Fingers seize the opportunity

Lauren and Simon Finger were recently named The Weekly Times' Dairy Farmers of the Year for 2016. 165663 Pictures: RUSSELL BENNETT

The success of any business can never just be attributed to those who run or operate it. It depends on so many people – employees, contractors, and colleagues – and so many relationships built within the wider community.
This is something the Finger family from Yannathan knows all too well, having been through all the highs and lows that the dairy industry has had to offer over the past decade.
The husband and wife team was “absolutely humbled” to be named Weekly Times Dairy Farmers of the Year recently, particularly after hearing some of the stories of the other farmers in the room.
“Just to hear the stories and the scale that some of those operations run on was just amazing,” Lauren said.
“The farmers who won (Farmer of The Year) – David and Prue Bondfield – operate an amazing business across Queensland with huge numbers of beautiful beef cattle, and they’re lovely people to go with it, so it was great to have the opportunity to meet them.
“And another (business) that I’d actually come across previously was Dad’s Oats – the Cain family. They’re an absolutely salt of the earth family as well, and it’s great what they’ve done there.”
Farming is an industry never lacking for inspirational people, particularly dairy farming. Although they wouldn’t admit it, that’s exactly what Lauren and Simon are – inspirational.
They currently farm on three properties – in Labertouche, Darnum and on their ‘home farm’ at Yannathan. All up, it amounts to around 1250 acres.
Their herd is predominantly Friesian, but with Jersey and crossbred cows also in the mix.
Simon was born and raised on a dairy farm and went straight into farming – running his parents’ – after completing school.
Lauren’s background is a little different. She grew up in Melbourne, but her mother was from a beef and cropping property in north-east Victoria.
“I used to love escaping from the city at every opportunity to be a farmer on my holidays, so I was fortunate to have the best of both worlds,” she said.
That was where the interest, for her, was ignited – where the dream began.
“When I was very little, I just loved the tangible nature of farming – if you go out and build a fence at the end of the day you’ve got a fence to show for it,” Lauren said.
“I just loved that and I loved being out in the open doing physical work.
“Now that I’ve lived in the country for some time, I’m certainly very happy here and every time I go to the city it reminds me why I’m very happy in the country.”
Lauren and Simon’s values have been instilled in their three young children – Matthew, Claire, and Rachael – all under 10.
“They have a wonderful life with the space they’ve got here, and some of the aspects of the business they get exposed to you’d probably rather they weren’t at such a young age, but I think overall it certainly gives them a good understanding of how the world works,” Lauren said.
“They see new life on a daily basis – they see baby calves grow up, they see them live, they see them die.
“I’d like to think they also see a bit of the financial aspect, that we do have to work to pay for things as well. I think they value what they do get to do.
“They might not do some of the headline holiday things, but some of the other skills they learn along the way they’ll carry with them forever, and we certainly encourage them to work as a team and work with each other.”
The Fingers work together – through both good times, and bad.
They were once-a-day milking their herd of nearly 1000 cattle before the milk price dropped last year and ‘the dairy crisis’ hit.
“We didn’t actually do it as a response to the milk price drop,” Lauren said.
“But it meant because we weren’t highly feeding, and highly staffed, that we were able to pull back and work harder, ourselves.
“It was a pretty poor season, so there were a lot of farmers there who bought in a lot of feed to make milk and then had the rug pulled out from under them.
“We probably weren’t as permanently affected, but we had one autumn calving farm and one spring calving farm and the autumn (at Darnum) got slammed in that process, so we certainly saw the full brunt of it.
“We were losing a substantial amount of money every day just to milk those cows. “We were actually watching the money go backwards because it was costing more to feed and to milk them than we were getting in milk – and by a fair way.”
Incredibly, in the midst of all that, Lauren and Simon expanded to a third farm at Labertouche.
“When you’re faced with a real crisis situation like that where it’s really hard to step back and look at the bigger picture, you’re too busy focusing on making ends meet – what is the right answer right now to the fact that we’re losing money on a daily basis – to actually take a step back and look at the bigger picture and the opportunities that potentially come from it,” Lauren said.
One word that continually pops up when talking with Lauren and Simon is ‘opportunity’.
“I suppose as much as dairy farming is a lifestyle, we also see it as a business and as business owners we do look for opportunities and we’re conscious of the environment we’re operating in,” Lauren said.
“It’s not just the milk price, it’s the grain price, it’s the season – it’s all of that and how it combines to farm to the margins to the best way we can with the resources we’ve got available.
“On a farm you’re always so busy working ‘in’ the business to take that time away to step out to work ‘on’ the business.
“To prioritise that time to work on the business is always a challenge.”
Lauren and Simon have realised that it’s not always possible to do everything they’d like to do all the time.
“(It’s about) working out where to focus your attention and where your priorities lie,” Lauren said.
“We very much work from the cows out. The cows are the focus, first and foremost.
“They’re our biggest asset and they bring in our income so we focus on them first, making sure they’re fed, watered, and milked and then we bring in the rest of it when we can.”
Moving forward, there’s no doubt Lauren and Simon would like a better milk price – as would any dairy farmer. But the market is recovering, and they’re evolving with the industry’s changing landscape – for example, going back to twice-a-day milking at least in part due to the currently favourable grain price.
“I think both Simon and I have made an effort to educate ourselves as much as possible, especially around the farm business management aspect, so that we actually understand what our operational decisions are likely to mean for our profit at the end of the day,” Lauren said.
“Is it a good decision physically? Is it a good decision financially? Is it possible? “You’ve got to tick the three of them and sometimes there are compromises that you have to make.
“I think as a business we work pretty hard on creating a good workplace culture and making sure our values are being lived every day.
“We like to think, and it’s in our vision, that we’re a good place to be, whether you’re a cow, a worker, a contractor, and we try to look after the land as well. We work hard on that culture, and I hope that’s one thing that attracts people to work for us, to provide services to us, and to want our milk.”
Lauren and Simon are currently in an expansion phase of their business and they’re hoping for bigger and better things in 2017.
“Our goal is that by the end of the year we’ll have three farms stocked as they should be, milking twice-a-day, and producing lots of good quality milk,” Lauren said.
Her perspective on the Gippsland dairy industry is broader than that of most farmers. She’s also the deputy chair of GippsDairy.
“I really appreciate the opportunity to have a bigger picture view of the industry and the industry in Gippsland,” she said.
“GippsDairy has a board of 10, six of which are farmer directors, so you go through an appointment process, which I went through a couple of years ago.
“You do see the challenges from across the region, and then you see some challenges coming through nationally as well, as well as opportunities.
“Gippsland is a big area and is very diverse, so it’s about having that view of not just what you need in your own area, but what’s needed across the whole of Gippsland and how we can best serve farmers across Gippsland. It’s great – I enjoy it.”
GippsDairy has taken on a greater role with extension (support) services for farmers, and over the next 12 months Lauren said the aim was to really cement it as the go-to place for the Gippsland dairy industry.
“We’ve got it stated there that we want to be the first point of call to represent, to co-ordinate famers’ needs across Gippsland, and to get a really solid offering of services out there,” she said.
“You’ve got to always be conscious that there are new people coming into the industry and they always have that need for training and learning. (We need) to ensure those courses are there and available, and that what we’re providing is matching what the industry needs.”