STORIES WE LOVE

Neighbours who made room for the next farmer

Every now and then I find a story that shows exactly what we're about at Cultivate Farms: real people finding a way to keep a farm working and bring someone new onto it. I share them here because seeing it done by others makes it real. Here's one I love.

From ABC Rural, 17 July 2023: "Young farmers buying into Australia's most expensive agricultural property market with help from neighbours", by Meg Fergusson. Read the full story at abc.net.au.

Why I love it

I love this story because it shows the whole thing we work for, done by neighbours in north west Tasmania. A couple worked as farmhands for more than a decade, with no family farm to step into. When the farm was sold, the new owners offered them a sharefarm, and now they own the livestock and have gone halves with those owners in a second farm.

The second story is just as good. After her husband died, a woman offered her neighbour the running of their block, and let him pay the lease at the end of the season instead of up front. He says that one change got everything going, and from there he and his team have built a cropping farm and a shop in town.

Why it matters for towns like ours

Every district has farmers getting ready to step back and people who'd love to farm. Most of the time they never meet, or they meet and nobody knows what to offer. This story shows the offer can be simple: a sharefarm, a lease paid in arrears, a half share in the next block. Each one kept a farm working and put a new family on the land.

One step you could take

If you're a farmer thinking about stepping back, have a look at who's already working on the farms around you. The person who could carry your farm on might be milking cows next door. Read how share farming works in our Ageing on Farm guide.

I share these stories because each one shows it can be done, by ordinary farming families, in places like yours. If you know a story like this, or you're living one, I'd love to hear it.