The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Tuesday, the 7th of November 2023

By Dwain Duxson

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Wolki Farm show why no two Farms are the same

Jake Wolki is a young bloke who is carving out his own unique Farming story and taking everyone along for the ride as he documents all his actions to his 7000 thousand-plus Twitter followers. Wolki Farm is an interesting case study. They classify themselves as Regenerative Farmers, and they run Sheep, Cattle, Pigs and Chooks. That's a pretty conventional Regenerative Farm, nothing too dissimilar there. But it's when you get a little bit further down the line that it becomes a bit more unique. They process all their Animals and sell them through their own Butcher Shop. But it's not any old Butcher Shop. This one is open 24/7 and doesn't have any staff to serve you. It operates like a modern Gym. At the Gym, you pay a membership, and you can enter anytime you like with a code. The Wolki Butchery is a little different, where you enter with a code and then use a specific app to gather and pay for the items you want to purchase. I think it's a brilliant idea. Take a read of the Wolki story here. This just proves that in Farming, we are relatively free to run our Farm however we like. No two Farms are the same. See an image below. Reply to [email protected]

Many Growers exiting Horticulture

As we said above, Farming is wide and varied. I had an email from a Fruit and Veg grower last week, and he spelt out how tough his industry is doing it right now. He said this, "Not only are Growers declining in number, they are getting older and poorer, less investment in their Farms means lack of competitiveness in the future. I am not sure if anyone has done research into the Hort sector just to see how many growers have been lost over the past 15 years, but many more will go in the next couple of years. The reason is cost pressures have not been realised yet, not until we finish the season can we really see if we made money. Coles and Woolworths are destroying the industry at many levels, all of which can be easily proven". We need to be very careful that not too many people exit Farming at once. If this is how it's looking in Horticulture, then that's a real concern. Are you in Horticulture? If so, do you see it differently to this? Reply to [email protected]

My indirect connection with a Cup win

A mate of mine owned a 25 pecent in Price of Penzance, which won the Melbourne Cup in 2015. The win is probably famous for having the first female Jockey to ever win the Cup, Michelle Payne. It was one of those dream-come-true victories as it won at 100/1. None of us expected it to win, but at 100/1 you had to have a little bit on, and we did. But we were all in near disbelief when it crossed the line in first place, including my owner friend. That then sparked what was a memorable three-day bender that took us all around Melbourne with the Cup. Yes, I was a hangeronerer, and I didn't care as it was so much fun for the ten or so people who kept up appearances for the three days. Besides, we were there to support our Cup-winning mate. That's what we said anyway. So that's my little indirect connection with the Melbourne Cup. Do you have any Melbourne Cup memories? See an image below. Reply to [email protected]

Will new Machinery prices come back?

A Farmer asked this question. Will new Machinery start to come down? This was in reply to the number of cancellations of orders of new Machinery we reported the other day. His theory was that Machinery Dealers will be lumped with extra stock and will start discounting it so it could move. I'm told the once sparse Machinery Dealer's yards during Covid is no longer, so surely this will lead to some discounting. We have seen it do a turn in the used Machinery market, where buyers have been back negotiating again and have been doing so for some time. But once they start getting addicted to the strong margins, it's hard for the Machinery Dealers to go back. The Butchers and Supermarkets are experiencing that at the moment. Economics will usually put pay to that as aging stock in the yard of any dealership is not their ideal scenario. As we reported a few weeks back, the Dealer industry has openly said they have had it too easy for too long and need to roll their sleeves up and get back to servicing customers again. As a Farmer, can you see New Machinery Prices coming back? Reply to [email protected]

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

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