Behind every success is a story of challenges overcome. For Australian farmer Steven Hobbs, it’s a patchwork quilt of opportunity, learning, moving with the ebb and flow of weather to overcome obstacles.
Steven has been farming North-West of Kaniva VIC on what was once part of the old historic Yarrock Station for decades.
“I’ve been driving the ute since I was 12 and I’ve been home on the farm since I was 18 full time. It’d have to be 38 years all up now that I’ve been farming. I was born into a farming family and that was the expectation, remain farming and so that’s what I’ve done. The teachers went off at mum and dad saying I should go to uni - I was ‘too smart to be a farmer’ but I think you need to be pretty smart to be a farmer.”
It's this perception that so many want to change. Owning and operating a farm in rural, remote and regional Australia is one person wearing many hats. As Steven says, ‘farming is the art of solving problems’ and more young people should be encouraged to enter the ag industry.
“Ag’s really rewarding, and it can open up career opportunities in science, tech, research, services, contracting and more – there’s a myriad of things. People have this idea that we have a bib-n-brace and straw hat and pitchfork. It’s not a reality; we do a big variety of things. Agriculture employs a huge amount of people – and there’s more opportunities than those who you first think of working the land. There are also the scientists, researchers and city people who support from an administrative side.”
For those who have never had much to do with agriculture, Steven encourages them to get out and get involved.
“Agriculture is so important to our country for several reasons, and food safety and security is the biggest one. We don’t need to import all our foods when we have such a vibrant industry here. We can reduce our emissions, we can hit our targets and have a group impact as Australia as a nation. We’re great at exporting things, not just produce; we’re innovators so we can export tech and ideas. We are leading the world.”
After 38 years of farming Steven notes that while his appetite for risk is decreasing, his will to innovate never stops, and he’s always looking for new opportunities to improve the sustainability and productivity of his operation. From battling frosts that saw him pivot from growing out crops to converting them to animal feed and embracing the data insights from the individual electronic identification (eID) on his sheep, to building wifi towers with weather stations and wifi cameras to do remote monitoring; as Steven says, “Being responsive rather than reactive is more powerful.”
“In ten years, I’d like to look back and go ‘that was really good, where did that time to go?’, who knows, by then it might be time to pass the baton on to the next generation.”