FOR ASPIRING FARMERS
Can you get into farming with no experience?
By Sam Marwood
Yes. You start by working on farms, helping farmers out and learning alongside people who know the country, and you have a plan so you're ready when a place comes up. A strong reference from a farmer, about your diligence and work ethic, makes the people who could back you more confident.
No one is much good at farming without training, mentoring and experience, so work on farms now and have a plan, so you're ready when a place comes up.
Get on a farm
No one is much good at anything without training, mentoring and experience. Working on a farm, or many farms, is how you put what you know into practice and build real farming skills.
Help out for free
Offer to look after a farm while the owners are on holidays. Feed their livestock once a week. Help fix a fence. Let them know you'd be happy to lend a hand with shearing, drenching or milking whenever they need it. If your skills run that way, offer to write a Landcare grant for them.
Every one of those is experience, and every one is a relationship with a farmer who now knows what you want.
Start small, on someone else's land
If you can, start farming on someone else's land: lease a bit of dirt, run a few head of cattle or grow something, whatever you can manage.
It shows you're on your way to your own farm. If you're already running something with your own money and making sacrifices for it, you look like someone worth backing.
Keep your job while you learn
Plenty of aspiring farmers hold onto their jobs while they make the move, so an off-farm income carries you until the farming can.
Use what you already have
You don't need every skill it takes to run a farm. You need to show strength in one or more key areas: farming, animal husbandry, business and money, a trade, your links to the local community. Write down what you bring, and be bold but real about it.
Join a local Landcare group and help at the working bees, where you'll meet people who are open to backing the next generation of farmers. Talk with agronomists, stock agents and farm advisers, and tell them what you want so they can help. The full guide, You Can Own a Farm, is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.
You can build your own plan at cultivatefarms.com/plan.