Lardner Park proposal aims to rescue calf market

Lardner Park has developed a proposal that aims to rescue the Warragul calf market from closure.

The weekly calf market, currently held at the Warragul saleyards, will lose its home at the end of March when the Victorian Livestock Exchange closes the facility. Fortnightly dairy sales at the facility also will cease.

However, in a bid to save both sales, Lardner Park has lodged a planning application with Baw Baw Shire seeking to develop a 48.5 metre by 13.5 metre shed on its Burnt Store Rd property.

The planning application states the $120,000 project seeks to use the land for a saleyard and establish a calf sale shed and cattle effluent disposal system.

VLE closed the Warragul saleyards 12 months ago but negotiated with local livestock agents to allow the calf market and dairy sale to continue until the end of March 2021.

Requests by agents to extend beyond March next year have been denied.

Lardner Park chief executive officer Craig Debnam said there was urgency for the issues to be resolved for the benefit of the local farming community.

“We know the new Longwarry Saleyards will take a few years to build.  The only alternative (for calves) would be farm to farm sales or abattoirs because farmers don’t have time,” he said.

Mr Debnam said Lardner Park approached local agents with the proposal.

He said it would be a short-term facility until Longwarry was operational.

It is expected the Lardner Park facility would cater for 7400 bobby calves and 2500 dairy cattle each year.

The shed will contain 112 calf pens and also will to be used for beef and dairy cattle breeding displays during Farm World each year.

Mr Debnam said Lardner Park was investing in a new piece of infrastructure that would help save critical calf markets and provide long term benefit to cattle breeders.

“This is our way of saying cattle breeders are a very important part of Farm World and we are putting in the infrastructure to support them to return,” he said.

Fees previously paid to VLE will be paid to Lardner Park for the calf markets and dairy sales.

Mr Debnam said the investment was a way of securing local markets in the interim but the new Longwarry Saleyards was crucial to the local agricultural industry’s future.

“This industry will be let down if the cattle industry just closes locals.  I know it’s been controversial but we have to have the selling infrastructure in this area to support that industry,” he said.

Mr Debnam said the planning application was submitted more than a month ago but shire planning staff indicated the application did not meet existing use rights.

He said the frequency and location of selling required a new planning application, even though Lardner Park had been buying and selling cattle for 50 years.

An onsite meeting was held with a planning officer last week and Mr Debnam will meet with shire CEO Mark Dupe and new planning director James Reid tomorrow.

Mr Debnam said he was hopeful the planning matters could be resolved quickly so the shed could be built and calf pens operational for the first week of April after the Warragul closure.