.
Mr Walker told The Border Watch he expects to see a lot of changes coming through the dairy industry in the near future.
“Trying to get people to buy into a new system and a new way of doing things around environmental sustainability, better use of nitrogen, leaning towards more efficient cows, genetics with animals is a big priority for us,” he said.
“We still want to get the same amount of literage or milk solids per hectare of farm with less animals and less environmental impact.
“Trying to adopt all the new learnings and using science to make it easier for us, but it’s about trying to get farmers to buy into it.”
For the current season though, the discussion centred around milk production and how it would look this season.
Dairy Australia industry analyst Eliza Redfern said she expects national milk production for this season to sit around the eight billion litre mark.
“Milk production is always a really popular topic and everyone has been talking about that a lot lately,” Ms Redfern said.
“Nationally, Australia’s milk production has been declining this season and is pretty much set to decline around four to six per cent volume-wise for this season.”
She said while a lot of producers were aiming to grow in the South East, there were still a number of challenges on the horizon.
“The challenge for farmers is being able to balance high input costs with the milk prices that they’re achieving,” she said.
