Young farmer Jordan Vallance runs 800 cows on around 720 acres in Nirranda, south west Victoria with her parents, Bruce and Andrea, and farm manager, Issac. A vet by training, Jordy is in the process of taking over the family farm. Driven by science, sustainability and commercial savviness, she’s a shining example of why the future of dairy is in good hands. Here’s why.
Why do you love dairy farming?
I was lucky enough to get to grow up on the farm as a kid and what I love is that the success of the animals, the environment and the people is so intertwined.
You get feedback every single day about the quality and the quantity of your milk, and you can really tweak the system to get the best out of it.
I also love working outdoors and cows are just wonderful to work with.
What are you most proud of about your farm?
I think I'm most proud of our ability to try out new ideas and change the farm to suit what we think is going to be sustainable long term.
For example, we run a three-way cross breeding program, and those cows fit our system. The changes and upgrades in our irrigation systems mean that we’re using water smarter.
I’m also excited that we’re experimenting with new and developing ideas in environmental sustainability such as multispecies cropping and shelter belts. We’re finding which of these practices stack up for us financially.
How are you using technology on the farm?
A simple piece of tech that saves us a lot of labour is the Batt-Latch Gate Release Timer that can be programmed to release cows out of the paddock.
So, rather than someone getting up at 4:00am, we can program the gate to open, and the cows can walk themselves to the dairy.
We're using variable rate irrigation on our pivots that adjusts the amount of water we apply to different zones in a paddock to optimise water use depending on soil type and pasture characteristics.
We're using mastitis detection technology that provides feedback on individual cow cell counts every day, as well as the quantity of milk from each cow. We're also using cow collars to get heat information and health data that helps us keep such a large herd healthy efficiently.
What does sustainability mean to you?
It means making a model that's going to work long term.
We do want to look after the environment, but it's also got to be economically sound.
Sustainability also applies to our herd and we’re breeding cows that will fit our system and work in our farm model for a long time.
Importantly, we also need to apply this lens to our people and create a business that allows a life outside of the farm. We want our team to stay with us, enjoy their work and go home safe.
What do you see as future opportunities and challenges?
I think the biggest opportunity and challenge will be our changing climate and what dairy farming is going to look like in 20-years.
The last couple of dry years has given us a taster and there are people who have gotten through this well. So, I think there's a lot we can learn from each other and keep curious about experimenting with different strategies to help us future proof our farms.
What can we do to making farming an attractive career option for young people?
I think there's got to be more positive stories about ways we can do it differently. We don't have to do it exactly the way our parents did.
With the new technologies coming out, there's ways that we can work smarter and not necessarily harder, and I think that's probably where a lot of opportunity lies in the future.
What advice would you give to families thinking about succession?
Start the conversations early and give everybody time to really think about what they want long term. We probably started talking about succession when I was a teenager.
Things got more serious about 10 years ago when we switched the business to an equity partnership model so that my siblings and I had an opportunity to buy into the business, and our farm manager did too.
There’s a lot involved when a business transitions and ideally there needs to be enough time, space and support for everyone to decide on the best way forward.