My name is Tony Zwar. I am currently the farm manager for Sims Farm, a 400ha commercially operated agricultural training farm, which is part of the local Cleve Area School. The farm is located 5km east of the township of Cleve on eastern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
I have been employed in state government for 22 years, with the last 10 years at Sims Farm. Previous to that, I was employed in conservation and land management through Landcare, and Natural Resource Management boards. My life skills though, have mostly revolved around the agriculture industry through working on broad acre farms, shearing, truck driving and grain handling facilities. I am due to retire in 2025.
Sims Farm exists to provide a hands-on opportunity for year 11 and 12 students at the Cleve Area School, to acquire practical and academic skills & knowledge for future employment in the agricultural industry. This includes agricultural subjects for the South Australian Certificate in Education (SACE) and Certificate 3 courses in targeted, industry-based skills. The school also provides boarding facilities for external students.
The land that is Sims Farm was originally bequeathed to the South Australian state government back in the late 1960’s by a local farmer, Gordon Sims, who wanted his farm to be used for education and research purposes. 55 years on, his legacy continues - the only change being the management and oversight of the farm has transferred from the South Australian state government to the local Cleve Area School community. Financing for Sims Farm relies mainly on generating its own income, as well as sponsorship for farm goods, in-kind work, and the occasional government grants.
The farm focus is on dry land farming methods, utilising minimum till techniques and livestock management. The current enterprise consists of cereals, legumes, canola and a self-replacing merino sheep flock. Students are allocated paddocks to manage during the year, and in conjunction with the farm plan, liaise with agronomists, teachers and community leaders about all aspects of paddock management.
The farm maintains around 180 merino breeding ewes. The younger ewes are mated with merino rams for a self-replacing flock. Older ewes are mated to white suffolk rams to produce a small x-lamb enterprise. A learner shearing school is also offered to Year 11 students each year.
The farm sits in a rainfall region of around 360mm per year, although a lot of this rain is now occurring from October to February. The soil type is variable, consisting of brown friable clay soil, shallow stony soil, alluvial soil (Yeldulknie Creek runs through the property) and sandy loam with calcareous subsoil. This presents a challenge for cropping rotations and students.
Our main challenge in recent years has been changing weather patterns, resulting in short dry winters, producing low crop yields and poor pasture establishment, particularly from 2018-2020. To combat this the school's farm management committee has made some changes to paddock allocations, moving away from a three-year rotation of cropping & pasture, to designating certain poor-performing paddocks to permanent pasture, capitalising on opportunistic summer rains to establish stock feed during the summer months, and sowing fast growing forage cereals during the winter months. A more rigorous rotation of legumes and canola has also been implemented to the main cropping paddocks in order to boost wheat yields, our most profitable crop.
The farming trend on Eyre Peninsula in recent decades has been to move away from livestock and into full cropping rotations. However, maintaining a merino sheep flock on our small operation has been beneficial for Sims Farm financially, especially during the drought years when profits from cropping have been zero or negative. We also need the livestock to satisfy the requirements of the curriculum for livestock management education. This then provides the students with challenging decision-making opportunities during tough seasonal conditions.
Future challenges for Sims Farm and the Cleve Area School agricultural program:
- Adapting further to better manage short dry growing seasons and changing weather patterns.
- Keeping up with changing technologies for the students.
- Attracting students to Cleve to do agricultural studies.
- Attracting suitably qualified agricultural teachers to the school to maintain continuity of the agricultural curriculum.
- Keeping on top of emerging problem weeds.
- Having enough financial resources to improve soil health and fertility by applying more trace elements, better fertiliser application, gypsum application, delving techniques and managing soil constraints.
- Upgrading machinery and equipment.
The local Cleve community has supported the Sims Farm program extremely well since its inception, and I hope that this continues in the future, so that the Cleve Area School can continue to be a significant educator in our Eyre Peninsula region for our future farmers and land managers.