Tell us about yourself and your farm?
I farm with my parents Darrell and Leonie north of Woomelang. I came back to the farm two years ago after working in banking. We are 100% cropping.
Tell me something interesting about your farm. Do you do anything differently?
We’ve been on CTF for over 10 years. Although we haven’t seen any major improvements through the system, we will look at whether it assists with prolonging the benefits of deep ripping over the coming years.
How does your farming operation work? Do you have specific set roles you focus on?
We’re a small team so many of the roles are shared. I’m involved with both the operational side as well as the financial side. Dad is heavily involved with the farming operations and mum is focused on the financial side of the business.
What is keeping you busy on the farm now?
Getting the right weather conditions to get hay baled and stored. We’re also gearing up for harvest which will start shortly, so there is likely to be a bit of overlap between the two operations.
What decisions are you making at the moment?
We’ve been spending more time on how to make the business more profitable and addressing any inefficiencies we can. Farm benchmarking has been a massive driver of this as we can compare our farm’s performance to other farming businesses across Australia.
What have you changed on the farm in the past 10 years?
The main change would be growing oaten hay, which gives us another option to help stay on top of weeds and add some diversification to the cropping program. We have also moved away from canola and have grown more legumes to help reduce risk and increase profitability.
What are your plans for the farm in the next few years?
Increase efficiencies in the business and hopefully increase scale.
Where do you go for advice?
Our agro Matt Bissett from Exceed Ag, Farm Owners Academy, neighbours and of course BCG.
Callum has also engaged in the BCG GAPP (Extending whole farm sustainability to young farmer discussion groups in the Wimmera and Mallee) program in 2020/21 which was funded by the National Landcare Program Smart Farms Small Grants program and initiative of the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment.
Related article: Farmer in Focus: Tim Dunlop
