GAWLER’S last remaining Jersey farm may have been lost years ago if not for the passion of a 10-year-old boy and his desire for a pet cow of his own.
James Krieg (pictured), now 23, had grown up around the stories of his great-grandfather’s and then grandfather’s dairy farm, as told by his dad Neville Krieg.
When he was about 10 and living on third generation-owned land at Kangaroo Flat, he begged his father to bring back the cows, starting with a single house cow.
His father had followed a dedicated career as a pilot and had sold all the cows before James was born, except for 12 little heifers who were placed with friends at Murray Bridge.
“Dad had moved us back to the farm and I was around 10 years old when I said I wanted to get a cow – I nagged and nagged for this house cow,” James said.
I was able to get one back from the farm at Murray Bridge, where 50 were running around now, and I had that one for a while until (our friends) said would you like to have three more.
“Dad said ‘what are we going to do with three more cows?’
“One’s all right, but suddenly with four, that’s a lot of milk, but four also isn’t enough to get a milk tanker to come.”
The family decided to feed the milk to Holstein bull calves and established a white veal market, until Jersey numbers were big enough to support a commercial dairy.
Today James runs Newkree Farm with a herd of 60 jerseys, producing milk for Beston at Murray Bridge to be processed into cheese for Adelaide pizza shops.
The 60-hectare (150-acre) property also has sheep and plenty of chickens.
Education and drawing the connection between food and the place where it is produced is a massive part of James’s farming mantra.
Last year, with help from his parents, he started a classroom experience hosting groups of students or families who would like to visit a farm and learn about milk production.
It is another family tradition James was keen to reignite.
“I mentioned the idea to Dad and he said, ‘oh yeah, I think my dad did that’,” he said.
“And sure enough, he found some old newspaper clippings from The Bunyip showing just that – kids coming to see the cows in the paddock, the bull and chickens.
“I thought this could be fun, but I also wanted to expand on that.”
In just over a year, James has hosted several groups, giving participants hands-on experiences in separating skim milk from cream, making butter, and seeing how ice cream is made.
“I get so many kids who don’t know what the difference between skim and full fat milk is, and I think that’s sad,” he said.
“Or butter milk, they’ve never heard of it, or how to make butter – it’s so easy.
“I love running the classes; I think it’s fantastic to do and the kids enjoy it and so do the parents.
I’ve had one home-schooling family come through and now they’ve come seven times; they just love being out on the farm and it’s just something about being around cows.”
James said he felt lucky to be running a fourth-generation farm.
His great grandfather Edward Gustav Krieg bought the land at Kangaroo Flat in the early 1900s, going on to run a mixed farm of cereal crops of wheat and barley, a herd of Jersey milking cows, pigs and chickens.
Prominent in the Adelaide showring for many years was the Pynesyde stud, formed in 1939.
James’s grandpa Theo, started his own jersey stud Newkree on land now known as Evanston Park, after the end of World War II and while also working for Humphrey’s Electrical store in Gawler.
He later went on to establish a separate homestead dairy and shedding on the western end of the family landholding at Kangaroo Flat.
“I have a vision to do something quite different on this little farm to make it more profitable,” James said.
“I remember my dad always saying that if this 150-acre farm was in Switzerland - where Mum and Dad lived for five years - then it would be highly valued, not cut up for housing development, but used to its maximum.
“I have plans to do just that.”
