Their symposium was held in Port Macquarie last week and on Thursday, July 27, they visited the Cleary family at Hastings Park farm in Brombin near Wauchope.

The family are very well-respected within the industry, and top operators in their field.

Dairy farmers for more than 20 years, Leo and Sue, along with son, Luke and his wife Meaghan have a herd of 350 cows, producing 2.5 million litres of milk per year for Norco Co-operative.

Over the years, they have built a strong understanding of the impact of heat stress, and have installed a shade structure over the yards for cow comfort.

They recycle effluent and grow high-quality pasture to keep costs down and not import feed.

Leo Cleary explained that there is not a lot of really good dairy land in their valley and so it is a continual challenge to find suitable land.

“We have got a beautiful block up at Beechwood that used to be a dairy farm but we won’t be able to use it after Christmas,” he said, adding that with land costing $10,000 per acre, it’s prohibitive to run heifers on.

“We have always got our eyes open,” he said.

Yani Garcia from the Dairy Research Foundation said they rotate around the state to different places to showcase all the good research happening around New South Wales.

“The farm is fantastic with beautiful pastures, a wonderful amount of grass and fantastic productivity,” he said.

Student Cameron Geddes from Albany is doing a traineeship in agriculture with Southern Regional TAFE in Western Australia.

“I came here to pick up on some new ideas and techniques that are being used. There are heaps of things that are completely different here from the dairy I work on in WA,” he said.