Dairy innovator was co-op champion

Niel Black, lifelong champion of dairy farmers and the dairying industry in south-western Victoria, died when his utility vehicle overturned and careered down Mount Noorat, a volcanic landmark of the Western Plains that formed part of his farming property.

He was named after his great-grandfather, Niel Black, a Scotsman who in 1840 took up the 17,400-hectare run of Glenormiston adjacent to the mount. The Black family has raised stock and run dairy farms in the Western District ever since.

Over more than five decades, the Scottish pioneer's namesake and descendant earned a huge reputation as a contributor to the Victorian dairy industry and the co-operative movement, taking up the baton of his forebears as an exemplar of modern improvements in grazing, breeding and managing stock, and as a contributor to the public affairs of land and farming.