Book highlights the changing mindset of our diverse farmers
WHEN Kim Storey travelled around rural Australia, she found that while farmers might look different and make their living in different ways, they are united by a common thread.
WHEN Kim Storey travelled around rural Australia, she found that while farmers might look different and make their living in different ways, they are united by a common thread.
Despite the drought, despite all the challenges they face, they are still positive about farming.
It is something that shines through in the photographer’s book What Does a Farmer Look Like?, where she presents a range of resilient and diverse farmers.
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“While working on this book, it’s been really good to see a lot of younger people coming into the industry again,” she said.
“There’s a lot of positivity about the agriculture industry and many of these young people are encouraging their kids to come back to the farm.”
However, the drought is taking its toll on many parts of eastern Australia.
“While I was travelling for the book project, mental health issues were something that came up regularly,” she said.
“Raising awareness of how people can reach out to mental health services in regional Australia and breaking the stigma is important.”
The book showcases the changing mindset of the farming community. When Ms Storey was growing up, her parents preferred that she settled in a full time job instead of coming back to farming, but she had a passion for it and became a farmer herself.
She also accredits technological advancements for helping people stay in, and sustain, the industry.
“Having GPS in tractors, weather stations and advances in animal nutrition makes it a bit easier, more efficient and is much better for the environment. We’re improving land for the next generation,” she said.
While working on the project, Ms Storey realised how varied the national farming industry is.
“I’ve tried to cover as many different types of farms as I could,” she said.
“Australia grows nearly everything. From oysters to truffles and fruit, vegies, fish, cattle and crops. There’s some unique stuff going on, too, like sheep and buffalo dairies.”
Simon Reynolds, a fifth generation farmer from Goulburn who is featured in the book, agreed that farmers are resilient in the face of challenge.
“Some people make it look like it’s all dire straits but there are some people out there that are really quite efficient and do prepare for these really tough times,” he said. However, drought is not the only hurdle they face.
“Finding people who actually want to work in the farming industry is challenging,” he said.
“What I think happened was where farmers couldn’t make enough money off the farm they thought, ‘righto, we’ll go into mining’.
“We’ll do the fly in, fly out, and that’s where we lost a lot … to mining and other jobs.”
Purchase the book at www.whatdoesafarmerlooklike.com
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