A Line in the Sand: Reflecting on 2025 and What’s Ahead for the Hay Industry

Hay Matters Podcast

Tim Ford 00:00

Hi, I’m Tim Ford. Welcome to Feed Central’s Hay Matters podcast where we unpack the very best of what’s happening in Australia’s fodder industry, from planting through to baling, testing and feeding, we cover the characters and the information that matters to everyone in the supply chain.

Steve Page 00:24

Welcome back to the Hay Matters podcast and our last for the season. It’s been a huge year for the fodder industry, and today we’re joined by the Managing Director of Feed Central and LocalAg, Tim Ford, to unpack the season and talk about what we’ve learned over this 12 months and what we’re looking forward to in 2026.

Welcome Tim.

Tim Ford 00:45

Oh G’day, Steve, great to be here. Great to be interviewed by you. You’re budding, a budding podcaster now, so it’s very exciting. And just like to say thank you and wishing all our clients a happy and safe festive season and, thanks for a great year.

Steve Page 01:03

Thanks, Tim. So let’s start with the business overall. We’ve had a hell of a lot go on this year. It’s been a very busy time with the release of LocalAg and Feed Central and just going through our normal process with the Quality Assurance side of things. But LocalAg has certainly increased the opportunities for us with within the actual Quality Assurance side. Can you expand on that a little bit more?

Tim Ford 01:29

Yeah, it has been a big year, Steve, and I think the vision for Feed Central and LocalAg is that we would separate the Quality Assurance to be more independent from the Marketplace. And so the vision of creating a Quality Assurance business and a Marketplace, or a place for commerce and two separate businesses has certainly, has certainly materialised this year, I think that we’ve got quite a bit of work to do to help clients understand it. Obviously not every client is engaged and listening to everything we put out, and reading everything we put out, which is perfectly to be expected. And we’ve got a lot of work to bring clients on that journey with us as to why we’ve done it and where it’s heading. But we’ve certainly put a line in the sand this year and really separated a Quality Assurance business for the fodder industry and the hay marketplace, commercial centre / Marketplace, with the trading team, you know, firmly centred behind personal service and putting the Marketplace and personal service all together. So it’s certainly been a “line in the sand” type of year, Steve, for us, that’s for sure.

Steve Page 02:34

Yeah, we’re only early into the new season hay and I’ve been out on the road, as you know, right from the start of it, and just seeing some really good hay come in early, but potentially, we could be looking at some downgraded stuff further south. What are your thoughts on how the season’s going?

Tim Ford 02:37

Oh, look, there’s no doubt for some producers, especially the long-term die-hard hay producers in the South who operate at considerable scale and have a very, very big impact on the industry; there is no doubt that those guys have had a tough year. They had a very dry start, and they had an okay, average, or slightly below average, winter, and now they’ve had a very tough finish. They had at the beginning of spring, they had it very dry and then right when they had the hay on the ground, they’ve had weather. So look, it’s been a tough year for many producers in the hay industry, and that’s really unfortunate. The good news is that there’s, you know, Central New South Wales, Northern New South Wales, Southern Queensland’s just had a phenomenal run in both quality and volume. And so, you know, seeing that product, you know, you’ve been inspecting a lot of hay through those regions, and then looking on the LocalAg Marketplace and seeing the visual standard of that hay, and seeing the visual feed test of that hay. It’s very, very rewarding through that, through that northern New South Wales, Central New South Wales, Southern Queensland area, and seeing that the quality of the hay and the quality of the listings on LocalAg Marketplace is just, you know, very rewarding. It’s just unfortunate that we’re not going to see that trend. That’s clear. We are not going to see that trend as the Victorian South Australian hay gets baled. We’re not going to see that trend significantly. There’s, you know, certainly been some hay made that’s beaten the rain, but there’s, there’s quite a bit of hay through South Australia and Victoria that hasn’t beaten the rain, which, considering how dry a year it’s been, it’s almost ironic that they’ve had weather damage in the windrow.

Steve Page 04:37

Yeah, it was surprising for me really going on that southern New South Wales area on that last trip, into seeing the lack of feed out in the pastures in those regions, yet the crops had actually made the most of what moisture they did have and the amount of actual product being made in windrows and put in bales, the yields were actually extremely good. And therefore the feed tests were good too. So it really does come back to the importance of not only getting that visual inspection, but that feed test side of it also.

Tim Ford 05:10

And look pat on the back to the croppers. I mean the advancements that have been made in the last 20 years, 10 years and even in the last 5 years, the advancements that have been made in growing a crop on very limited, very limited moisture is, I think we’re still seeing those benefits like, I mean, just antidotally this year, yields per millimetre of rain, there must be something substantial happening on because there has not been a lot of rain, and the crops, and the crops are okay, yet the pasture growth is quite limited.

Steve Page 05:45

So the hay game, as we know, you know, is a very cyclical sort of thing. It’s your big years and your low yields and everything like that in between. And what I see from the most professional growers and the most successful growers out there is that adaptability of those growers to jump backwards and forwards. You know, they might not make hay every year, but to make that decision, to then be able to go across to hay that they have the sheds, and, you know, be able to make hay, make quality hay in a shed, and fill those sheds at those times where the grain industry won’t support them, is a great opportunity for them. And those fellows do tend to be the most successful I find.

Tim Ford 06:26

Yeah, you do see, I mean, it’s an incredible pleasure to get onto those farms, isn’t it? I mean, you do it a lot more often than I do, but to get onto those farms and to see the investment they’ve got in the hay infrastructure, and the investment they have in the machinery, and a lot of them have got equal investment in the grain infrastructure and the grain machinery, and to be able to see them bounce backwards and forwards between hay as the seasons and the market allows them to, or forces them to. They certainly seem to do very well most years, and it gives them incredible flexibility. It’s obviously an incredible investment, but it’s also, you know, incredible opportunity to be able to bounce between hay and grain and to take advantage with sheds and so forth, to be able to take advantage of the hay market as it changes throughout the year.

Steve Page 07:15

So there’s the hay side of things can be quite a tough sort of industry. What do you think helps to keep that side of the business, in those businesses, on farms, going?

Tim Ford 07:26

I think for a lot of people, you know, you nailed it there before, it’s diversity. They have a lot of different enterprises, whether it be hay, grain, pulses, grain storage, hay storage, some of them have, increasingly, got transport business associated with it. So a lot of those guys, look, there’s not many that are 100% in hay, is there? A lot of them, have got diversity behind their business, particularly when they’re at scale. They, you know, might have 10-15,000 acres of hay. Well, they’ve probably got, you know, they’ve probably got 10 or 15,000 acres of grain as well. Or they might have 2000 acres of hay, and they’d probably got, you know, 5000 acres of grain. So particularly when they’re at scale, they’ve got diversity. And they’re also running family enterprises where they’re managing it closely and working every efficiency they possibly can to, you know… there’s opportunity in volatile markets, and they’re sort of managing it very carefully and right across the data and right across the detail, and they’re setting themselves up to take advantage of the volatility in the market as it takes place.

Steve Page 08:30

Yeah, you know, going back to my time farming you like to spread your risk over a number of different industries, so that you weren’t all the eggs in one basket, so to speak. And I love that where the hay industry, or the high opportunity down south in that Victoria area, where they don’t really have an opportunity of a summer crop that we do up here, the hay side of things, can give them that diversity to spread their risk and look at other opportunities, like weed control, weather patterns and all that type of thing.

Tim Ford 09:03

Spread their risk, spread their weed risk, spread the labour. It gives them, you know, if they do have employees, then it gives them the opportunity to utilise that labour for a longer period of time and then you see them set themselves up with storage facilities and so forth. And they’re managing the risk and taking it, you know, the market in January can be a completely different market to what it is in March or June, July. So, you know, the market in November can, believe, just be completely different to a market at another time of the year. So you’re seeing them, you know, diversify their business in many ways, even within, even within hay and storage and different bale sizes and all of that. And we’re seeing that. We’re seeing that play out.

Steve Page 09:46

Yeah, I love to drive on to a place and see those new sheds going up. That’s for sure. That just makes it so much, gives them so many other opportunities, and also for those fellas that the grain growers to fully understand the marketing options that they have with their hay. You know, we still talk about animals eating 365 days the year. But we know from being within this business that the market’s not there every day. It can be pretty tough covering those periods in between.

Tim Ford 10:20

So, and that can be a lot of our clients. As you know, a lot of our clients are grain growers, first and foremost. And so when they enter the hay space, they expect the hay market works as the grain market works. And you know, the grain market works with a lot of liquidity and daily liquidity, and that you can sell a parcel of grain on any day of the year for a particular price, and there’s every chance you’ll get multiple bids. But in the hay game, there’s days of the year when it’s almost impossible to get a bid. And no matter how, no matter what your price is, it can be very difficult and subsequently, that for grain grower coming into hay, there’s can be a lot of misunderstanding in how the market works, and I think there’s a big room for education and upskilling in that space.

Steve Page 11:10

Yeah, and it’s having those relationships also, and having, you know, the visual and the feed test information available so that the buyers are happy with what they’re going to be supplied, and the grower knows exactly how his product sits within the actual Quality Assurance side of things.

Tim Ford 11:28

Well, you go back to that lot yesterday that we were talking about, Steve. It was that lot of vetch, and you inspected it. Feed test came in, and we had it – even in today’s market, which is fairly, fairly quiet – we had it sold before it went live on the website, and at a record price, you know, for this time of year. There was a line of vetch, it came in with a visual score of it was made at an FCAA and it sold X farm at $430 a tonne X farm Riverina and sold into a dairy farm above Newcastle. So the freight component was gigantic, but that buyer was long term customer of ours, knew that it was 23% protein and 10.8 mega joules of energy, knew that the sampling had been taken the same way. Knew how the visual grading system worked. Knew that when that hay drove down his driveway, it was going to look fantastic on the back of the truck, and the cows were going to eat it, and they were going to perform on it. I mean, that’s how you make money out of hay. The grower is making money out of that hay at $430 a ton, and the buyer is making money, and the buyer paid really big money for that hay, on a delivered basis. But the buyer is going to make money out of that hay because it’s going to put milk. And that’s what it’s all about, and that’s what the system does. The Feed Central Quality Assurance system ensures that buyers know what they’re getting. Ensures the feed test is through the same lab with no silly business about what the calibrations are. All the sampling has been taken using the same methodology for sampling the hay bales, knowing that the results are reliable, and that’s how you make money out of hay.

Steve Page 13:15

Yeah. And that flows into, you know, the vision that you have for Feed Central for the domestic fodder industry is to satisfy the end users demand 100% of the time. What does this look like in the actual practice of it?

Tim Ford 13:28

It looks like buyers being happy. It looks like repeat orders. It looks like a really good price for hay. It looks like both parties making money out of hay. It looks like that deal I was talking about, that we did this week, where you’re buying vetch out of the Riverina at a really high price, and sending it to a dairy farmer on the north coast, and both parties being happy. It looks like no complaints. I mean, I reckon if we did a survey of the industry, I would say there’d be 90%… what do you reckon, Steve? 90% of people have had a bad hay experience, you know, on both the buyer and seller side. So if we can make a pleasant hay experience, if we can ensure that every load of hay, or nearly every load of hay, drives down that driveway, and the buyers are happy with it, and they’re prepared to buy again. Because, unfortunately, our industry seems to be an industry where people are increasingly only buying our product when they absolutely have to, and buying it in a, you know, in an inflated, crisis driven market being normally drought and bushfires and so forth, and if we can ensure that… and we’re not developing… the industry as a whole is not developing long term repeat buyers. We are seeing our buyers do whatever they can to avoid buying hay and that is simply because often they have a bad experience. So if Feed Central can define the quality, put parameters in place, and ensure our customers are happy with the product they receive, they will buy more often, and they’ll be prepared to buy at a higher price, and that brings a lot of security to growers. And we see that. We see that with this line of vetch we were talking about out of the Riverina this week.

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Steve Page 15:52

So Tim, you’ve always said that the industry is about people as much as product. How do the relationships and the trust fit alongside all this new technology?

Tim Ford 16:02

I think the relationship’s always going to be key, Steve, and in our system now, where we do allow the buyer and seller to chat, we allow the buyer – we’re giving the giving the buyer a lot more information about the seller – and developing that trust. The Feed Central team is also there ready to assist and ready to put the long term contracts and so forth through and have them guided. So I think the current system brings the technology and the people together really superbly. The feedback has been very good. We’ve got people here monitoring the system. We’ve got people here to assist with the complex contracts. And then there’s opening up opportunities across the Marketplace to you know, so that buyers know exactly what they’re buying if that’s important to them, which I would argue, you know, definitely should be.

Steve Page 16:56

So looking forward for the next 12 months, where do you see us going? And where do you see the season heading?

Tim Ford 17:04

Look, I’ll start with the season stuff first, if that’s all right? We’ve been in this game for nearly 25 years. I think this has probably been one of the most volatile years in that 25.

At the beginning of the year, we saw a very quiet market, and it stayed quiet longer than expected, and then the market boomed with the with the dry in southern Victoria, and that spread through the majority of Victoria, and it spread well into the Riverina. So we’ve now seen 3 back to back to seasons where the hay market has been very active in in southern Victoria, and we’ve seen our system expand and grow into those areas which is which has been fantastic, and it’s really good to be able to help those people with really good quality information and really good quality data and so forth during those really tough times But it’s been a really volatile season.

Then by the middle of July, the market had basically died, right? So the market seems to be booming and busting more than ever, which is, unfortunate, but that that’s where it is. And it seems to be booming and busting around the media. The media is taking a much stronger interest. For example, the media in winter was just constant talk about the shortage of hay. And now the media is telling how much hay is being made. And I don’t think there’s nearly as much hay being made actually as what the media is telling us there is. So then the market’s exaggerating based on what’s on the radio, what’s in the podcast, what’s in the newspapers and so forth. So we’re seeing this huge exaggeration of the market at the moment. It’s been going for a few years now, where we’re at certain times the market is just deathly quiet, and then at other times the market is just out of control, booming and so we’d hope to see that. We’d hope to see that settle out in in more educated and more sophisticated buying. It’d be great to see less panic buying. People tell me that livestock production is viable in this country at the moment. There’s obviously a cost price squeeze on all production. But livestock, livestock, land prices, wool prices, meat prices, beef prices… everything’s heading in the right direction. So the minute it gets dry, the hay is going to be needed. And I can see, you know, going forward, in 2026 I can see another year where there’s record prices for hay and there is no reason why we will not break records again in 2026.

There will be a dry spell somewhere. At some time. It’s almost guaranteed in this country, and buyers aren’t preparing for it.

Subsequently, when the market spikes, she’s going to spike and she’s going to spike big time. And you know that that’s a really positive thing for the industry. I’d love to see the boom bust cycle flatten out a bit. It does seem a bit extreme at these days, but you know those growers that are storing the hay and made a huge investment in storage and made a huge investment in holding the hay and looking after it and making sure the quality is right and so forth, they’ll do really well. So that’s really exciting for 2026.

As far as where the company fits, we’re really looking forward to a year of consolidation. We’re looking forward to a year of ensuring our customers know how our system operates. Ensuring the customer knows that that Feed Central is a Quality Assurance business and that LocalAg is a Marketplace. So just ensuring those key messages are out there and really knuckling in and adding value to the to the clients. We’ve done huge amounts of Innovation in the last 12 months, and 2026 is all about communicating that to our clients, and getting all of that to work, and moving the industry strongly towards particularly sellers, being recognised and being rewarded for a really high quality product and ensuring that customers receive what they need to receive 100% of the time. If we can make inroads into that big, gigantic mission, then we’ve made success in 2026.

Steve Page 21:39

And finally, Tim, how would you like to wrap up today with what your last message is for the customers and the growers?

Tim Ford 21:47

I think it’s been a really challenging year. It’s been it’s probably the most cyclical cycle that would have a huge challenge to the industry. It would be great to have a solution for that, but it’s been a huge reality of our industry this year and understand that would have a huge impact and a huge challenge on the farms, that we deal with… but just a huge amount of appreciation to the clients.

We’ve got many clients that would have, that would have done business with us this year for the 20th straight year, and we’ve had great, great, great relationships for a long period of time with many clients. You know, that’s a really privileged and humble position to be in. So a huge thank you to those clients, whether they’re a new client or an old client, and greatly, greatly appreciate that.

Steve Page 22:38

We’ll finish up there. Thanks to Tim Ford for joining me today on Hay Matters and we’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We might be a little bit early at this stage, but probably won’t get the opportunity again. So thank you, this is our last one for the year.

Have a Merry Christmas, and stay connected and look after yourselves out there.

Tim Ford 22:58

Thanks Steve. Thank you everyone.