Down on the farm, big is not always bad

Farmers in the dairy industry in Victoria’s southwest are trying to do the right thing by the environment according to Deakin researcher Dr Mary Graham.

Dr Graham is from Deakin University’s Faculty of Business and Law where she has just completed her PhD, incorporating economic and environmental impacts of dairy farming into farm performance analysis.

“Dairy farms and dairy factories are getting bigger and I wanted to see if this was the way to go,” Dr Graham explained. “As the industry is quite diverse I focused my study on dairy farming rather than manufacturing.

“As well as assessing the farms’ economic impact, my research also looked at their environmental impacts. I used nitrogen leaching and run off from each farm as a measure of environmental impact so things like soil, the slope of the land and the farming practices used on the farm were important.”

Dr Graham collected her data from 24 farmers in the WestVic Dairy region. WestVic Dairy Inc. is the regional development board for the industry in southwest Victoria where dairying is the biggest money-spinner, the biggest export earner and one of the biggest employers.

“I had a four-year panel data set for farms in the WestVic Dairy region that I obtained from the Department of Primary Industry in Warrnambool,” Dr Graham explained.

“The data set contained much of the financial details of the farms. I then visited each one to obtain data relating to the physical features of those farms and also the farming practices, particularly in relation to fertiliser and dairy effluent.

“Ultimately the impact of the farms, both from an environmental and an economic point of view, comes back to the farmer and how they manage things, not just the farm’s size.

“They and the industry are trying to do the right thing. There is a difficulty though when you introduce environmental considerations into performance analysis. Farmers can’t be expected to look after the environment for us without giving them some assistance.

“Such measures can impact on the economic performance of the farm.”

However, the farm extension activities offered through the Department of Primary Industry, dairy factories and WestVic Dairy are designed to provide the appropriate level of assistance to farmers.

Dr Graham believed the research also offered economists and scientists greater opportunity to collaborate on more related research.

“We can each acknowledge that we have something we can offer each other,” she said.

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