The couple were able to do this because they had already identified replacing their milk vat when they undertook Dairy Australia’s Our Farm, Our Plan program.
Narelle and Mark have been farming at Montgomery, near Sale in Victoria, since 2017.
Their 68-hectare (ha) milking platform of flood irrigated land is supplemented by a 46ha lease block, also flood irrigated. The lease block is used to raise dairy heifers to graze dry cows and harvest fodder.
They moved to Montgomery from Trafalgar where Mark was milking 120 cows. Since then, Mark and Narelle have built their herd up to its current numbers – milking 210 cows. Fifty per cent of their herd are stud Holstein cows under the Shadyoak prefix.
Mark and Narelle use a farm consultant, meeting four to six times in the year to talk about business planning, budgets and identifying opportunities to improve profitability.
“We just want someone helping us with keeping an eye on the business from an outside perspective and take a blanket approach to the key assets of the business,” Narelle says.
“We have a 10-year plan and big picture yearly goals. This farm has a cap on milking numbers, up to 240 in spring. We wanted to invest in infrastructure, so we did Dairy Australia’s Our Farm, Our Plan program in 2021.
“We’d already discussed what we wanted to do and what needed to be done and were able to tease that out into a proper plan.”
Prior to 2021, Mark and Narelle studied other Dairy Australia courses to further support and inform their plans for the business.
“We wanted to make sure we’re doing the best job with what we have,” Narelle says.
“After completing Farm Business Fundamentals, I understood more about the specific costs involved in how the farm operates, and how to manage the business admin.”
Mark and Narelle use their strategic plan from the Our Farm, Our Plan program and annual budget to monitor their input costs and expenditure against income.
“We check in with our budget weekly, fortnightly and monthly,” Narelle says.
“I have a spreadsheet, which is a live document for us. We check it halfway through the month, so we know if we’ll hit our targets or not and what we need to do in different circumstances.
“We compare the bottom line of income to expenditure, and what improvements we’ve enabled. It gives us that feeling of control and it’s quite comforting to know and have confidence that we know what we’re doing in our business.”
The existing old milk vat was slated for replacement in 2026. The old vat was 4,800 litres, but the milk also needed to be collected daily. A second vat of 2,800 litres helped to cope with peak spring season.
After the 4,800-litre vat broke down on Boxing Day 2023, Mark and Narelle decided to bring replacement forward in their budget and moved back other infrastructure projects.
The couple also decided to invest in a larger shed to house the new vat and associated equipment, as well as give themselves much-needed storage and workshop areas.
“We either had to spend $5,000 for a temporary fix for a year or two, or we bring forward that project in order to put in a new secondhand vat that will be big enough for our requirements – and build the storage area we needed anyway,” Mark says.
“For us, it was a no brainer. It was in our 10-year strategic plan and necessity brought it forward.”
Knowing their numbers – and understanding the kinds of changes they could make on their farm – helped Mark and Narelle Boardman to be prepared for and improve profitability and operational efficiencies when the time came to implement them.
“Because our production and profitability has increased over time – through implementing good management principles – it’s given us a good relationship with the bank,” Mark says.
“They have no worries about giving us the money for these improvements.”
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