There is one thing about the generational family farming business, just ask Wemen’s Andrew Young.
As he recalls it, his late father Allan, who founded the family dynasty on 50 acres at Nangiloc in 1955, took his own sweet time in having that toughest of conservations.
Because despite being encouraging at all times, it took him more than a few years before he could bring himself to tell Andrew: “Look, how about I let you do it your way”?
Andrew laughs about it now, even though he chafed a bit under the old man’s eye for some time.
But what he laughed most about was the lesson that taught him, when he looks into the faces of sons Tim and Carl as they discuss the nuts and bolts of how to run the family’s now 700 acres spread across four properties.
“Did I learn from dad about that? I guess what I have discovered is it’s not going to be as easy as I thought,” he chuckled.
While Andrew juggles that hoary old succession chestnut with his 41- and 33-year-old sons, he can also see his grandchildren, generation four (and plenty of them by all accounts) coming over the horizon in the not too-distant-future.
But back in 1955 when the Young family business was still, well, still very young, it was a very different kettle of fish.
Because Allan and Audrey were pretty much a two-person band on a seriously fast learning curve as Allan was from Melbourne and farming was a whole new world for him.
“Dad had come up to visit a cousin and he just sort of stayed on,” Andrew explains.
“So he got himself a lot of jobs and set about putting some money together so he could get his own farm and get started as a man on the land,” he says.
“And he always thought he was a bit blessed when he finally put the money down on that first 50 acres because just before that he had bought a small tractor and was doing work as contractor, so he already had his first bit of machinery.”
That said, much of the work Allan and Audrey tackled was seriously hands-on – from planting to harvest – and because they had two crops a year they were basically working all year round.
Andrew says his dad might have started with machinery, but it wasn’t until 1965 he acquired his first and only carrot harvester – talk about technology.
Mind you, 50-plus years down the track and Andrew concedes the business is still not fully mechanised.
Partly because they have moved away from the traditional market garden base of Generation I.
While Allan and Audrey delivered the ”50’s staples in what Anglo-Saxon protestant Victoria – lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, sweet corn, spinach, pumpkin and melons (and a not so successful tilt at celery and one or two other cosmopolitan crops) – the two harvests was a big call which kept Audrey in the field as much of the rest of the men working on the property.
Transport, Andrew says, along with the incredible interconnectivity of markets, the introduction of frozen, chilled and refrigerated transport – and transport itself – is a world away from the world in which his parents battled along.
He says transport alone would today baffle dad. In his day, getting goods to Melbourne from Nangiloc was the better part of two days. Today Andrew can have something fresh and crisp in Brisbane in less time.
“At first mum and dad would contract a subbie to do their trucking to Melbourne but after a while he got into trucks himself, although he rarely drove them,” Andrew says.
“It was a boomer, a 10-tonner – when you compared it with today’s multi-axle jobs that can do 40 tonnes to a lot more in refrigerated, chilled or frozen trucks, you can see how the sheer scale of things today might amaze them,” he says.
“So would the volume of trucks on the road, they keep on going, night and day, and they are all big and the train was never a factor even in the old days.
“One thing that has been a bit of a constant is we have about a dozen fulltime staff with us and so did mum and dad – although we add 30 to 40 for harvest and while they also did a lot of hand harvest things were done a little differently then.”
Andrew says in recent years the family business has moved right away from the vegetables – and two harvests a year. They are now focused on supplying markets from April to November across the four properties, which are still run as a single day-to-day business.
“Our program today (growing baby spinach, rocket, chard, cos and iceberg) is more with the times, in this market it became the harder end of the business and not with a great return but now we have our production locked into pre-priced agreements – so we know exactly what we will be getting for what we turn off, although sometimes the volume can shift a bit, but the price doesn’t,” Andrew explained.
“But we’re happy with that – although we wouldn’t have minded a crack at those $10 lettuce,” he grinned.
“Best of all we almost exclusively service the domestic market, with very little export and, because of the nature of what we produce there are very few imports – if there are genuine shortages for reasons behind everyone’s control, like the recent floods up north, that would be about the only time anyone reaches out for overseas product and we don’t see that as a price threat.
“We are also constantly tweaking the varieties we grow, trialling different strains and changing them where we find a better one – Carl is our grower and looks after production and variety selection.”
But here is one thing that separates Allan and Audrey from their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Climate change.
It was not on anyone’s radar back in the early 1950s, or the swinging ’60s but it’s headline material in 2022.
And Andrew is one of a growing band of producers who have signed-on with Farmers For Climate Action in a bid to move it to the top of farming’s social, commercial, and political agendas.
Andrew says he was compelled to join the movement because of the disinterest – even intransigence – of farmers themselves to what he sees as a serious and immediate threat.
“I can’t remember what first got me thinking about climate change since it has been an important issue for such a long time,” Andrew says.
“However, I got particularly climate-minded following my disappointment about a carbon tax under the Tony Abbott Government,” he says.
“But I also am pretty sure I am safe if I say at the moment I also felt a lot of farmers themselves were holding back the progress we need to get ahead of our genuine climate challenges,” he added.
The Young farms are now carbon neutral and they are aiming to create a genuine reduction in their emissions after purchasing carbon credits for the past three years.
He is both more vocal on the subject – and wanting to speak from within the industry, not the outside, because he, like the many other farmers in FFCA still want their properties to have a future and people still have to eat.
“While I feel pain for emissions, out of it becomes positive action.
“Commercial growers grow on contract to winter supply salad packaging companies. So, we are investigating soil use and rotations and are also looking to electrify tractors.
“However, it is challenging to source batteries large enough. In addition to investigating tractor electrification, we are seeking to reduce our footprint per tonne of produce sent out by increasing our yield.
“Climate change is a top priority problem, and we have to do whatever it takes. This issue is so significant that we must accept a solution will be at a cost.”
That said, he admits he is still not sure where it will all end, and he is more concerned about where his children and grandchildren will fit with agriculture.
“I would have to say I am still very concerned about where it will end up, we can have a crack, but nothing is guaranteed.”
