duh... it's where they grow aceutical products for chemist shops.

579,when you are talking about a heard of cows, they are milked morning and night, 365 days of the years.

Now 3000 will require a huge plant and many regular, reliable staff. Simply turning up cause one feels like it, won't work.

As for company owned farms needing workers, that's not the point.

Some companies have purchased multiple farms and displaced the farming families in the process, this is why many communities suffer from this style of farming.

There is a lot more at stake in these regions than just the farm.

Another modern day farming problem is 'feast or fathem', whereby many farmers either make a fortune from a crop, or, it fails.

Farmers in the past, especially the Italians, would often share the workload, however, with IR laws,potential liability and duty of care issues, this is less popular, so more staff are often required, placing more importance on the crops success, as modern day farming wages have to come from borrowing or savings, not from cash flow.

The simple fact is, the risks are getting higher and to suggest taking away thier desiel subsidy may hurt more than the government thinks,as many farmers don't have cash flow.

An increasing number of farms are contract farming, planting and harvest are done by contractors. This eliminates every farm having the same equipment. Bigger farms do make cense, you are less likely to be decimated by drought if you have a farm in NSW and another in SA.
3,000 cows are a lot, with very little handling, the rotary dairy milks 150 cows at a time. It's a self serve dairy where only cows that are due to be milked are allowed access. Each cow has a micro chip in the neck, this is read and either accepted or rejected by the movement of gates.
This stops cows trying to get an extra ration of goodies

*Bigger farms do make cense, you are less likely to be decimated by drought if you have a farm in NSW and another in SA.*

Yeah but its not going to help your business model. The business
might not go bust due to diversification, but if its not generating
a profit, there is no point investing peoples superannuation money
or any other money into it.

Today you can run a dairy with little labour, with computerised
dairies. The cows come and go as they please, 24/7, their production
is linked to the size of their ration, all automatically. So
you can produce milk in Australia. The problem is to do it
profitably, because that milk has to be processed into cheese or
milk powder for global markets. You only need for China to stop
buying milk powder and the whole thing collapses.

The problem in Australia is the cost of processing those farm products
is amongst the highest in the world. Not only do those milk factory
workers etc have some of the world's highest wages and cushy benefits,
now we are looking at extra costs due to the carbon tax on electricity,
which is a huge cost for both farmers and processors.
But its not just electricity, its all sorts of extra nails being
knocked in to the coffin. Red tape costs, 12% super, etc, fuel
tax, increased AQIS charges, all the way from production until its
on a ship. So when you work it all out, it makes far more sense
to invest in dairy in say NZ then in Australia.

The problem in Australia is not growing things, its doing it profitably
given the huge cost loadings of a mollycoddled society.

Farmers owe something like 59 billion$. The only thing that forces
them to keep going, is the vain hope of digging themselves out of
the hole that they are in. For in say WA, when it comes to trying
to sell the farm to get out, there is nobody there to buy, as
banks won't lend them the money to buy an unprofitable business.

This large dairy has had some problems with certain times of the year the cows would get to much onion grass. The milk has had to be blended with milk from other areas. They get hoards of people going out there for a look. You put $2 in a machine and it allows you through to a viewing platform. Coke can dispensers and hot pies for a fee.
The only way to compete with AU's wage structure is to get smarter.
More mechanism and machinery that does not sleep.
Diversification, to spread the risk factor.
If miners can have driverless trucks, so can farmers.
Set your header in motion, go to bed, and then try and find your header the next day. And there it is in the shed having a rest.

*If miners can have driverless trucks, so can farmers*

Ah 579, you clearly arn't much good at running a business. The
innovation has to be paid for by the product produced. If the
numbers don't stack up, you don't have a business. With grain worth
no more then coal, best you mine coal.

The best thing that I ever did, was only to buy enough land for the
lifestyle, but not invest further in agriculture. Investing in
mining, banking and industries which have a local dominance, has
been far more profitable then investing in farming. All those farmers
who bought more land, are on the debt spiral and don't know how
to get off it.

What Australia has to do is get real. No more paying public servants
800k$ a year, bring house prices back to values where people can
afford them. The rest of the country has to live in the real world
too, because the the merino wheels fell off the cart long ago,
when the mining wheels fall off the cart, its going to be one tough
landing.