HELPING the next generation of young farmers into the industry has been a big challenge for all agricultural industries, but particularly the dairy sector - which in some cases entails the borrowing of large amounts of debt just to get a start.
However several career pathway concepts were presented at last week's United Dairy Farmers of Victoria (UDV) conference at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which might go some in alleviating this issue.
Rural Finance agribusiness general manager Andrew Smith told the crowd the lender had been looking at ways to extend financing to young farmers considering buying their own herd.
He said the company was looking at lifting the current $900 mark closer to $1200, allowing farmers to buy cows or fodder.
Leasing was also an option Rural Finance was hoping to explore further.
"One area where we can see an opportunity is where farmers want to move on - they don't necessarily have to sell the farm," Mr Smith said.
"They can leave funding in the property and lease that out at a commercial rate and what we've been looking at is if Rural Finance were to guarantee that rent for the first three years for eligible farmers."
Dairy cooperative Murray Goulburn also took the chance at last week's conference to launch a brand new initiative, called the Next Gen package. It has now been publicly released to the processor's 2500 suppliers.
MG'S Robert Poole described the package as a suite of initiatives to help farmers manage cash flow and finance, but also assist young producers into the industry.
Dubbed the MG partnership scheme, Mr Poole said the cooperative would use its "strong commercial or corporate status" to attract investor funds to the industry.
"We've had a go at this and have attracted $20 million already," he said.
"We match that (the investment money) up with young farmers and instead of going to the bank and borrowing debt, they can talk to us about using off-farm equity."
The plan then was to convince the investor to purchase the property, and lease it to the farmer through MG.
"We've done it with eight farming families already and it's worked fantastically so far," he said.
Mr Poole said the plan relied on MG going back to the investor market to build funds.
"We are absolutely convinced these leasing models or different models of ownership have to be in the dairy industry. It will not grow unless we have options," he said.
At the moment, Mr Poole said the invested money had come from overseas.
"It's our preference that we attract Australian funds, but we don't see a problem with overseas investment, because the management is still held by MG suppliers," he said. "It's not a corporate farming model."
Mr Poole believed some people "cynically" said paying a higher price would help the issue.
"It's not about that. Even when prices are high, young farmers still struggle to get into industry, because land values go up and cow prices spike," he said. "This young farmer package is required whether prices are high or low."
Nuffield Scholar and Gippsland dairy farmer also told the crowd about his plan to get the Federal Government to create a Future Farmers Fund, adding that existing farmers could be offered tax incentives to invest some of their superannuation into the fund.
He said the fund could allow for concessional loans to new farmers to either lease or buy their first farm.
Meanwhile, the latest Global Dairy Trade auction in New Zealand offered some positive news to the dairy industry this week. The auction lifted 10 per cent last week, while whole milk powder jumped a massive 18pc.