The only true limits are the ones you set
Limitations are a perception, once you eliminate the perception the limits become limitless.
The Idea
I wake up everyday on a loop. “I just want to farm full time for myself”… but how, how do I do this as a single person with no backing, no family way in and a government system that feels like it’s doing everything possible to stop a young person make a life of their own.
I have the skills, 18 years of working in the agricultural industry. The last 8 yrs of those managing a commercial beef property, the years before that spent everywhere from Werribee agriculture backgrounding feedlot cattle, to the Northern Territory chasing wild cattle on contracting camps. In between I’ve thrown fleeces, overseen sheep properties driven headers and lived a pretty standard life in the agricultural sector.
The idea, a commercial line of beef cattle (I’m not trying reinvent the wheel), a property with history to back it and a story, a property to champion wildlife flora and fauna, with the outlook of building carbon in the soils through regenerative practices.
The farm.
When you have an idea of your life that won’t leave you alone you tend to start searching for it even when you don’t have any of the financial means or ideas to do it .
The farm is situated just outside the township of Burrumbuttock NSW, I couldn’t believe it when I found it on one of my never needing looks through Domain. It ticks every single box the standard ones of course being land and suitable infrastructure, along with history, environmentally significant area and the space to be able to see my vision come to fruition.
Just missing one giant aspect… lacking the financial means to purchase.
The property comes in at 783Ha predominately set up as a cropping property it is the ideal place to convert back to a predominantly grazing with fodder cropping enterprise.
The Plan
The Plan started back in 2020, while managing a property in the Victorian high country through covid I became bored so decided to sign up to a regenerative agriculture online course, this lead me to holistic management and seeing a way through the extreme left of holistic management to the extreme right of monoculture management.
My idea isn’t reinventing anything but more implementing already established practices into a monocultured property and real time testing seeing the change from within.
A commercial line of beef cattle to aid in the regenerative practices and carbon capturing of the soils, a division of mono cultured paddocks with wildlife corridors adding to beef production and drought proofing along with carbon credits.
The Why.
I think it’s sad the current financial climate involves me buying lotto tickets in a way of hoping to be able to put into practice my dream. How has Australia come to this point?
Why don’t I manage someone else’s farm? That’s the main question I get asked when I tell people what I want to do. It’s a very simple response I’ve done it, it was ok but I wasn’t farming to my ideas and principles I was doing it for someone else’s. The farms were never mine, and I was only ever a number to every single workplace I worked in.
I think my story is an interesting one and because of that I have a small voice in the industry space with my talks I already do. I think if I can get the financial backing to pursue my dream then I believe we change the ideas for many on what is achievable. We change a future of the normal and how it is viewed, we change the ideas of staying in your box of financial means and therefore place in this world.
It wouldn’t be just another farm, it would be be the potential for a limitless mindset.