Australia Day 2020 in Eugowra: the Moxey family farming journey

Tony welcomed everyone including gust speaker Janet Moxey and Cabonne Councillor Jamie Jones.

Proceedings commenced with Casey Jones carrying out the Welcome to Country.

All the schoolchildren who were present led the singing of the National Anthem while the flag was raised outside.

Tony then introduced guest speaker Janet Moxey, who shared the journey of the Moxey family and farms, which celebrated a century in dairy last year.

Janet returned to the area in 2007 when the Moxey Family purchased Nanima.

Janet Moxey is a partner in Moxey Farms Pty Limited and AFMH Group.

Excerpts of her presentation are reproduced here.

Brief history of the family, farms

The family started a dairy at Richmond in 1919, and moved to Warroo in 1976.

In 1984 they returned to Richmond and commenced the steady growth of the dairy there from 250 cows to 800.

It was 1992 when they purchased the Angle, the now famous dairy at Gooloogong.

Milking commenced there in 1998 and they began growing the herd to 2000.

Quentin and Jill took over managing the business with Paul's passing in 2001. Rose was still at University.

Operations continued to grow at Richmond until 2004 when we stopped milking cows and moved the herd to The Angle.

Growth there continued and in 2010 the herd was increased to 3500 cows.

2013 saw another change. As there was now only the Paul Moxey family at The Angle it was decided that to continue to grow the business we would take in investment partners.

The family commenced extensive search for ideal partners assisted by NAB advisory.

After 18 months it was decided that our partners of choice would be the Perich Group, Freedom Foods and New Hope, under the banner of Australian Fresh Milk Holdings, in 2015.

Three partners are families with very similar business ethics and family values.

Going forward

Since July 2015 we have catapulted to another level. We have purchased more land in the Lachlan Valley including North Logan, Ercildourne, Innisfail to support a growing herd at the Angle.

We leased an office in Orange and have a team managing finance and human resources based there.

In 2019 we also ventured into Victoria and purchased Coomboona Dairies and Torrumbarry Estate.

Last year we also entered our new modern workshop at the Angle where our team of mechanics are able to service our fleet of trucks and farm machinery.

We also commissioned a $25 million methane digester where we turn effluent into electricity enabling us to use our own power and return some to the grid.

We are currently milking more than 10,000 cows between The Angle and Coomboona.

We ship around 400,00 litres per day from both farms, that's seven to eight tankers from The Angle.

We purchase around 20,000 tonnes of grain per year at The Angle.

Across Orange, and all farms, we employ more than 300 people, not to mention the contractors that are on sites on any given day.

We couldn't do what we do without the support of the community. We can't do it all without the tireless efforts of many people.

The communities surrounding us are important to us and we are important to to them.

There are two things that make our business the success that it is: passion for people and passion for cows.

We couldn't have grown the business without the support of our teams.

We have empowered them and they have empowered us to grow.

There is nothing better than reflecting on some of the success stories of people who have joined us and trained and grown into a job that they love and have in a lot of cases exceeded their own expectations.

We are committed to farming sustainably and using modern technology and innovations to help achieve good results for the environment and the land.

We like to collaborate with others, if we are able to buy grain or hay of the specifications we need from local farmers we will. The more business we can do locally the better for the community.

It is not always possible to find the skills that are required in our area so have for many years brought back packers to the area.

We are now finding it necessary to bring more skilled labour to work with us and have a multi-cultural work force across the business.

We have vets from the UK and Argentina, herd health specialists from India and the Philippines.

They all have their own reasons for being here, whether it is to get away from the miserable weather in England or to work in a less populated environment and earn better wages than is possible in their countries.

These people love being here, love Australia, love Australians, the culture, the diversity, the opportunity.

Coomboona was operated by a management team before we took it over. The CEO was based overseas and visited occasionally.

The staff that are still there today can't believe the turnaround in staff morale and the happiness of the workplace since we have taken over and encourage staff to socialise.

If you would like any further information we do have a website, just search Moxey Farms and have a look for yourselves.

The last few months have been challenging for the whole of Australia but together we support and uphold not only our own community but the broader community, I am sure we have all contributed in some way to assisting the drought response or bushfire appeals.

We all know that hard times come to all, no one is immune from this but we are resilient and get up and have another go.

This is our Australian spirit.