SALLY and Paul Bethune were finally able to receive and celebrate their achievements after winning the 2020 Coles Weekly Times Innovative Farmer on the Year Award 2020.
The Lake Boga dairy farmers “left the gumboots at home” and headed down to the MCG for a ceremony where they were presented their award.
“It was a great honour to be nominated, and you just don’t feel like you are worthy of anything like that, because all farmers in Australia are doing some amazing things – if you’re still farming, then you’re innovating,” Ms Bethune said.
“So to be the Innovative Farmer of the Year was very humbling.”
Mr Bethune is a fifth generation dairy farmer and third generation on the original Lake Boga farm.
The innovative part of the Bethune’s farming set up is that they do on-farm processing to create their own products in their very own dairy, Bethune Lane Dairy.
“Normally dairy farmers milk the cows, put it in a vat, and the tanker picks it up and it goes to a factory somewhere, and you don’t really see it after that,” Ms Bethune said.
“It was just sort of an itch we had to scratch, we had to give this a go. You just don’t ever want to die wondering, thinking would that have worked, was that a good idea.
“So when we built the new dairy here, we saved a bit of space in the dairy to build a little factory, and we started with processing our own products, which is really a great fun journey.”
Currently the Bethunes make their own regular milk, chocolate flavoured milk with Belgium chocolate, and natural pot-set yogurt.
While their factory can only process a very small amount of their overall milk production, Ms Bethune said they were able to sell their products through a distributor or wholesaler.
“I think it’s true for a lot of regional food business – this is where the products are made and the food is grown and produced, but getting it to a wider market is a challenge,” Ms Bethune said.
“Having said that, the north west and in particular the Swan Hill region has been so supportive of our venture and buying our products, which is great.”
The Bethunes employ around 20 people between their two farms, as well as two to four people in the processing factory.
“That has been also one of the motivators for us, being that we would like to be a significant employer in our region, because the more jobs that are in the region the more people will stay and the better it is,” Ms Bethune said.
She said the Coles Weekly Times award is a great initiative for being able to celebrate positive farming stories.
“I think that’s just a great thing, because a lot of the time the noise that perhaps city people hear about regional issues is negative, and how drought or floods or things like that,” Ms Bethune said.
“While those things do happen, there will always be good things happening in farming as well.”
While there are no imminent plans of expansion, Ms Bethune said they are “project people”, and are always thinking of what could be next.
“We would probably like to get our products more further afield to start with and just build that market a bit more, because there is still capacity in this facility to do that,” she said.
