Gus van Hart, The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper

A Kerang stockfeed mill owner is sharing his cattle nutrition know-how with Samoan farmers after a chance connection with seasonal workers on his family farm led to a high-level meeting on the Pacific Island.

For Kerang operator Michael Sommerville, a four-day visit to Samoa in November showed how a small, family-run business in northern Victoria could build deep ties with Pacific workers and end up advising the nation’s Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Fuimaono Maiava Tito Asafo.

Mr Sommerville owns Farm Balance, an Australian-owned stockfeed supplement company operated by the Sommerville family since 1990. The mill, based near Kerang, has been making supplements for more than 30 years.

“I own a stockfeed supplement mill and we’ve actually had some Samoan guys working for us for 12 months,” he said.

“I just wanted to go over and visit them and see what their culture was like and meet their families.”

The workers were recruited through a Mildura-based job agency, and quickly became a key part of the operation.

“They’ve changed our lives, we don’t have staff problems. We always know we’re going to have someone at work and it’s just made a big difference to us,” Mr Sommerville said.

While the trip began as a personal visit, his lead worker believed the Kerang mill’s experience with supplements could help farmers back home.

“Our main guy thought we might be able to help over there, so he organised a meeting with the Samoan agricultural minister,” he said.

“We went and caught up with him and he said it was perfect timing because they’d just been around all their farms.”

The discussion focused on cattle nutrition in Samoa’s tropical climate. Mr Sommerville said many farmers were dealing with similar issues to those seen in northern Australia, but did not yet have a strong culture of using supplements.

“They don’t supplement at all, and because of the tropical climate the grass grows really fast, so they’re low in phosphorus and protein,” he said.

“In northern Australia everybody supplements so the cows put on weight and reproduce. They need to supplement and they know they need to supplement, but they didn’t know how to do it, so that was where we sort of came in.”

Mr Sommerville said Mr Asafo told him it was the first time in 25 years he had seen seasonal workers bring someone back from Australia specifically to help grow Samoa’s cattle industry.

“He said that’s never happened before, so that was pretty special,” Mr Sommerville said.

Away from the meeting rooms, the Kerang visitor was also struck by the country itself.

“It is the nicest, most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And the people are amazing.”

Mr Sommerville hoped the relationship would continue, with plans for ongoing calls and a possible return trip once further work with Samoan farmers was mapped out.

“It will mainly be us helping them,” he said.

“Probably chatting and going back over there eventually.”

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 4 December 2025.