The first threads of dawn unfurl across the farm, while cicadas mellow into a hypnotic drone, as if the earth itself were breathing. From the paddocks come low, insistent moos, the cattle stirring for its morning feed. In the cool blue light over Purnim’s expansive pastures, there is a quiet sense of presence, a rhythm that has connected dairy farmers for more than a century.
But the 4:15am wake ups are about as peaceful as farm life gets for Lisa Dwyer, a 54-year-old dairy farmer, who alongside husband Eddie, ran their Hawkesdale farm for 14 years before moving to Purnim in 2018. The ‘Kangertong’ farm has been passed on through generations, originally established by Lisa’s great-grandfather, James Woolley, in 1919. The family has experienced the ebbs and flows of seasonal challenges for decades in Southwest Victoria. Whether drought, wet conditions, pest invasions or market downfalls, uncontrollable variables will always influence seasons.
Drought in Victoria is a persistent issue, with the Australian Fodder Industry Association’s October 2025 Report saying Southwest Victoria remains “critically dry,” with rainfall since February at record lows.
“If you don’t get the rain, you don’t get the growth, you don’t get the opportunity to reserve fodder for when things become tighter. When it becomes protracted, then the challenge also becomes protracted,” Lisa says.
To manage the impacts of the dry season, Lisa has been forced to offload stock sooner than anticipated. While not ideal, she reasons that this is better than being in a circumstance where she doesn’t have enough feed for the cattle.
“Because the seasons have been so dry, a lot of the pasture persistence hasn’t endured, so we’ve had to undertake a major paddock renovation program, which effectively means resowing all of the pastures,” she says.
It’s a tidal wave of growth and supply issues which have seen many in the area drowning in soaring price increases. Due to poor soil moisture which continues to limit pasture and hay growth, Lisa says her fodder reserves have depleted entirely, requiring her to buy in feed. But prices have sky-rocketed, with a $330 increase between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the AFIA’s historical data hay report.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Lisa believes that to navigate everyday seasonal challenges, maximising one’s ability to manage risk and set goals is key. She attributes her success to strategic planning sessions with Eddie and and son Harvey at the kitchen table. While they may not have had professional PowerPoint slides, she recalls using Harvey’s old exercise book from Prep to write everything down. Reflecting on what worked, and what followed, she believes proved an invaluable approach for preparation.
“In the absence of doing those kinds of things, you simply aren’t as prepared as you need to be for when things inevitably go awry,” she says.
She hopes Agriculture Victoria encourage more farmers to also plan. Lisa maintains that while government grants providing relief are welcomed, taxpayer money would be better directed in the preparation phase.
“It would ensure that farmers actually carry out those responsibilities, rather than throwing finite resources at maybe well targeted, maybe not well targeted recipients,” she says.
The dairy industry is a highly complex business, where success demands far more than knowing how to milk a cow. Farmers have to be a sharp business manager, skilled livestock manager, nutritionist, agronomist, marketer, accountant – and according to husband Eddie, extremely good looking too.
“There’s a kind of romantic view of agriculture, where we walk around with a stem of wheat in our mouth or we’re sitting on a three-legged stool milking cow. That’s not what it’s like and hasn’t been for decades,” she says.
While there’s no sugar coating the all-consuming nature of dairy farming, it all reverts to Lisa’s love of work, rural life and the cows. The curveballs farming throws at her are worth it in the end. Even after more than 20 years, “when that first calf appears, it’s a real marvel at the whole life cycle.”
This story is part of a project exploring regional Victoria and the issues farmers are facing. See the whole collection here.
