Presentation ends 164 years of service

Graham Manning and his wife Jayne, who were dropped by Brownes Dairy in September, accepted the WAFarmers’ Milk Bottle award for their contribution and that of Graham’s father, grandfather, great grandfather and great great grandfather – the first registered dairy farmer to sell milk in Perth.

The annual award, in the shape of a milk bottle turned from polished wood, was presented by WAFarmers dairy section president Michael Partridge at a dairy diner following Dairy Innovation Day recently.

Mr Partridge said Mr Manning’s ancestor started farming on Mounts Bay Road, Perth, near where Jacobs Ladder is situated, in 1852, growing vegetables and milking two cows.

By 1860, when John Daniel Manning became a registered dairy farmer, the herd grew to 40 cows which grazed along the Swan River and on what is now Kings Park, until it was proclaimed in 1878.

He sold fresh milk door to door in Perth, ladled from buckets that were carried on a wooden yoke across his shoulders.

While one son moved to South Perth to farm, Mr Manning’s great grandfather continued farming the Mounts Bay Road property until 1895, when the family moved to the Shire of Harvey and established a dairy farm to supply fresh milk and cream to Bunbury.

A war service loan helped Mr Manning’s father buy his own Harvey farm which Mr Manning started running more than 40 years ago as a 19-year-old, after completing his education at Scotch College and a year playing football for Swan Districts.

Mr Manning purchased the farm in 1990 and was a very successful dairy farmer with “a wall full of plaques to prove it”, Mr Partridge said.

“The welfare of his cows has always been the main priority, no matter the cost,” he said.

“He was the milk quality champion – between 2002 and 2016 Graham and Jayne’s dairy was ranked in the top five per cent on milk quality (and) for nine of those years he was ranked in the top 1pc in Australia.”

Mr Partridge said Mr Manning and his parents had “always seen the value” of being members of WAFarmers and its predecessors, such as the WA Farmers’ Federation (WAFF).

Mr Manning was vice president of WAFF Harvey branch between 1996-98 and president in 1998-2003 “during the stressful time of deregulation of the WA dairy industry”, Mr Partridge said.

“Since I’ve been involved in advocacy and trying to muster farmers together to hear what we have to say or to get them along to meetings in the Harvey area I just make one phone call and that’s to Graham Manning and he does the rest,” he said.

“He has always believed in trying to make the industry better, in a fair go for everybody and that’s what drove him and his lovely wife.

“He always believed in the future of the dairy industry.”

Mr Partridge said last year was one of the toughest challenges the family had faced – first with the Waroona-Harvey bushfires burning half their pasture and then Brownes dropping them as a supplier and no one else taking up their milk despite it being award-winning, grade one quality.

“No one should have to go through what Graham and Jayne went through last year, and they were not alone in that process, we can’t let this happen again,” Mr Partridge said.

He said Mr Manning and his wife had since “made the most of a bad situation”.

“Graham has modified part of his dairy yard and set himself up for backgrounding and agisting cattle for Harvey Beef,’’ he said.

“In the next few weeks Graham and Jayne are planting 30,000 tea tree seedlings on their sand country and hope to be harvesting A grade Manuka honey in three to four years’ time.

“While I know Graham and Jayne would have much preferred to have left our industry with the dignity that they deserve and the timing they preferred, (they) have instead brought forward the opportunity to enjoy a life that’s less hectic and not quite so early paced,” he said.

Mr Manning said it was a privilege to accept the award on behalf of his family and thanked Mr Partridge for his assistance through a difficult period that he hoped no one else would have to endure.

He pointed out that cows and dairying were integral to WA’s development.

“(In the early days of settlement) every time a new area was cleared cows went there because that gave people a natural food to encourage and build that community,” he said.

He also pointed out the incongruity of being forced out of the industry and having to sell his beloved herd to other farmers, who also supply Brownes, so his cows’ milk that Brownes did not want to buy from him is being bought from others.

He lamented the Milk Bottle award was made from polished wood and not the “real thing”.

“These days I have to buy milk,” Mr Manning said.