A tale of two indies
Mountain-top cattle farmers find individual ways to build businesses with passion
THE mountains of Eungella often have their head in the clouds, and that seems to rub off on its inhabitants, who like to dream big too.
The Clarke Range district in Central Queensland was once a major dairy and beef centre, with many dairy farms scattered in its misty folds, but now just a scant handful remain.
A spirit of renewal and innovation is breathing new life into the area, with independent dairies and beef producers, along with other horticultural operations, taking up the Eungella baton.
CLOUDBREAK
Mandy and Kell Tennent took up Cloudbreak, at Crediton in 2008. The couple had been running a handful of Australian lowlines on an Emu Park property near Rockhampton, but had been researching and exploring to find the right property to expand their herd.
Kell had grown up in the foothills of the Clarke Range, at Finch Hatton, and they discovered the 215 acre rainforest-flanked hidden gem and took their chance, establishing Cloudbreak Lowlines and Eungella Beef.
The focus is on producing both commercial and stud stock, with a breeder herd of 50 females, while weaner steers range in the “wild paddock” still under regeneration, before moving into the finishing pastures at two and a half to three years.
They produce their own independent line of beef, sold through a local market and direct to retail customers. Their fare has been sampled and acclaimed by celebrity chef Matt Golinski during a Mackay farm to plate event.
“I was extremely impressed by the flavour, texture and consistency of their product, and their obvious passion for their animals,” he said.
Cloudbreak succeeds in creating a free range, hormone-free, stress-free cattle-raising environment, with an atmosphere of deep tranquillity and humble generosity pervading the property.
“We do low stress cattle-handling, and therefore keep that meat quality high, to the point where we don’t have to muster with dogs or anything, we just whistle and wave with a bit of lucerne and they all come running,” Mandy smiles.
“Everything we do is to keep them calm, and we get that top quality meat at the end.
“Sometimes they are a bit too calm, and you can’t get them onto a trailer. You have to wave a bit of lucerne and lure them on, then try and get around them to get off the trailer!”
“They dress out around 80 kilos a side, they’ve got a really good bone out rate, we are getting a 60-75 per cent bone out rates, and also the prime cuts are a higher ratio on the lowies,” Mandy said.
Lowlines are an Australian breed, refined from heritage Aberdeen angus stock brought from Scotland and Canada in the 1930s.
The typically calm breed was developed by careful selection for more beef and less bone, with selections aiming for easier birthing, lower birth size and early maturing traits.
The breed is also growing in popularity in New Zealand’s dairy industry, based on the shorter gestation periods that typify the breed.
Mandy said that Cloudbreak had historically been a dairy property, and had needed quite a bit of regeneration.
“It was pretty much covered in tobacco bush and lantana,” she said.
Half the property has been regenerated into rotational cell grazing paddocks, with the other half still a work in progress. The pasture is a mix of kikuyu and clover, and pinto peanut about to be added as an organic nitrogen fix.
“Lowlines can be finished on grass, and do not require grain,” Mandy said.
Other regenerative work has a included riparian fencing project in collaboration with reef catchments, with cattle watering replaced by a low energy gravity feed to troughs from hilltop tanks.
EUNGELLADALE
Dale Fortescue was born into dairy, the grandson of a Mackay area dairyman. His family sold out of its dairy in
the 1980s drought, but the dairy connection remained in his spirit, with he and and wife Paula taking on their Broken River dairy in 2008.
At the time, prior to supermarket cheap milk, the dairy offered modest profit, with milk processors paying 61c/L. The advent of $1 per litre milk made maintaining the dairy look almost impossible, getting 52c/L, but production running at 58c/L.
Eungelladale began supplementing income with a bathmilk product, and commenced crowd-funding and garnering community support to develop his own pasteurisation plant.
The process of establishing the pasteurisation plant, and attendant food safety program has cost around $120,000, with $55,000 sourced though community crowd-funding.
“It was that or die a slow process. It was costing us more to produce a litre of milk than Parmalat was willing to pay us. You just cut back, and then your milk production goes down because you are cutting back on feed and so on. Very hard.”
It’s a radically different story today. Eungelladale is usually producing 8000L of pasteurised milk weekly, although Dale said if he scaled up to meet actual demand, he could be producing 2000L daily.
And the dairy is raising a comfortable 70c/L.
The broader regional community has responded enthusiastically to locally and independently produced milk, and supports both Eungelladale and another dairy producing under its own label.
Dale also acknowledges amazing support from Eungella locals, in the form of donated labour and equipment from earthmovers, plumbers and cost price concrete from Tandy concrete, such was the community’s passion to see its dairy industry re-emerge.
He also has good support from his father Roger, who is helping out with some of the yet to be mechanised areas of the business.
“I have an 82-year-old labelling machine, and that’s Dad,” Dale laughs.
He has a vision not only for his business, but for the broader district.
In five years, he envisages moving into cheese production, and has made connections with some of Queensland’s independent cheesemakers, such as Maleny Cheese and Gallo Dairyland near Atherton.
He sees it as a potential seed for subtle economic growth and renewal in the quiet district, including potential food tourism, adding to a range of experiences in the Eungella district.
He said he would also like to see a larger network of dairy producers in the district.
He recommended that anyone considering independent dairying to invest in a good consultant to develop a strong food safety program. Dale encourages other dairy farmers to consider going independent.
“Do it! Definitely do it, because the local support behind local produce is gaining momentum year after year,” he said.
“We do the farmers market Wednesday mornings, and you get the regular people that want to talk to local farmers, and help.
“It might cost them a little bit extra, but at the end of the day, if you support local milk, on an average it’s $100 a year price-wise compared to the cheap milk. That’s less than a cup of coffee a day.
“It’s a scary thing to go out there and do it yourself, but when you get the response that we’ve got, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”