36 Nicholls Tues 1600 1730 GREG DENNIS
It has been a really interesting journey for myself. What is happening now started for me when I
was diagnosed four years ago with clinical depression. So I often do speak about that. And I'm
far enough down the track now that I can speak about it comfortably. I probably started speaking
about it two years ago, and that was a bit soon. So you still feel a bit emotionally attached. But
it's a very real problem in our industry. And I just did a workshop the other day in Queensland.
The sentiment amongst dairy farmers is bad and getting worse today. So no matter what the
future prospects might hold, and no matter how excited we might try and tell ourselves we
should be, then that's a reality that we face today and tomorrow.
So we've actually set about doing what we're doing today. We have effectively turned the clock
back in time because my family farm-- just a little bit of background about me. My grandfather
started milking cows on our property in the 1930s. And my father and uncle were born on the
place and are still there to this day in their '70s. Pair of workaholics, at home working so I can
come here and speak to you guys. Very nice of them. And now we don't milk cows anymore as
such. We use robots to milk the cows. And we have had a lot of interest in that process. Those
guys there were actually out from the BBC. They do a programme called Click. And you can
check that out online. They did a little two-minute feature on technology and agriculture in
Australia in November last year. So it's interesting times.
Geez, I'm good, aren't I?
[LAUGHTER]
We are getting somewhere. So what we're doing is not really innovating. And our farm has never
really been innovators. I'd like to think we're early adopters of technology. And I've probably had
a pretty good grounding from my father in that he was always looking for the next opportunity to
do something better. So we did win back-to-back awards for innovation last year. And this year I
won business person of the year in our regional council area.
And it's ironic that innovation means milking four cows at a time-- which is what we did in the
1930s, by the way. And we're now putting milk in a glass bottle with the cream floating to the
top. I'm not sure how that adds up to innovation. But that was the award we won by doing
something different. So it really is a case of getting back to some of the things that have worked
in the past instead of trying to stay so far ahead of the game with technology.
My analytical brain, it likes to review things and analyse things. Well one thing I have worked at
recently is that we haven't figured out a way to make milk better than the cow can yet. We can do
all manufacturing we want, but it's actually hurting our health. We're getting a lot of feedback
from people about the health benefits they're getting from our milk. And all we're doing is less.
We're just doing less damage to it. So I think we're starting to see that a lot across a lot of food
industries. We've got to stop playing our food, we've got to stop destroying it. And our body will
recognise it in its original form.
In the case of milk, well the best way that we can deal with that is by talking to the people. Has
anyone here Myers-Briggs? You know what Myers-Briggs is? A few of you. So for those of you
that have done that, I'm an E-N-F-P. And I learned recently that about 95% of all dairy farmers
in Australia are I-S-T-Js-- which is what my wife is too, by the way. So after 18 years of bliss,
we figured out why we didn't always agree on things. And now I can explain to her why she
should love me for who I am.
[LAUGHTER]
Sometimes I'm sure that still doesn't work real well. But the reality is I was probably always
destined to struggle in the dairy industry because I saw things a little differently. And I've
learned a lot about that since depression. But in talking to people on our farm, we've also built an
agritourism business that sees about 15,000 people each year coming through our gate. And we
do real-time tour presentations. You cannot underestimate the value of talking to the consumer.
And unfortunately, because we just like to pass on all the hard work to somebody else in our
industry-- perhaps the processors. They don't see the need to connect with the consumer on our
behalf. As long as they're making money through their own means, it doesn't matter. We're at the
end of the food chain.
So we see these sort of opportunities with kids on farm. This is leaving lifelong impression on
kids, and a lot of them come back. The little kid, giving the calf a kiss, there with her brother
putting a hand on the milk jar. We love explaining to kids where milk comes from. Kids know
where milk comes from. It comes from the fridge. They get a bit of a shock when they put their
hand on that glass milk jar because that milk is nearly 40 degrees, and that is the same
temperature as the cow's body.
And old Annie there, she was 91. When she came to the farm she had never touched a dairy cow
in her life. And that calf slobbered all over her, and she was just about in tears, and she said she
was never going to wash her hands. So that's the impact we're leaving. It's very real for the
people who get that experience.
I've probably been one of the more active farmers in social media. I don't think it's an exact
science. And not all sorts of social media work for everybody. My personal preference is
Facebook. And I'm probably the only dairy farmer in Australia with 10,000 followers-- nearly
12,000. So then you are actually making a larger impression. What we're doing-- what I'm doing
in communicating with those people-- is I'm enabling them to communicate my message. So I
don't have the power to tell the story to everybody. But the magnification of that is quite
incredible. So we see that now. They're almost like the milk Nazis at the supermarket aisle. They
will tell people to put that other milk back in the shelf and get the for-real milk-- it's much nicer.
And we hear stories of that happening all the time.
When we first started bottling milk, we had a dilemma the first two weeks. We had to hit the
ground running. If you understand, in Queensland there is no option to sell milk to different
processors. So we had literally cut ties with all major milk companies. And we had to shift of our
own milk through stores. We thought we had enough stores, we had 60. And unfortunately we
only sold 3/4 of our milk in the first week. And so I got on Facebook and had what has now
become famously known as a Farmer Gregie rant. And we had 18 new stores contact us in the
next 10 days, saying our customers are all telling us we need your milk. So we went from 60
stores to now 200 very quickly.
I guess I'm also very conscious of the fact that the duopoly are creating a lot of problems in our
society in the way that they're educating people to the value of food. There's a very big
difference between cost and value when it comes to food. As farmers we do whinge a lot. We
feel it's our right, it's our prerogative-- we should be allowed to whinge. And we do. We whinge
to all the wrong people all the time-- not very clever. We'll whinge to the government to fix it for
us. Why can't the government just put some legislation in place and solve our problems? What
about the processors? They should just pay us more.
Or we'll go on about Coles and Woollies. If they stop selling dollar milk, we'd be OK. Well it's a
free country. They're making money. I'm happy for Coles and Woollies to develop a social
conscience whenever they're ready. It's a free country. But until then, our milk is not in Coles, or
Woollies, or Aldi. We're talking directly to independent retail outlets. I don't know if they ever
will develop a social conscience, because that's not required by law in Australia. But as long as
they can find loopholes and use the existing law to their benefit, of course they will. Because
they're driven by shareholders and CEOs who are much more about greed than social conscience.
I thought Barnaby said a couple of really interesting things this morning about the bigger picture,
about the social importance of what we do. I keep liking to think that as a society we have turned
the corner. I think there's a growing number of people who are listening to this message, who are
saying, it's not OK to keep on breaking our agricultural industries. And we do have to pay a fair
price for our food. Because they want to. We're not nearly as broke as we think we are today.
We're time-poor. And convenience is the farmer's biggest adversary, convenience for the
consumer to buy everything in that one-stop shop. Consumers have money to pay for food, for
real food. It's just that they're spending it on the toys they don't need before they buy the food.
So we do get a lot of feedback now. And I guess it's ongoing interruption that I find with people.
So it's a two-way street. My Facebook page is Farmer Gregie. And I'm communicating with
people every day. I have a lot of friends in small business at home-- in my hometown-- saying,
can you please teach me. You don't have to read all of that, but it's the kind of feedback we get.
Teach me how to make Facebook work so my business can be better. It's not rocket science. It's a
lot of time and a lot of energy, that's what makes it work.
And of course with the good comes the bad. And in doing what I do, you need a bit of a thick
skin. We get some bad feedback every now and then. My poor mum was in tears the other day
after doing a tour and I wasn't home. And I would suggest a serial winger was not happy about
anything he saw on our farm. But for the handful of negatives, we're getting a lot of positive
feedback. So people are paying attention.
It is hard for a lot of farms to connect with people the way I do because I'm an extrovert and I
enjoy having a conversation. But I think it's important for farmers that can do that to try and take
on more of the load on behalf of their other farmers. I think that by engaging with people, if one
in every 10 farmers can do that, well let's hugely beneficial for the whole.
My focus has really shifted from within industry. In fact, it's a doubled-edged sword. It's a funny
place I find myself in now where I'm actually seen as tall poppy within industry, and particularly
in home state, because I'm making a bit of noise and ruffling a few feathers, drawing attention to
the flaws of our industry.
So just a few photos what we do on the farm now with the tours and the fact that I do have a
presence publicly as much as I can. And that was exciting. That was my first signing, my first
milk bottle signing. Phil loved me. That was a southern hemisphere first. We had fully
operational robotic milking display at the Brisbane exhibition and ran three presentations every
day. This year we'll have. Yeah, well Carlton Mid took over from Forex for the cricket rights this
year. Go to put a smile on the girls' faces.
We are involved with a lot of school programmes. Cows Create Careers, Camembert in the
Classroom. We just donated milk last week and the previous year. Camembert in the Classroom
has exposure for 6,000 kids to make cheese. It's a great programme.
I am first to put my hand up and say, I'm in a perpetual state of distraction. That's my life. We
did enlist a bit of help when we got started. And we didn't necessarily work with the biggest or
best company. We needed a bit of an idea as to how to market and what to do.
Jane from V Marketing is just a mum that used to work with a bigger corporation. She's at home- couple of kids, working from home. But she was passionate about the story. She connected
with what I said was happening. And somehow we went along to win her category in
Queensland marketing awards. And then we went to Sydney in October last year and we
knocked out all 17 category winners at the Australian Marketing Institute for a story called
saving the family farm. So I guess that's what I'm about, is connecting with people and giving
them a reason to support the farmer.
I'm very proud to be a farmer. I'm not going to try and pretend that I'm not. And I think that it's
important that we connect with people. We need the consumer on our side. I knows there's a lot
of excitement about what's coming in the very near future with export opportunities. That's
important to us too. But in the meantime, we can't wait for that to happen in my industry, in my
home state. We need to educate people to get on our side, start supporting us. And they're
listening. Thanks so much.