MORE than $30 million has been invested by Western Australian farmers in a new Patmore Feeds ruminant feed mill at Cuballing.
The mill will be one of the biggest in the State with an annual production licence of 180,000 tonnes for supply into the domestic market.
Patmore Feeds general manager Dean Toovey said final approvals had been granted in December and the recently-organised company would move forward with the planned mill which would be on a 14 hectare block on John and Doreen Patmore's farm, Cuballing, which already had an old pellet depot and fertiliser business on it.
Mr Toovey expected the mill to be up and running by November/December 2021 and would provide nutritional feed pellets to local livestock producers, who had been struggling to find enough supply in the domestic market during recent dry seasons.
The state-of-the-art mill, which will operate 24 hours a day with all the latest industry technology, will employ 25 full-time staff and Mr Toovey said they would start putting their feelers out to fill the positions as the mill came closer to completion.
An official sod turning event was expected to take place in the next few weeks with local government officials in the Shire of Cuballing, who had helped with the application process, if they were able to under COVID-19 government health restrictions.
Mr Toovey said the purpose of the mill was to provide WA livestock producers with pellets during the November- June/July period when feed supplies were generally scarce.
They have engaged a nutritionist to help develop the rations, with ingredients of grain and fibre sourced locally.
"This is a country mill for country people and we are hoping we will get country support," Mr Toovey said.
"It's almost owned entirely by WA country owner investors.
"We have investors from Badgingarra to Esperance and everywhere in between.
"It's not a co-operative - it's more sophisticated than that."
Mr Toovey said the livestock industry had been "under-supplied for as long as I've been involved".
"Last year, early in the season, we couldn't get enough pellets - and it still wasn't a busy time.
"The stress was too much and we either had to get out of the industry or look for alternatives.
"We got in touch with another mill to see if they could supply us but it became obvious that we'd have to look at it.
"We never expected to get this far.
"Along the way we would look at the numbers and we decided to just keep going unless there was a roadblock - there never was."
Mr Toovey said the mill include a "high degree of automation" using the most modern technology available.
"It is as state-of-the-art as we can get at the minute," he said.
"We looked at doing something smaller but realised that would require more staff.
"It took educated decisions to keep going at each step."
Mr Toovey said the mill would be supplied by farmers within 150 kilometres of the location which would reduce transport costs and times.
He encouraged growers to consider increasing their farm storage capacity to be able to supply the mill throughout the year.
The Patmores have been farming and running their depot and fertiliser business for 20 year and the business has become so big that they have had to share crop 1214 hectares as it was "the only way they could do it," Mr Toovey said.
The business was named Patmore Feeds as "a bit of homage to them" for their contribution to the industry in that time.
"The location is the perfect spot for a mill," he said.
"It's on the junction of two of the top five sheep producing regions in the country - which I found out when doing our research."
Mr Toovey said he was able to attract country investors because they knew the market had been "under-supplied for years and years" and it was a "win for everyone".