Visions of the future enabled a lifetime serving primary industry

Apparently destined to be a shopkeeper, a science teacher set Laurence Ah Toy on the path to university and an important role in the Northern Territory.

Marian and Laurence Ah Toy. He has been made a member in the general division of the Order of Australia for significant service to primary industry, education and the wider community.

If history had been different, Laurence Ah Toy would have been a shopkeeper.

His Chinese ancestors visited Australia as “coolies” (indentured labourers) in the late 1800s to work on railway and mining projects but, unlike most, did not return.

Instead, his grandfather established a bakery in the tiny Northern Territory town of Pine Creek, between Darwin and Katherine. Ah Toy’s father followed that with a general store nearby, where Ah Toy himself worked behind the counter after school.

Luckily, he got to go to Darwin for high school, where a visiting science teacher spotted his smarts. She asked Ah Toy’s mother what lay ahead for the bright boy and urged her not to let him miss the opportunity of going to university.

“It took my mother six months to convince my father,” Ah Toy recalls.

“It made a heck of a lot of difference that she was able to do so. My whole life has been different. Otherwise, I would be a shopkeeper in Pine Creek.”

Instead, Ah Toy trained as an accountant and returned to Darwin to start his own practice. His work gave him insights into various industries, and he was able to use them to launch his own ventures in horticulture.

He became head of the NT Horticulture Association, the progenitor to the NT Farmers’ Association, and was instrumental in developing mango and melon cultivation in the north. He was gifted a cattle station, Koolpinyah, by clients who did not want it left wayward. With that, he became involved in rearing buffalo.

“One of my friends told me that I have visions of the future that other people don’t have,” he says.

Mangoes and melons are now among the NT’s largest exports, and buffalo are harvested from Aboriginal land and seen as a tremendous local employment opportunity.

Ah Toy’s love of education led him to become involved in running Darwin High School.

This year, he will be made a member in the general division of the Order of Australia for significant service to primary industry, education and the wider community.

At 83, he still finds time to credit his wife, Marian, with much of his success.