Australian agriculture’s social media stars: Malleeboy3490, Big Farmer Andy, Zoe Carter
Social media is helping some Australian farmers reach millions of people. We reveal those who are the most influential.
Social media is giving farmers the ability to reach tens of millions of people from all over the world — and all from inside their farm gate.
While Instagram and Facebook are still important in the social media space, video-sharing platform TikTok has helped some young Australian farmers find huge audiences.
From honest, funny, raw and educational posts and videos, this group of social media influencers are the new faces of Australian agriculture.
Some of the social media stars started sharing just for fun and accidentally found a post going viral, others have consciously started social media to drive their business and some have created businesses from their social media success.
The Weekly Times has ranked Aussie agriculture’s most influential social media users and looked at how they’ve used it for success.
16. Camille McClymont: 30.7k followers (Instagram)
Camille McClymont, or better known as the Cattleman’s Daughter on Instagram, showcases all elements of rural life, including being a station mum, on her page.
Based on her family’s cattle station Kalyeeda in the Kimberley, four hours east of Broome, Camille said her Instagram started just as a personal page and the growth was gradual.
“People liked to see photos of what life on a remote cattle station was really like. At the time I started there wasn’t many other social media accounts that portrayed the station life,” she said.
“When you live in a very isolated place social media can help to bridge that gap between you and the outside world, it has been a way for me to communicate and interact with a community.”
Camille said she now used her platform as a way of showcasing station life and advocating for agriculture, the live export industry and women in agriculture.
While Camille doesn’t treat her social media as a business, she said it was important to be honest and open with your followers and take the time to reply to comments and messages.
15. Central Station: 34.6k followers (32.6k Instagram, 2452 TikTok)
Central Station is an online community engagement platform for the north Australian beef industry and includes a blog, social media platforms, a book and podcast.
Kimberley pastoralist Jane Sale founded the blog with editor Steph Coombes to showcase the northern beef industry following the live export ban in 2011 and it has continued to grow and showcase stories from all elements of station life.
14. Agriculture Australia: 45.9k followers (34.6k Instagram, 11.3k Facebook)
The Agriculture Australia Instagram page was started by Jock Cusack from Galong, NSW, and Tom Seyffer, Nowra, NSW in 2015.
They started the page, which has grown to include Facebook, to promote Australian agriculture, with people encouraged to send in photos to feature on the page, which they pair with educational and sometimes humorous captions.
13. Farm and Co Kingscliff: 46.7k followers (31.5k Instagram, 15.2k Facebook)
Planting a paddock of sunflowers has been the key to the social media success of organic vegetable farm Farm and Co at Cudgen in northern NSW.
Owner Michele Stephens told the ABC she planted sunflowers to “make people happy” and the flowers had since attracted tourists from all over the world.
A farm, store and cafe, Farm and Co charges a small entrance fee and tourists can pick and take home a sunflower.
12. Paige Wilson: 62.4k followers (59.6k Tik Tok, 2860 Instagram)
Paige Wilson started her TikTok account in 2020 when Covid first started as she couldn’t stay on campus at University.
And after posting some videos she found funny, people started to follow.
Paige, 22, shares her daily life with a humorous twist and said she has used social media mostly for fun up to now.
“I’d love to have a more educational spin on farming life and bring more awareness to the agriculture industry in the future,” she said.
Paige studies Podiatry at University part time, as well as working across her Mum’s three properties in Central West NSW, where they run commercial beef and an Australian stock horse stud.
11. The Naked Farmer: 67.2k followers (Facebook)
Fifth-generation sheep and crop farmer, Ben Brooksby from St Helens Plains in Western Victoria founded The Naked Farmer on May 12 2017.
Having struggled with anxiety for the best part of his life, Ben said his social media career began “after a light bulb moment of reflection while I was sowing lentils, the very seeds I had used as a ‘cover up’ while wearing nothing but my boots, socks and hat in the back of the grain truck, in a random photo the season prior”.
He created the Instagram account, which has now been moved to Facebook, and called it The Naked Farmer, posting his near naked photo, for a bit of fun.
The post went viral and it became the framework for his business, highlighting agriculture through photos of naked farmers with strategically placed props.
A big part of the page is to promote Australian food and fibre, as well as advocate for mental health.
Ben develops and sells calendars each year using images from The Naked Farmer social media and has also written a book, called The Naked Farmer.
10. Thank a farmer for your next meal: 95.4k followers (60.9k Instagram, 34.5k Facebook)
Sam Johnston from Forbes in NSW and Jim Honner from Jugiong in NSW started the Thank A Farmer For Your Next Meal Instagram page in 2014.
While it was initially started as a way to share images with their circle of friends, it quickly grew and people now submit photos to be featured on the pages.
Developed into its own brand with products for sale, Thank A Farmer For Your Next Meal aims to promote the Australian agricultural industry and its primary producers to a wider audience in order to close the continually widening gap between producer and consumer, city and bush.
9. Jack Tossol: 107.6k followers (94.1k TikTok, 13.5k Instagram)
Born and bred cattle farmer, Jack Tossol currently works in finance in the city.
But it doesn’t stop him sharing plenty of farming content on social media.
Jack started his TikTok as a “bit of a joke” in the depths of the first Covid lockdown and his content took off.
Jack’s content is dry Australian humour and he likes to make fun of everyone from politicians, to farmers and tradies.
8. Jack Moyses: 138.5k followers (56.9k TikTok, 3396 Instagram and Broad Acre Bros 56.1k TikTok, 22.2k Instagram)
Jack Moyses has created a social media following from sharing his professional-level videos of machinery, with tractors, headers, trucks and landcruisers featuring heavily.
The 19-year-old from Wagin in Western Australia works alongside his dad on a mixed cropping farm.
Jack is also one of the developers behind TikTok page Broad Acre Bros (56.1k followers), which aims to create the best cinematic agricultural videos. He and his two mates, Cameron Moon and Heath Whibley, have also turned it into a business, selling merchandise including hats and stickers.
7. Mel McGorman – Lady Ba Ba: 178.1k followers (163.5k TikTok, 14.6k Instagram)
Mel McGorman is a South Australian farmer known for sharing the positive side to rural life. She runs a sheep farm and feedlot with her husband, Ryan, and their three kids — who also feature heavily on her social media platforms.
Known as Lady Ba Ba on TikTok, Mel’s followers exploded when she started sharing the reality of bushfires after 70 per cent of their farm was burnt in the 2020 fires.
Also a contestant on Big Brother last year, Mel isn’t afraid to address the misconceptions about agriculture and also share some of the more funny elements of farming, including a “whoopsy” video posted in February of an auger which didn’t line up with the feed bin, creating a huge pile of spilt grain — it notched up 925,500 views.
6. Timmy B:236.9k followers (TikTok)
Sharing his packed lunches at smoko time during harvest put Timmy on the TikTok map.
A fourth-generation farmer from Western Australia, some of his packed lunch videos have attracted more than one million views and 243,000 likes.
His enthusiastic and comedic reviews of his packed lunch don’t hide the fact he is a big fan of chocolate.
Timmy also regularly shares day-to-day happenings on the farm and answers questions from followers.
5. Jack Archdale: 263.1k followers (226k TikTok, 37.1k Instagram)
Jack Archdale has been slowly building his TikTok audience for the past two years, but his Instagram exploded in one viral post (of him swearing in the day of a life of a farmer) from 5000 followers to 25,000.
Jack is a “true blue” Aussie content creator and shares his everyday life being a country bloke in the city, farm life (when he is back on the farm) and has a comedic twist to dating and calling out bad behaviour.
He grew up on a sheep farm at Walcha, NSW, and while he currently works in Sydney, he aims to be back in the “bush within a year”.
Jack said he started TikTok to promote a podcast (which he still hasn’t started) and posted some old Instagram stories to start with.
“A couple went viral, so then I decided to continue posting my daily life (with a comedic twist) on the sheep station ‘Congi’ owned by T.A. Fields,” he said.
Jack has “been commercialising my platforms here and there, really only with brands that resonate with me and make sense”.
He said his secret to success was “do what I don’t do and continually post! Continuity is my biggest issue”.
“Also, don’t listen to anyone. Everyone has different opinions on what’s funny. So, if you think it’s funny, or if you think the content is good, post it and don’t worry about it,” he said.
4. Zoe Carter: 301k followers (198.9k TikTok, 61.2k Instagram, 40.9k Facebook)
Growing up a “city kid” in Geelong, Zoe Carter has always had a passion for agriculture.
Now she uses her social media stardom to spread positive messages about agriculture and encourage young people to work in the industry.
Since leaving school Zoe has spent her time working as a ringer on stations in Western Australia and is now working on a farm in NSW.
Zoe has a big reach across all social media platforms, but was blown away with how quickly TikTok took off for her.
Zoe’s educational and often funny videos share her daily life working in ag from mustering and welding, to sharing videos about how to get a job in agriculture, what to wear for the first day working on a station and “bush make up tutorials”.
Zoe told The Weekly Times last year she was constantly receiving messages from people, who had seen her videos on TikTok, asking how they could get into farm work.
She spends a lot of time answering questions and educating followers on how to get a job in ag and how to do certain tasks on a farm or station.
To ensure she could keep sharing content, Zoe created a clothing business called Rugged Country which was also promoted across social media and sponsored by clothing brand Ariat.
3. Zayne Hall: 352.1k followers(343.8k TikTok, 8387 Instagram)
Zayne Hall, or Farmer Zayne, from near Stawell in Victoria, took the social media world by storm in 2020 when he started to share funny videos on TikTok with his pet sheep Johnny.
Zayne said he started TikTok for a laugh with his friend to see who could get to 5000 followers first.
The 22-year-old is a fifth-generation sheep and cropping farmer and shares plenty of comedic videos, as well as sharing his daily life on the farm and answering questions about farming.
2. Big Farmer Andy: 357.9k followers (349.2k TikTok, 8772 Instagram)
A third-generation dairy farmer, Big Farmer Andy started using TikTok to bridge the gap between city and country people, usually through humorous videos and parodies.
He also uses his platform to advocate for mental health, often sharing his own struggles or advice on how to check on the people around him.
Farmer Andy joined TikTok in November 2020 after some surgery when he couldn’t work for a few weeks.
On a TikTok video shared recently he said he was impressed with the community he has built, he had learnt a lot, met some great people and helped people, notably raising money for the Black Dog Institute.
Farmer Andy is also not afraid to call out misinformation and stand up for farmers against the activist vegan community.
1. Peter Vallance: 802.2k followers (770.4k TikTok, 31.8k Instagram)
Ouyen farmer Peter Vallance started posting to TikTok as a way to save memories with his old cattle dog Spud.
But videos of 32-year-old Peter yelling at his alpaca Patrick (who is actually female) for not doing her job went viral and set him on the path to having the most number of followers of any Aussie farming influencer The Weekly Times could find.
While Patrick still features sometimes, Peter said he had moved away from the more comedic videos to more educational.
“I’m aiming at the audience that are curious about ag and that don’t have a connection to the land,” Peter said.
“I get some interesting questions (from followers) that are usually easy to answer, although sometimes I have to do some research myself.
“TikTok is a great tool in that people can get a direct connection to the source (farmers), compared to going on the internet where you could essentially find any answer you want.
“Social media is a tremendous tool for connecting people.”
Peter said he gets asked a huge range of questions, with people wanting to know what he is doing even if it is just farm maintenance, to what they might see in the background of another video.
In growing his audience, Peter said the more people felt comfortable with him, they more they were willing to ask questions.
“I don’t make people feel silly for asking questions, because if you haven’t grown up in the country, there are so many things we know that we just take for granted.”
Peter hasn’t commercialised his social media influence and while he has had offers, he said it’s “not why I started”.
Peter said he reached an “amazing cross-section” of people from three-year-olds on their parent’s phone to grandmothers, as well as from countries such as Finland, the US and the UK.
His secrets to success?
“I don’t think I have the winning formula, but just be yourself and don’t get upset with people for their opinions.”
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