About us
We are Wilco Droppert & Sandra Jefford, and we own Wilandra Farms. First up, we must acknowledge that we couldn’t do what we do without the assistance of a small team of skilled and attentive staff, including our son Luke and daughter Sophie.
We have been certified organic producers of milk, silage and hay since February 2020, after about 4 years of learning and transitioning the farm to an organic system.
During this time, we learned a lot about organic farming – in particular about the importance of healthy soil microbes. That led us to regenerative agriculture, and the opportunity to regenerate our business.
Our milk
We believe that milk produced in an organic and regenerative farming system is more likely to be nutritious, free from unwanted chemicals, heavy metals and GMOs. And, the farming system is better for our soil and other natural resources, and ourselves.
The National Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Produce sets out the rules we need to follow, and an annual on-site audit is conducted by our certifier, NASAA.
By 2025 we also expect and hope to be certified carbon neutral. We want to show that dairy farmers can produce milk and meat whilst caring for the planet.
Our Cattle
Most of our herd are British Friesian cattle. The Jefford family migrated to Australia in 1980 and brought some of their British Friesian herd with them. British Friesian cattle are often shorter than Holsteins, but were bred to be more of a dual purpose breed – meaning that bull calves are suitable for rearing for beef. In recent years, we have been selecting bulls with the A2/A2 gene, and aim to produce milk without the A1 gene in the future.
Our cattle graze multi species pastures and receive a small amount of grain (about 450kg per cow per year). This means per cow production is lower than in some other herds, but this is a natural way of feeding cattle that we believe produces a high quality product with a beneficial nutritional profile. Just as strawberries are good for us, we don’t eat them for every meal and we believe that our animals also need a very varied diet.
