When my great grandfather selected and grandfather ran the farm, it was originally a mixed farm as all the farms in this area were. They had small dairies, probably fattened a few pigs, ran a few cattle and fattened them and did all sorts of things.

As machinery and enterprises have gotten bigger, everything's become more specialised.

At present the main industry is beef. We run about 250 breeding cows, we also have a small grass seed enterprise where we crop between 50 and 100 acres for grass seeds each year. Some years [are] more successful than others.

Challenges, I mean in terms of trade, I don't think are getting any better. Prices versus costs are continuing to get worse and the price of land is, I think by comparison to what you can make of it, getting higher and higher.

So the prospect of younger people coming on to the land is getting less and less certain, which is affecting rural communities, 'cos part of being on the farm is usually also being in your local fire brigade, being on the football club, committees and doing all of those sort of things. And that's all part of rural communities and that is the part in particular that is going to struggle I think into the next 20-40 years.

Listen to Tony's story (MP3 file 692kb)
Duration: 1 minute, 28 seconds

> Return to the farming families