This September it will be 150 years since the Herbert family took up residence just outside Eugowra, some 330 kilometres from Sydney.
The sixth-generation farming family has come a long way to win the 2023 Farmer of the Year award.
“When Andrew and I got married, it was a small mixed farming operation with a piggery, and he had started a small cattle feedlot,” Tess Herbert said.
“Then we decided to build this feedlot in about 2000, and that really diversified.”
Now the Herberts run a medium-sized feedlot for about 6,000 head of cattle.
They also run about 2,000 sheep and breed a number of Angus cows, alongside some cropping.
The last few years have been a wild ride for farmers across the country, but perhaps for the Herberts more than most.
After weathering the drought, there was the pandemic and then a catastrophic flash flood in Eugowra that killed two people, and saw 150 more airlifted off their roofs.
Vast areas of the Herberts’ pastures were submerged, and their best canola crop to date was washed away.
“The trauma of that event was that it affected our town, but once we dealt with how our staff were coping, we had to look at our own business and how we would rebuild,” Ms Herbert said.
“The loss of stock, sheep, the loss of crops in particular, which we were relying on for cashflow … the loss of infrastructure, yards and fencing and roads, all of that.”
Ms Herbert said the recovery would take some time yet, possibly years, but the highly diversified operation has given them a good foundation to rebuild from.
‘Excellent’ systems
Award judge David Jochinke, a third-generation grain and livestock farmer in Victoria, said the Herberts’ innovation and diversity had impressed the panel.
“What really struck us about Tess and Andrew was that not only do they run excellent feedlot finishing systems for cattle, they also run an integrated enterprise where they grow good fodder,” he said.
“But then also the amount of industry work that Tess has done and the amount of innovation that Andrew has brought into the business is outstanding.”
Ms Herbert has worn many hats in her 20 years in the feedlot industry.
She is a non-executive director of Meat and Livestock Australia and co-owner of Gundamain Pastoral, the family’s feedlot company — a far cry from her work as a teacher in Forbes.
Ms Herbert decided to make the change in 2000, aiming to expand the business after having three kids.
Since then, she has been a councillor at Australia Lot Feeders’ Association and became the organisation’s first female president.
Mr Herbert has always had a passion for feeding livestock and has been using new farming techniques to improve the paddocks.
With a view to keeping ground cover year-round and reducing the weed burden, the Herberts have turned to mixed pasture species and reduced chemical fertilisers.
“We’re trying to keep feed in the paddock year-round at the same time,” Mr Herbert said.
“We’re also trying to do it in a way where we can control weeds better as well.”
Using manure on the paddocks has also been a big help in improving the soils and led to much better stocking rates.
“In the last 10 to 20 years, we’ve utilised a lot of the feedlot manure, and it’s just increased the humus in our soils a lot,” Mr Herbert said.
What lies ahead?
With the 150th anniversary of Gundamain coming up in September, Tess and Andrew’s daughter, Caitlyn Herbert, is looking to the future.
“It’s pretty exciting to be part of something that’s been going for that long in the same family,” daughter Caitlyn Herbert said.
She is the only one of the three children working on the farm at the moment.
She and her husband, Ed have been working full-time at the business for the last five years or so.
They want to keep it in the family.
“Mum and Dad have left us really big shoes to fill — it’s going to be a really tricky one to make our own mark on this business in the same respect that they have,” she said.
“But we’ll give it a good go.”
The ABC co-founded the Farmer of the Year Award with the Kondinin Group in 2010 in order to recognise best practice and excellence in agriculture.
Nominations are provided by the community, and the winners are selected by a panel of independent judges.
The announcements were made at Parliament House in Canberra at an event hosted by the Kondinin Group and the ABC.
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