Young farmers: Kate McBride, Oliver Vidor, Milly MacKinnon shape agriculture’s future
They are passionate, tech-savvy and all under 30. These 15 promising farmers are ready to lead the agriculture industry into a new era.
There’s no doubt Australia’s farmers face significant challenges in the coming decades, from climate change and water security to changing consumer expectations and rapidly advancing technology.
This crew of passionate young farmers is ready to tackle them head on.
These 15 producers are from different regions and sectors – cropping, cattle, sheep and horticulture – but they all share common ground. They are dedicated to the industry, excited about what lies ahead and not afraid to shy away from debating important issues and driving change.
These young farmers represent a new era of Australian agriculture, and here they reveal their visions for the future.
SAMMY MITCHELL, 29, WATCHUPGA, VICTORIA
Sammy Mitchell returned to work on her family cropping farm about nine years ago, and has never looked back.
The 29-year-old has nearly taken over the 2700-hectare farm at Watchupga from her father, John Mitchell, who now returns only to help out with sowing and harvest.
“Over half of the property is owned and less than half is leased, and we grow wheat, barley, canola, vetch for both hay and sheep feed, lentils and we have sheep,” Sammy says.
“We have been through a succession plan and at this stage – Dad is spending time at another location – he will work a few days a week here other than sowing and harvest.”
Sammy says she tried a few diverse jobs and study options after school, but none fit quite as well as farming.
“When I left school I had a gap year and just worked,” she says. “I wanted to come back to the farm but didn’t think it was a realistic thing, but I always came for harvest since high school.
“I said to Dad, I’ll do a few days a week, then nine years ago I came back full time.
“I have been kind of joint managing for the last four years at a guess, then last year Dad knew he would be moving on this year so he put more emphasis on me making more decisions.”
This year it is purely Sammy in the driver’s seat.
“I love being outdoors and watching things grow,” she says. “Each year is so different and there is always a challenge that I love.”
OLIVER VIDOR, 29, DERRINALLUM, VICTORIA
Young sheep farmer Oliver Vidor is living proof you don’t have to come from a family farm to carve a successful career in the ag industry.
The 29-year-old livestock manager runs 11,000 composite breeding ewes on Mt Elephant station at Derrinallum, working for Ingleby Farms.
“Our number one principle is to generate as much profit as possible within our physical capabilities while ensuring we are not degrading our land,” he says.
“In fact, we are trying to improve it. We want the farm to be in better shape every year.
“In terms of my role, animal welfare is without a doubt the key management principle.”
Oliver grew up in Hobart, and both his parents work in medicine. He had a burning interest in farming from a young age, and following high school and a diploma in ag from a Queensland college, he attended Marcus Oldham College in Geelong, where he received the farm-management skills and connections he craved. Now with an ag degree to his name, Oliver is spearheading use of the latest technology on the 5000-hectare station. On his watch, the business has increased ewe numbers and started using an automated sheep drafter to boost productivity.
Oliver has firm thoughts on what will shape the future of the industry. “By far the most important … it would have to be consumer expectations,” he says. “The public perception of how we as an industry conduct business.”
Embracing technology, diversifying export markets and encouraging more people to gain tertiary qualifications in ag will also be critical, he says.
JOSH HINE, 24, RAVENSTHORPE, WA
Talking from the tractor cab, during a break while sowing canola in Western Australia, 24-year-old Josh Hine recounts his unlikely path to becoming a grain grower.
Back in 2014, when Josh was in Year 12, he rendered his career counsellor speechless when he revealed he wanted to be a farmer.
“I went to school in the southeast suburbs of Melbourne and that just wasn’t a thing at all,” he says, laughing.
“I’m not originally from a farming background. My dad grew up on farms, I think my interest stems from there.”
After completing a bachelor of agriculture at the University of Melbourne, Josh took part in a grad program that led to his current role in WA.
He is assistant manager for Daybreak Cropping’s 6500-hectare aggregation at Ravensthorpe, growing wheat, barley, canola, field peas, lupins and fava beans on a massive scale.
Prioritising worker safety and giving crops the best opportunity for good yields guide his on-farm decisions.
“We want everyone to get home at the end of the day,” he says. “That’s massive for me.
“At the end of the year, I like being able to sit back and feel I’ve done everything I could to give the crop a good chance.”
Technology, he believes, will be critical to farming in the future.
“It is progressing so quickly. Who knows where we will be in 10 years,” he says. “I think that is the biggest driver of how production will become more efficient and more profitable. I think climate change is also a huge factor, and how we deal with it.”
BONNIE, MOLLY, JEMIMA AND MATILDA PENFOLD, WESTERN DOWNS, QLD
The Penfold sisters have faced challenges as significant as any seasoned cattle producer. Through innovation and hard work, the young women have come out on top.
Bonnie, 23, Molly, 21, Jemima, 19, and Matilda, 17, work alongside their parents, Karen and Dan Penfold, across the family’s 40,000 hectares at Meandarra and Yaraka, while also running their 150-day grain-fed premium Black Angus business, Four Daughters.
Four Daughters originally intended to supply beef into Wuhan, Bonnie explains, however the impacts of the pandemic and China’s unexpected suspension of trade with abattoirs meant their business came to an abrupt halt.
“We were a few container loads in to shipping to our Wuhan export market when the couple we work with decided they didn’t want the rumps anymore,” Bonnie says.
“We were all sitting around the table one night and Mum, Molly and I decided rumps would be the easiest for us to get rid of in Australia. So we made a Facebook page and looked at hiring trucks and from there we sent the rest of the body to Wuhan and kept rumps here in Australia, delivering across southeast Queensland. Then Mum decided why don’t we try and sell the whole body, once the abattoirs were banned.”
Despite domestic sales never being their intention, the brand kicked off in Australia, with the girls selling beef boxes that include the whole animal, so no part is wasted – all while educating consumers about what they are eating.
Slowly, their market in China is returning, but the girls are also exploring other options, such as Vietnam.
They believe it is important in all industries to be innovative and “always on your feet”. “Life throws its own curveballs and we wait for them and deal with them,” Bonnie says.
RHYLIE BOTHERAS, 28, NARRAPORT, VICTORIA
Rhylie Botheras can’t get enough of farming, and now runs a cropping operation alongside his brother.
The 28-year-old and his brother, Brayden, operate about 688 hectares at Narraport, Victoria, growing wheat, barley, canola, lentils and vetch.
“I’m the main spray operator, I spray all year round as well as helping with harvest, moving trucks and headers depending on what workers we’ve got,” he says.
But to ensure he had a backup career during the tough years, Rhylie says his father made sure he completed an apprenticeship.
“I wasn’t allowed to come back on to the farm until I had a trade, in case things went pear-shaped with droughts and stuff,” he says.
“It came in handy during the 2018 drought as that was pretty bad, so I went away and did local building work to keep a bit of cash flow in, but now it is full time on the farm,” he says.
The brothers also run their dad’s contracting business when they have time.
“Dad started it for off-farm income, now me and my brother have followed in his footsteps … so we are not relying on just rainfall,” Rhylie says.
Rhylie believes herbicide-resistant ryegrass will be a significant problem in the future.
“We did tests of it last year and we have had up to 80 per cent resistance in multiple different paddocks,” he says. “We will probably have to come up with another technique to overcome it.”
EMMA AYLIFFE, 29, LAKE CARGELLIGO, NSW
For 29-year-old Emma Ayliffe, the ability to choose her own adventure is what has kept her in agriculture.
She and her partner, Craig, currently own their own farm – a dream Emma has had since she was young – all while she runs a consultancy business on the side. On 750 hectares near Lake Cargelligo the couple grow mainly wheat and run first cross ewes.
“I spend quite a number of days driving around in the ute looking out the window thinking how am I getting paid for this,” she says. “Ag is one of those careers where you can design the job that you want.”
Emma says their vision for the future involves planning for long-term sustainability, both financially and environmentally.
“For us it’s about keeping up with the research, ensuring what we’re implementing is best practice and not just the way it’s always been done,” she says.
While staying ahead of the curve, Emma has also found herself dealing with a negative brand image for farmers.
“One of the biggest challenges that we have is the perception of our industry from consumers,” she says.
Another issue she’s discovering is the gap in understanding between country and city people, and the fallout being detrimental to her industry.
“They don’t understand what’s happening west of the divide, they don’t understand where their food and fibre comes from,” she says.
JACK CRESSWELL, 28, WILCANNIA, NSW
They say farming is a dawn-to-dusk job, but Jack Cresswell devotes much more than just daylight hours to agriculture.
The 28-year-old works on his family’s 2500-head sheep property between Wilcannia and Tilpa on the Darling River in western NSW, while also running a digital marketing agency and producing his own podcast, Farms Advice.
He says the podcast started as a way to help farmers learn from each other, but ended up informing his on-farm approach.
“We’re always looking for new things to do on farm and I’ve implemented some things I’ve learnt along the way,” he says. “It’s about the sharing of knowledge between different sectors in ag.”
For Jack, succession planning is one of the biggest challenges he has had to navigate.
“(The issues are) communication from the older generation, and the shifting of who is going to take over the family farm,” he says.
“We’re implementing small things on farm and then having weekly or monthly meetings to nut it all out.”
When looking to the future, Jack says he focuses on optimisation and digitisation. With property prices so high, he tries to do more with the same resources, and is thinking about launching a direct-to-consumer meat sales business.
KATE McBRIDE, 23, TOLARNO, NSW
Kate McBride wears many hats – think-tank researcher, healthy river ambassador, farmers’ advocate, station hand – and they all have one thing in common.
“They all relate back to ag and are somehow connected,” says the 23-year-old fifth-generation grazier, who splits her time between her family’s 200,000-hectare sheep station, Tolarno, and off-farm work in Adelaide.
“I think I’d go a bit stir crazy if I was just doing one thing,” Kate says, revealing she is also studying for a masters in global food and agribusiness just to “challenge herself”.
“But I always love the station, you can’t drag me away from that.
“I do everything from water runs to fencing, sheep work and book work, whatever needs to be done, I do it.”
Kate’s well-known parents, Robert and Katharine McBride, run 12,000 sheep on land between Menindee and Pooncarie in western NSW, along the Darling River.
Her family’s aim has always been to manage their natural resources – soil, water and livestock – as sustainably as possible.
“I suppose the main thing is understanding the land,” Kate says. “I’m no expert in that yet, but I can see when the country is stressed and needs a rest.
“If you overgraze, it is easy to do irreparable damage.”
Kate has captured public attention in the past year by speaking up about water policy decisions that have sucked the life out of the Darling River and surrounding communities.
Now, she is using her public profile to spark conversations about how to attract young people to the ag industry, and will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming Farm2Plate Exchange conference in Queensland’s Scenic Rim on May 18-19.
“I think what I can do is raise awareness of the opportunities in the ag industry,” she says. “All through school I said I want to go into farming. But I was told by so many people … you are going to fail. I was really discouraged.
“But I have had completely the opposite experience. I have been welcomed with open arms.”
Kate believes the future of Australian farming will be shaped by mounting pressure on water supply and the changing climate.
“It is great to see peak bodies, such as the MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) and NFF (National Farmers’ Federation), coming out and putting carbon neutrality plans in place,” she says.
“Our ability to make sure young people are coming up through the ranks will make or break us. We are at a turning point now.”
KRISTY STEWART, 28, DEANS MARSH, VICTORIA
If Kristy Stewart isn’t packing lamb for direct delivery or helping lead tours on her family’s Otways sheep property, she might be found running workshops with local school kids about sustainable farming or even helping Joost Baker with his latest project – an urban farm in Melbourne’s Fed Square.
Such is the 28-year-old’s passion for regenerative agriculture and spreading the word about farming sustainably.
Kristy (pictured, right) and her sister, Hannah, 30, grew up watching their parents, sheep farmers and agroforestry supporters Andrew and Jill, carefully revegetating their 234-hectare Yan Yan Gurt West property, where they produce lambs, native flowers and timber.
The siblings have taken up the baton, determined to add more enterprises, inspire the next generation of young farmers and integrate more sustainable management ideas on the land.
Last month, the pair started an internship with Prospect Pastoral Company in Western Australia, a cropping and sheep property run by regenerative farmers Di and Ian Haggerty.
“Hannah and I have taken this hiatus as a time to go away together and design how we thing the future of our property will look,” Kristy says. “We want to get really serious about a business financial plan … to make sure the succession plan is viable and we can stay on the property.”
An ag science graduate, Kristy says ultimately she wants to produce food that is good for people and the planet.
“It is about developing farming systems that are regenerative,” she says. “Producing beautiful nutritious food, making sure it is actually nutritional … connecting our farms so we have better resilience in the face of climate change.
“And farming in a way that the people who are farming are happy and healthy, and are able to continue with their work.”
THANISA ADAMS, 28, UPPER PLENTY, VICTORIA
When she started studying agriculture at university, Thanisa Adams dreamt a career in food policy was her future.
Once she realised how disconnected urban areas have become from food-producing communities, she decided the real way to make positive change was to get her hands dirty and solve the problem at the source.
“I was doing a lot of community projects around urban food and urban agriculture and school gardens as well,” says the 28-year-old, who grew up in Sydney then moved to Victoria for uni, completing a master’s degree in agriculture in 2018 at the University of Melbourne.
“I realised the need for having access to fresh food in peri-urban areas; also the need for chemical-free flowers in Australia. My farming is the response to the challenges we face.
“I’m making a lot of connections with local communities. And some of the food I grow for local charity as well. I think it is really important for them to have access to local, chemical-free food that is not flown in from far away.”
Thanisa founded her own farm, Wattle Gully Produce, last June. She grows vegetables and flowers on half a hectare, which she leases from a farmer at Upper Plenty, north of Melbourne.
She specialises in heirloom variety tomatoes, root vegetables and seasonal blooms, using low-till practices and organic principles.
“My bestsellers are probably sunflowers,” she says. “The people just love them.”
Compost and cover crops help maintain soil health, and she employs an agronomist to provide advice in conjunction with regular soil tests.
She says establishing the business has been intense. She had to work two jobs to make it financially viable, but has recently shifted to working full time for herself, as sales have gained momentum at four farmers’ markets: Nagambie, Bendigo, Riddles Creek and Spotswood.
“Working together with other farmers … I think that is going to improve the future of farming,” she says. “Especially groups like Young Farmers Connect. They have been really important to me.”
HARRIS THOMPSON, 23, BOYUP BROOK, WA
As the 2019 National Rural Ambassador, Harris Thompson knows how important ag shows are to the industry.
The 23-year-old is equally passionate about showing his cattle at the events and the benefits shows bring to the wider farming industry.
“It’s such an easy step we can do as farmers – showing the public our animals and our crops,” he says.
On the ag-show circuit, Harris says his cattle have “done pretty well”, winning Supreme Exhibit at the Perth and Adelaide shows in 2019. But he doesn’t do it just for the medals.
“I love showing and breeding the cattle. It’s taken me all around the world,” he says.
Harris is a seventh-generation cattle and sheep farmer at Boyup Brook in Western Australia and enjoys every aspect of running livestock, even the challenges.
His main vision for the future of agriculture involves showing it off to the rest of the country.
“It’s something we have to promote to the wider community. It’s about bridging the gap between the country and city,” he says. “There’s nothing better than when a random person comes up to me and asks me about farming.
“I’m happy to be just one more person spreading the word about how good agriculture is.”
MILLY MACKINNON, 26, TINTALDRA, VICTORIA
Repairing fences and improving pastures are part of the everyday job for Milly Mackinnon. Last year, however, those responsibilities ramped up after her family’s 522-hectare Murray River property was burnt during the summer bushfires. Even so, the 26-year-old says there is nowhere she’d rather be.
“You get challenges every day – it is the exciting part about farming,” says Milly, who works with her parents, Al and Jo, running a herd of 300 Angus beef cattle.
After completing an ag degree at Marcus Oldham College in 2017, Milly joined her family’s business as livestock manager.
She and her father have plans to expand the herd and boost productivity through genetics. “I have jumped on the genomics program that MLA is running,” she says. “We genomic-test all our heifer calves, and we get a full run down on nine heritable traits.”
Her goal is to finetune the herd, removing females that won’t be productive.
“It is very early days. As a commercial breeder, we haven’t done a lot of data analysis before. But this excites me.”
Milly believes technology, innovation and consumer education will shape the future of farming in Australia.
“I think as a livestock industry, there is probably misinterpretation and misrepresentation of how we farm our animals,” she says. “I think education is the key to all this.”
TOM SQUIRES, 25, GREENS BEACH, TASMANIA
Ever since he was 16 years old, Tom Squires knew he was destined for a career in farming.
A five-day Discover Ag course showed the now 25-year-old Tasmanian farmer exactly where he wanted to be.
“I liked the sheep aspect and the work ethic and what’s associated with it,” he says.
After a short break away from farming to be a shearer, Tom is now leasing a 364-hectare property at Greens Beach, where he runs 700 Merino wethers.
He says one of the biggest challenges he has encountered, as both farmer and shearer, is the demand for workers.
“Lately I’ve found that with good conditions, the sheep numbers have improved and even the size of sheep are getting bigger.
“But you don’t see the number of shearers increasing with the demand,” he says.
He has dreams of owning his own farm in the next year, with a plan to improve the environment.
“My vision is to leave the land in a better situation in an environmental sense than the previous generation,” he says.
“I’ve always thought that if you look after the land, the land will look after you.”
PETA BRADLEY, 25, ARMITREE, NSW
Spending time at the family farm during the pandemic was ideal for Peta Bradley.
While working 9-5 as a project manager of sheep genetics at Meat and Livestock Australia, Ms Bradley was able to work remotely at her parent’s sheep and cropping farm in Armitree, NSW.
The 25-year-old said she was grateful to be able to spend time on the farm.
“It gave me a great opportunity after hours and on the weekend to get involved on the farm,” she says.
Now based mainly in the office at Armidale, Ms Bradley is still involved in the decision-making and goal setting on the farm, and is planning for the future in which she and her brother take over from her parents.
Through her involvement in the Young Farming Champions program, Ms Bradley says she gained a real appreciation for the ag industry and community.
“Never underestimate the benefits of talking and supporting other farmers in your industry,” she says.
Her advice for other young farmers?
“Always be passionate about what you do and to have an open mind when considering options for different things and take opportunities to upskill then pay it forward to younger generations,” she says
BRENT SHEAHAN, 27, MALLEE, VICTORIA
A business degree helps Mallee grain grower Brent Sheahan operate his cropping farm and market his grain.
The 27-year-old returned back to the farm after studying in Melbourne, to work alongside his dad and brother.
“I wanted to go away and broaden my knowledge in other areas, and get a degree while I was young,” he says.
“I use my business skills on farm which has been very handy.”
To help mitigate drought years on the farm, Brent says the family uses on farm storage of grain, allowing them to carry grain to the following year and take advantage of high prices when supply is low.
“Generally if you have a drought year, prices are pretty good so we are able to carry grain through and sell it to those markets,” he says.
Having livestock on farm also helps to mitigate drought years, Brent says.
“Feedlotting sheep and running ewes and lambs keeps the cash flow ticking over,” he says.
“We have just built a new feedlot.”
Brent says his passion for working on the farm comes from living and breathing agriculture.
“I’m very passionate about the industry and love doing what I’m doing,” he says.
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