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Fresh milk is all in the family

Published: 
25 September 2020 11:49AM

So I'm Pete Garrett, a dairy farmer from Southbrook on the Darling Downs. We're about half an hour west of Toowoomba.

We're milking 220 cows on a family farm. It's been in the family here for 94 years this year.

So we're parochial Queenslanders like the rest of us so you know, we're very proud of the fact that what we produce goes into feeding predominantly our Queensland state.

You know, produce milk that feeds my family and yours and others around the nation.

How we've sustained what we do for so long is that there has been that generational passing on of knowledge.

We supply our milk into the processing market in Queensland.

Mostly, that milk stays in Queensland.

We can support someone that's local within our own state. Yeah, that's what we look to do.

A Darling Downs dairy farmer, whose farm produces fresh milk into the network supplying the Queensland Government is proud to support the Buy Queensland approach.

With 220 cows and 94 years of farming experience, Pete Garratt and his team at Argyle Farming supply milk across Queensland and the nation.

Pete has been farming for 21 years and is passionate about the family legacy. He says that the passing on of knowledge from one generation to the next, has provided a great foundation for him to run a milk-producing business.

The family legacy also extends to his cows, breeding generations of cows on the farm.

The fourth-generation Darling Downs primary producer enjoys the whole farming process – from growing crops for the fodder that nourishes his cows and raising calves through to maturity, to making the product that feeds his family and others across the state.

Pete is proud to support the Buy Queensland approach and provide his fresh milk for Queenslanders.

“We supply milk into the processing market in Queensland knowing that milk mostly stays in Queensland.”

“If we can support someone that’s local or within our own state, that’s what we look to do.”

The business uses innovative approaches such as collars that monitor the health and activity of the cows and an electronic identification system that shows when the cows have been milked and their output.

Pete employs one person full-time on a permanent basis, contracts to a person on a permanent part-time basis and has a local high school student work on his farm on a casual basis. His children also help on the farm, extending the family legacy.

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