2023 AGM farm tour

Over 30 DFMC farmers and staff took part in the DFMC South-East Queensland Farm Tour to the University of Queensland (UQ) Gatton Research Dairy and JP Bourke & Co (Gladfield, north of Warwick).  DFMC staff have been working closely with the team at UQ, so it was an ideal opportunity with the AGM being in Toowoomba to call in and let farmers see the work being undertaken by researchers on crop rotations, forage sorghum silage, Proportion of Ungrazed Pasture (PUP) grazing, dairy beef along with Farm Business Resilience Planning (available to Queensland farmers).  Farm manager Dusty took the group through the dairy, calf housing and commodity storage facilities, and confirmed that all farmers are welcome at the research dairy any time (Northern Manager Damien Tessmann has contact details available for the team).

The Bourke family (previous DFMC members) then opened their farm up to allow members to see their two compost sheds in use with their 600 cows on a 50-stand rotary dairy.  Shane Bourke talked through the operations of the farm and the journey in embracing technology (such as collars).