Being the rebellion future farmers deserve
In late 2024, I set out to learn more about why contract milkers were telling me there needed to be change in the industry. The reaction I got from the sector on the findings was eye opening. So many weren’t surprised and immediately supported the calls for change. Unfortunately, others reacted by calling me an “attention seeker”, telling me I was going to ruin the industries reputation, called the study biased (without actually reading the report), all while doing very little to absolutely nothing to address the concerns contract milkers past and present have been trying to address for over a decade.
While an attempt at legislation change is on pause, I moved on to what I could do to support change. The biggest concern I had while writing the contract milking survey report was the abusive behaviour which is not addressed in any contract on the market. This also impacts farm owners when the situation is reversed with no protection, no options and a lot of stress. Recognising this is an area that I can influence, I worked with Jacqui Owen from Jacqui Owen Legal to create a contract that not only includes this critical element, but also includes contract milkers taking on multiple roles, farm performance, a much more clear and simple dispute pathway and deals with power on fences, grading and herd history.
The Sharefarming Consultants Contract Milking agreement is now on sale with samples available on request. The digital copy can be purchased here for $175.00incl. The digital agreement is personalised to the business names but can otherwise be completed on your desktop with form fields built in, printed or emailed and signed, no more handwritten agreements required (unless you really want to do it that way).
More contracts are to come so watch this space. The next off the rank is a sharefarming agreement for Sheep & Beef Farmers - something this industry has desperately needed for decades. By the end of 2026 we are hoping to have a full suite of agreements available including Herd Owning and Variable Order Sharemilking Agreements, and a suite of employment agreements.
Defy limits; rewrite what’s possible…
Introducing Bonnie & Brave Dairies, Farm Ownership without enduring the Sharefarming Pathway.
The next “announcement” came about slightly differently with no real campaign to “change the industry” but it certainly defied the limits the industry has been trying to set in the defined pathway of farm worker to farm owner requiring one to contract milk, buy some cows and sharemilk (all while hoping you land on your feet with the right farm owner).
What started as a game of chicken between my husband and I, resulted in purchasing a run-down 112ha (100ha effective) dairy platform on 1 December in Huntly West. Lucky for us, the view can brighten up even the worst morning, but boy did we have a baptism of fire.
Over the last 8 weeks we went from having water to just 10 out of the 45 paddocks to having water right across the farm, no power on the fences to having Halter in place (we still have no power on the fences, it just doesn’t matter anymore) and having every grade possible, including a chiller that just decided it had had enough.
In the interim, we fully renovated one of the homes so it no longer smelled of cat pee and nicotine, cleaned up “dead bird cottage” enough so the manager and assistant could at least hole up there for a few weeks and managed to get back to our day jobs. It has been a testiment especially to Keith’s resilience and ability to fix things that we have been able to keep going through it all.
We are officially getting on with the farming things and by February we will have 240 cows, converting from split calving this season to Autumn calving in 2027/28.
Thank you to the support from our clients during this period - we could not have done it without you.
