CREATION of the Bunbury dairy hub was the most significant industry change of his time, retiring Western Dairy chairman Vic Rodwell told last week's annual meeting at the Spring Field Day.
Integration of dairy science with dairy extension into a single entity, the research, development and extension (RD&E) hub, was a significant step not without challenges, Mr Rodwell said in his chairman's report before stepping down after nine years in total as a Western Dairy director.
"The old days of the dairy scientists and extension officers working for DAFWA (Department of Agriculture and Food WA) while industry watched on is now replaced by the efficiency of a small team of science, business and extension practitioners working for, or contracted to, the very people whose farm businesses they are assisting," he said.
"It's quite exciting being able to pull those together, to have the control of dairy RD&E into the future, but to be flexible as well, and to take the hub where we (dairy farmers) want to go.
"It's also quite exciting to see what's coming.
"What is coming in the pasture studies, I feel, is a quantum leap and we will need all the tools and understanding to manage these key areas within our business," said Mr Rodwell, who farms at Boyanup.
"This is the first opportunity we have had to reflect on the value of integrating dairy science, dairy extension and bringing that together under the banner of our RD&E hub project.
"I am confident once you read (the research outcomes in Western Dairy's annual report) it will leave you, like me, with a sense that we have a winning formula with this approach," he said.
Mr Rodwell acknowledged establishing the hub been challenging, particularly with the project's initial leader Rob La Grange leaving to work in Fiji - Mr La Grange has since returned and is reviewing dairy training.
He also acknowledged on-going funding as a "risk".
"Our response to that is to ensure we continue to deliver exceptional value to our stakeholders and be in a position to mount a strong case for on-going funds,'' Mr Rodwell said.
"The hub is deliberately nimble in its structure to move with the vagaries of State and federal funding opportunities to advance our quest for sustainable growth and profit.
"As I come to the end of my final term as a Western Dairy director I look back and reflect on some great outcomes for the organisation and its members, but none more significant (than the hub."
DAFWA last year devolved its dairy industry research responsibility, its dairy-focused scientists and some of the facilities at Vasse Research Station - where the annual field day was held - to the hub in a three-year funding deal with Western Dairy, Dairy Australia and the South West Catchments Council.
At the time, the move was touted as a possible blue print for Dairy Australia-funded research and extension in the eastern States.
Dairy Australia raised research funding through it dairy services levy which was previously a compulsory contribution at a flat rate set after a national poll of farmers at least every five years.
Individual farmer payments were determined by milk solids and protein levels of raw milk and automatically deducted from milk cheques by processors.
But last year farmers voted to change the system from research targets being determined by the amount of funding available to research targets determining the amount of funding needed.
Dairy Australia appointed a dairy levy poll advisory committee to help it determine what the long-term research objectives might be and what funding will be needed.
WA's levy payer representative on that advisory committee is Peter Evans, a former Western Dairy director and WAFarmers dairy council president, and father of Western Dairy's new chairman Grant Evans.
Since the hub's creation Western Dairy has partnered with the Department of Water and Geocatch - Geographe Catchment Council, Busselton - to obtain $1.2 million in Royalties for Regions funds under the State government's Estuaries Initiative.
Western Dairy project officer Dan Parnell is using that funding to investigate better management systems for dairy effluent with a possibility some farm system upgrades could also be funded.
He provided a preliminary report to the Spring Field Day, the fourth held by Western Dairy.
The annual meeting confirmed board changes.
Mr Rodwell, who served two three-year terms as a dairy farmer director of Western Dairy from 2010 and an earlier term in 2001-04, paid tribute to his wife Denise and sons, fellow board members and hub staff.
He singled out Western Dairy executive officer Esther Jones - who he described as the "E factor" - for special mention.
It was the "E factor" he said that convinced him to be part of two industry promotions he listed as personal highlights.
One was dressed in top hat and tails walking a dairy cow in the shallows along a beach to promote a national dairy innovation forum in WA.
The other was starting a Legendairy IronKids race beside Busselton jetty with an air horn while holding a 700 kilogram cow on a lead after a parade of dairy cows up the beach.
As in-coming chairman Mr Evans, who was elevated from vice chairman, said over the next 12 months Western Dairy would concentrate "on how to empower dairy farmers to be a bit more profitable on our farms".
"Western Dairy acknowledges dairy farmers pay a sizeable levy and that is a tangible deduction from their monthly milk cheque," he said.
"What we offer back at times is not so tangible.
"ESKi (employment starter kit initiative), Farm safety starter kit, Cups on cups off (milker training courses), healthy foods workshop, transition cow management, dairy base and support for farm management are what we offer.
"But you as farmers have to make decisions to utilise these to take advantage of the levy you pay."
Recognised as an innovative farmer, Mr Evans, 33, his wife Lauren and two young daughters, run spring and autumn-calving Holstein herds totalling 840 cows on a 442 hectare dry-land platform at Jindong.
About 70 per cent of the herds are Holsteins crossed with Montb((xE9))éliarde - Mr Evans introduced the French breed he saw on a dairy tour to California to overcome fertility and longevity issues.
They are crossed again with Aussie Red, while the rest are pure Holstein.
As the third generation of his family on Paskeville, he is buying the property from his parents Peter and Sue.
Their farm was WA Dairy Business of the Year in 2010 and 2011 and National Dryland Business of the Year in 2011.
Mr Evans has just started his third year on the Western Dairy board.
Bannister Downs Dairy owner Matt Daubney, Northcliffe, who joined the board last year, is the new vice chairman.
Vicki Fitzpatrick, who puts an agricultural sciences background to good use running a 180 milking cow dairy farm at Waroona with her husband Luke, was elected to the board to replace Mr Rodwell.
The Fitzpatricks have won a Dairy Australia Countdown Milk Quality Awards gold plaque each year since the gold plaque was introduced in 2014 and awarded to the top 100 dairy farmers nationally whose milk averaged the lowest bacterial cell count.
Brian Piesse, Boyanup, was re-elected for a second three-year term as one of two non-dairy farmer directors on the board.