When Plan A fails, move to Plan B and always have a plan was the take-home message Ken and Bonnie Ravenhill, who run the State's biggest dairy operation, conveyed at Dairy Innovation Day last Thursday.
When the Western Australia College of Agriculture, Denmark, sweethearts took over Ken's family's Ravenhill Pastoral farm at Narrikup 10 years ago, it was third biggest milk producer in WA.
At that time, it was half its current size of 1780 hectares and 1100 cows were milked on a 60-stand rotary dairy.
The farm and associated enterprises supported Ken's parents Graham and Jan, who had bought the initial property in the 1990s, Ken and Bonnie and three of their four children and Mr Ravenhill's brothers Bevan and Rhys and their families.
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Ten years on and the addition of a neighbouring property, it now milks up to 1700 Holstein-Friesian cows, each producing about 9200 litres a year, including 700-720 kilograms of milk solids, for an annual grade one milk production of 16 million litres.
It has the only 100-cow rotary dairy platform in WA and it also runs 400 beef cattle.
It is owned by the Ravenhills and supports them, their children and their employees - the equivalent of 18 full-time staff, including three who have been with them over that journey and longer.
Growing to become WA's biggest dairy operation was actually Plan B, Ken and Bonnie, hosting Western Dairy's 23rd Dairy Innovation Day, told more than 300 people who attended.
It only came about because Plan A, which was to sell the farm, fell through.
A Chinese group which had committed to buy the farm defaulted on payment, prompting the Ravenhills, who admitted to always being ready to assess and seize an opportunity, to activate their Plan B.
They explained that the family had built the farm up from an initial 400 beef cattle and 80 cows milked in a herringbone dairy into a successful multi-faceted enterprise with dairy at its core.
But in 2010 when the family began succession planning with assistance of Busselton dairy consultant Steve Hossen as facilitator, the future suddenly took on a different outlook.
"Each family was asked to go away and draw up a plan of what they wanted for the future," Ms Ravenhill said.
"When we all came back and went through the plans it was obvious that we (she and Ken) were the only ones who really wanted to continue with dairy."
However in accord with majority wishes the farm was advertised for sale and after about 18 months a buyer appeared.
The Ravenhills headed north on a caravan trip, planning to take their family on a road trip around Australia to Victoria to buy a dairy farm there.
Ms Ravenhill said they were in Darwin when word came in that the sale had fallen through.
They jumped in the car and headed back, formulating Plan B as they drove.
It is now recognised as one of the most successful and amicable succession plans carried out in WA dairying.
The Ravenhills based their plan around eventually being able to milk 2000 cows and that has been the basis of decisions to buy their first run-off block in 2015 and then sell it in 2018 to buy a neighbouring farm, also to buy and later sell a cropping farm and in building a calf shed (2019) and rotary dairy (2021) to handle that stocking level.
"It cost $400,000 more to go from a 60 (stand rotary dairy) to 100 (stand rotary) and we were quite happy to wear that $400,000 because we had decided our ultimate plan was to milk 2000 cows," Mr Ravenhill said.
His wife worked in banking and finance so her experience helped arrange and manage finance as well as strict budgeting protocols.
"Knowing what your actual financial position is gives you the confidence to act immediately when an opportunity appears," Ms Ravenhill said.
Assets like the cropping farm and beef cattle, that are not essential for the dairy operation, are considered "disposable".
"Nothing here has ever happened without a reason, a big part of our growth has been assessing and mitigating risk," she said.
