FOR ASPIRING FARMERS

How do I find a farm? Start with relationships

The way onto a farm runs through people.

If you want to buy a farm and you didn't inherit one, relationships are where it starts: with retiring farmers, with local backers, and with the people who support you along the way. You can start building them today.

Help out a farmer for free

Offer to look after their farm while they're on holidays. Feed their livestock once a week. Help fix a fence. Let them know you're happy to help with shearing, drenching or milking whenever they need a hand.

If your skills run that way, offer to write a Landcare grant for them. There are always ways to build a relationship and show your passion for farming.

Come to help, and listen. The conversation about the farm can come later, once there's a real relationship.

Talk about your vision

Building relationships leads to ah ha moments. You realise a friend, a farmer who sees things the way you do, or a well connected contact has an opportunity for you.

Talk with accountants, lawyers and agronomists, and tell them your plans. Think about the people in your life who might back you, even in small ways.

Keep a little black book

As you get to know people, keep a note of them: the farmers you meet in the areas you could imagine farming, the real estate agents who deal with farms, and the succession planners and accountants who work with older farmers.

It helps you keep in touch, follow up, and remember what matters to each person. To many of them, you are a solution they don't know about yet.

A Christmas card

Here's a hypothetical, to show the idea. An aspiring farmer meets a retiring farmer at an auction, and they get along well. Later, to keep the conversation going, he sends a Christmas card saying he's still interested.

A simple gesture like that keeps the door open.

Share your journey, and join in

Document your journey on social media. Post once a week about what you're doing and where you're heading. People will know you want to farm and how to reach you, and the more you share, the more people can help.

Join a local Landcare group. You're likely to meet community minded people who are open to supporting the next generation of farmers. Help at working bees, join the board, and get to know the farmers. Opportunities can fall in your lap.

Talk with farm advisers

They know farmers looking to step back, and farms that can make good money. They can help you pitch to retiring farmers, and some may even back you themselves.

Work with rural real estate agents

Real estate agents have their fingers on the pulse with farms. They open doors.

Most rural agents have farms that have sat on their books for a long time. In our experience, those farms often have vendors who want to do something other than just sell up, but don't know the options.

Rural agents generally care about their community and want to bring young people into it. They can help interest an owner in getting a young family onto the farm. Many already know about vendor finance, and about handovers where the retiring farmer stays around for a while.

When you see an opportunity, email the agent something like this:

"Hi, my name is (your name) and I'm a farmer in the district. I've seen that (the property) has been on the market for a while, so I wanted to get in touch to see if the vendor might be open to some form of vendor terms, as part of a transition of ownership.

My family has the skills to work this farm, and we have some capacity to put money in up front and buy the vendor out over time. It would be great to get to know the vendor and hear their hopes for the farm."

If the agent says yes, you've got a conversation started. If they say no, you haven't lost anything. One more person knows about you, and knows you're hunting for a farm.

The full guide, You Can Own a Farm, is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.

You can build your own plan at cultivatefarms.com/plan.