The Mitchell family have been farming in this upper Murray area for over three generations. The property where they now live at Guys Forrest has a family history of over 80 years.
They originally owned where the Mitta and the Murray joined but lost that country when the Hume weir was built in 1926.
Bernice and Neil are keen to pass the land on to their children. They have approximately 4000 acres in various sized pockets, some with Murray River frontage and some inherited from Bernice's side of the family.
The price of land in this area is inflated above the land's farm income capacity. In further developing the family farms, they have to borrow from the banks to buy land, which puts the family under huge financial pressure.
The wild dog population has always been a big problem in this area of country and Neil is one of the few farmers still running sheep. Foxes and especially wild dogs that have harbour in some of the large local pine plantations often cause maiming and havoc within sheep flocks if their numbers are not controlled. Shooting, trapping and fencing are all methods being used to control wild dogs from impacting dangerously on stocking numbers.
Primarily farming pure Merino wethers and pure Hereford cows and calves the Mitchell's are fiercely independent of any government involvement in their work, supporting each other through catastrophes and windfalls that are a day-to-day occurrence in their farming year.
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