Cool town Melbourne

The DairyCo mini-tour of Victoria started really early on monday morning, the cool town am referring to is the 6 degree temperature which was not expected, Dr Wannacott and myself were feeling a little chilly as we made our way by car to Dairy Australia HQ in downtown Melbourne.
We were on our way to meet Julie Iommi whose exotic name defies the fact that she is a highly motivated english rose who used to work for the NFU.
Julie arranged for us to meet an array of people who work in or around Dairy farmers in Australia.
She first gave us a rundown on what Dairy Australia do and how they work through a plethora of farmer related anacronyms a worrying spiders web of dairy farm related organisations materialised which must cost a fortune in administration, and dairy farmers in the UK worry about our lost money!!
This aside the gang at Dairy Australia do very similar work for farmers as DairyCo in the UK and I was pleased to see that they feel money is better spent supporting farmers image as opposed to generic advertising- this could be described as a meeting of minds.The main difference between the British Levy fund and Oz is that they have at least 3 times as much to spend as we do!!

Countryside near Melbourne

We met the guys who actually put calves into schools across Australia to promote farming; it works for them, but can you imagine the risk assesment for that in the UK?
There is a big emphasis on nutrient budgetting, carbon footprint and greenhouse gases- in fact the same issues as back home.
Cathy Phelps the greenhouse guru (the Dr Wannacott of Dairy Australia) tried to tell me that cow poo in a field is the same as cow poo in a slurry pit; the guys at the next visit to Ellinbank research institute restored my faith by explaining that collected poo creates methane in the pit until it is spread whereas cows who poo in the field stop producing it almost as soon as they poo. This may sound really boring to you readers but, to me this is pure gold- How sad am I??
Ellinbank spends lots of time, effort and money feeding different food additives to cows to see if they fart more or less; I am sure the guys there would like me to describe this more scientifically but to me this is what it looked like. Dr Wannacott may be able to give you the more scientific explanation.

Dr Wannacott in a fart machine- honestly!!

We now travel down to Gippsland to stay with an Aussie Nuffield called Graeme Nicholl, what a great guy and what a lovely family. We sat up reasonably late (considering how tired we were) for supper and a discussion on carbon; this appears to be the trouble when traveling with a greenhouse gas expert.

Tuesday morning was really cold, but the sun was out. We looked around Graemes farm, which is based on really lovely farmland carved out of the bush by his grandfather; those old immigrants from the UK really worked hard in colonial Oz. Thanks again Graeme for your hospitality.

you can see how wet it has been in Victoria behind me

On our way back to the airport Graeme had arranged for us to visit a couple of farms one with 1000 cows on a pure pastoral system, thanks for letting us look around Max (the inventor)

Peter Notman was a real interesting chap who has built a one man farming seed and extension service along with his lovely wife and family. what a guy.

The day was very finely timed and I'm sure Karen was as impressed with my rallying skills as I was with her navigating skills.

P.S I hate Hyundai Getz