In these days of increasing concern among farmers as to what an insane Labour-Green government might do to them in the future to save the planet destroy farming – alternating with an obsequious, cynical National Party who will gladly take the votes of “minimisers” and “deniers” while sniggering at them – it’s nice to find stories that give hope to farmers.
Kay and Dave Tommerup in Queensland are one such story – on a sixth generation farm of just 80 hectares – and they’ve been rewarded in many ways, most recently by being named in the Farmer of The Year Awards in Australia:
Twenty Jersey Cows. That’s all it took for Kay and Dave Tommerup to take an enormous leap of faith and believe their farm in the Kerry Valley in Queensland’s Scenic Rim could stand alone as a place of extraordinary, independent produce and experiences.
It was a big leap. But fortunately, it paid off.
They put their business faith, and their family’s future into 20 beautiful, brown-eyed Jersey cows that produce the richest milk. Milk where the cream floats to the top and sits there like a crown.
It’s milk from which Kay makes hand-rolled butter infused with red gum smoked salt that’s demanded by top chefs and spoken of in hushed tones of secrecy across countless commercial kitchens.
They also have their farm set up for Farm Stay, Farm Experiences, and meat sales. But it’s the dairy part that I like. They also started out tough:
Six long years after deregulation, Dave and Kay took over the family farm. It was at rock bottom.
“All savings were gone; the maintenance and capital investment had been non-existent since deregulation. We not only had to find a new income stream to combat the ridiculously low milk prices, we had to rebuild,” Kay added.
It’s a great story and you should read the whole thing. But also understand that there is no such thing as a boutique industry.
No Minister 
I am aware of two small dairy operations, one near Oxford and another in the Waipukurau area offering “Raw Milk” to those who wish to purchase it.
The compliance BS and harassment from officialdom is almost unbelievable.
The HB one has retail support from our family, the Oxford people came to notice when a spouse program during a regional service club meeting offered a visiting opportunity to a fellow Lion’s missus.
In the first three years of married life we were some seventy miles from an outlet that could provide milk and we bought a billy of milk from a neighbour every day.
I am old enough to have survived milk before “Homogenising” became a part of advanced “Marketing” of milk.
My boarding school had large cans of milk that was decanted into large Stainless jugs for each dining table and I was one of a few who wanted to access the cream from the top at breakfast to make the bloody weetbix edible.
how we survived I may never know