1973 Model ‘Mor-on
1973 Mor-on model, and proud of it!
I was at a dairy farm discussion group in Cohuna a few weeks ago evaluating the merits of different feeding systems and facilities when I had an epiphany. The facilitator was describing two different farm development models. Number one (best practice) involves a structured business plan where capital investment and farm decisions are made to in order to achieve the long-term business plan. Number two (common practice amongst all farmers) involves haphazardly adding bits and pieces to our business over time as opportunities and crises dictate, such as “it’s a drought, let’s buy a mixer wagon!” Then once we’ve got the mixer, we realise we need a bigger tractor to pull it.
A few months later “we could do this so much faster if we had a better loader to load the mixer”. Next step-obviously- is we could use this feed better if we had troughs to feed the quality feed into. So yes, we buy some feed troughs.
This describes most of my adult life as a farmer-I have continually been adding ‘mor-on and ‘mor-on just on an ad-hoc basis as finances would allow (alright, yes, and sometimes even when finances wouldn’t allow).
At that precise moment I realised with some joy, that I am proficient in the ‘mor-on model of farming. And really while I don’t want to talk myself up, in fact I am a gold-star performer.
In 1991 we had 140 cows and 200 acres, and since then I/we have added ‘mor-on. You all know what the farmers who won TattsLotto wanted to do with his money, he wanted to keep farming until his money ran out.
Sometimes I think I was a moron for starting a milk processing business-many have told me, and continue to tell me, it is stupid.
You’ve probably also heard the one about the farmer who had a small farm that was losing money, so he decided to double the size of his farm and lose a lot of money. So here’s a little ‘mor-on me. I am just about to compound our problems and double the size of our milk processing business.
My big fat, hairy goal for next year is to make the milk enhancement centre not lose money-it’s ambitious, but it is achievable?
What you need to remember is “it’s not a lie if you believe it”. That’s the best thing about ‘mor-on 101-wild optimism and mor-onism go hand in hand, so of course I think it is achievable.
On a slightly different subject altogether, my favourite day of the school holidays so farm was last Friday when, due to the Christmas break and freight issues, we had to do a production run of milk-which is most unusual. I told a white lie to my children and claimed I was short-staffed and couldn’t do it properly without them. For a short period I had the A Team running Bethune Lane Dairy. The youngest ones got paid $1 per hour for each year of their age, so the twins got $9 per hour each. Is that child slavery or a family unit working together? They were all happy, except the eldest who is a Christmas grinch, though he was easily blackmailed with a burger from the grill on top of his wages.
Was I mean to refuse to pay the nine-year olds a minimum three hour shift because they ran out of puff and started the “can we go home now?”, at the 90-minute mark? I had them filling bottles, packing boxes, stacking pallets, singing songs out of tune (it’s a genetic thing) and telling dad jokes.
Might never happen again that I get six Bethune boys working together, so it did bring me great joy. But then, ‘mor-ons are often easily pleased.