Farm with mates

Check out this speaker list - Chris Howie, Peter Law, Danny Thomas, Nigel Kerin, Prof Richard Eckard, Jess Cavanagh, Jeremy Hutchings, Neville Brady, Vic Dohle, and Jeff McDonald. All these speakers will deliver so many takeaways for Farmers. The event is "The Business of Farming". Friday, March 3rd, 2023 in Bendigo, Victoria. For an agenda and to buy tickets, click here. See the flyer below.

By Dwain Duxson

Farm with mates: Did you know that 50% of Australian Farmers are set to retire in the next 15 years? Currently, the average age is 57. That means a lot of younger people will be entering Ag, and they will want some form of ownership or skin in the game. That's an issue when Land prices are so high, so we have to come up with enterprising ways to motivate the younger generation. Nothing motivates more than having ownership.

Sharefarming in the dairy industry has springboarded young people into Farm ownership. So you could say that has been a successful model in that industry.

We need to move away from traditional thinking. Perhaps young people, say 3 or 4, could come together to get something going. It happens in other businesses where you might have 2, 3 or 4 co-founders who start a business. We could call it "Farming with mates". It could be structured so there is a time frame for succession (exit), say 10 years, like the Corporates. It's a bit like Collaborative Farming, which has never really taken off, apart from a few isolated cases. Perhaps its time is now. 

We can ask some Collaborative Farming questions to Jeff McDonald, who is speaking at our Business of Farming event on March 3 (see above). He has been involved in a successful one in SA.

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