The Railway Hotel

lor aims for greater efficiency and productivity on the family farm over the next five years, The former Meat and Livestock Australia lamb development officer returned to work the farm with parents Barry and Jacinta last year.

James is looking at making pastures more productive for the Merino ewe-base self-replacing flock, currently running 1100 ewes, joined to white Suffolks.

The 600-hectare farm is also breeding cattle and currently grows cereals.

“For us, there is competition for out land from cropping,” said James who recently spoke at the North Central LLEN annual meeting and will share the platform at Birchip Cropping Groups farm expansion day next month.

“Farm expansion is on the cards in the next five years, but we don’t know what that looks like yet. Do we buy, lease, share farm, become more intensive? What are the pros and cons of each? “Which will be more profitable for our farm and how do we find the sweet spot between labour, machinery and expansion?”

“More productive and efficient use of land ... getting that right is what creates income.”

James said carbon neutral and sustainable measures were to be considered in growing productivity.

“And we need to make sure the product is appealing to the market,” he said.

The farm expansion day will also have presentations on land investment principles with ORM’s Ben Hogan, farming beyond family with Denise McLennan and machinery investment decisions and benchmarking with Kondinin Group’s Ben White.

Meet TCV

Short for Transmission Company Victoria, TCV is a new company created by AEMO Victorian Planning (AVP).

The TCV team is already busy with the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West (VNI West), an essential transmission project to carry clean, a ordable renewable electricity to towns and cities around Victoria.

AVP has set up TCV to make sure that important commitments made in the early stages of VNI West are captured and honoured across the life of the project.

TCV will play a big role in consulting with communities, landholders and Traditional Owners in this next stage of the project, the work to refine the route.

TCV is committed to working closely with all our stakeholders and the new TCV website will provide regular project updates and details of upcoming community events or opportunities for input.