PLANNING AHEAD
Justin and Amy Dickens have a plan to manage their sheep and cattle property through the drought.
ALTHOUGH IT’S BEEN SIX YEARS since Justin and Amy Dickens bought their own cattle and sheep property near Yeoval in the NSW central west, the young couple still find it hard to believe that their long-term dream has become a reality. “We still consider ourselves to be in the honeymoon period — maybe we always will,” Amy says. “We are so grateful to have the opportunity to own land and make decisions around how we manage it.” The Dickens take a considered approach to managing the 1020-hectare property. Each month, along with station hand Charles Iffland, they sit around the dining table at Greenvale, about an hour south of Dubbo, for the Working on the Business (WOTB) meeting. It’s a forum to review, plan and make decisions based on financials, land and grazing management goals, and ‘people’ ratings (a score that reflects their stress levels, workload and family balance). The trio also review and act on their Response to Drought document, which includes critical dates to determine destocking and feed requirements. “It takes the emotion out of it and makes it very clear, so we can reassess and go again,” explains Justin. The Dickens trade lambs and run a seedstock business, JAD Speckle Park, as well as a commercial cattle herd. This is the first prolonged dry that Justin, 41, Amy, 34, and their two sons — Jack, five, and three-year-old Mitchell — have experienced since they moved here. The area has an average annual rainfall of 650 millimetres, but the family has only recorded 102 millimetres this year. “It’s been a challenge. There has been a lot of learning along the way and planning has played a major role to ensure good decision-making,” says Amy. The couple met in 2005 when Amy was working as a journalist for The Land newspaper and she interviewed Justin after he had won the Australian Cattle Dog Trialling Championships. They moved to Yeoval in 2008 when Justin took on a production manager role for Nigel and Kate Kerin of Kerin Agriculture. With mentoring from Nigel and Kate, and a willingness to further educate themselves, Justin and Amy were able to realise a dream and buy their first property, Coolah, in 2012. The pair continued working full-time and managed the 625-hectare property on weekends, adding the adjoining property, Greenvale, to their landholding two years later with initial financial help from Justin’s parents. Since then, they have invested in major fencing and water infrastructure, and subdivided paddocks for optimum grazing and perennial pasture establishment. The decision to destock down to the core seedstock herd throughout the year is the result of active planning using tools such as grazing charts and the drought document, as well as meetings and conversations with like-minded people. “We enjoy the role we play in improving pasture and seeing the result of genetic decisions we’ve made,” says Amy. “Justin and I both grew up on properties. We love that our boys will do the same and that we have the flexibility to spend time with them as we go about our farm duties.” For more details, visit jadagriculture.com.au
JUSTIN Dad managed farms his entire life so I grew up on the land, but I never thought I would get a chance to own one. Back in 2012, we scraped together everything we could and took a leap of faith. That came off the back of seven years of fairly intensive education from the Kerin family. We would never have had the confidence without their mentoring. If this climatic event had happened in our first year, it would have been a completely different story. We were fortunate to strike a few good years early on, and what’s happened with land and livestock prices has gone in our favour and enabled us to expand. That’s life — you have to make the leap of faith, and we’ve been very lucky with mentoring and education. That’s been key to making good decisions. Amy and I have a constant desire to learn and educate ourselves. Amy is a beautiful mother and a great support and influence on me. I am a slave to work, and she keeps the balance in our lives and makes sure we are living. We are great mates and share a dream for our future. We both have our roles, and a passion for agriculture and living on the land. There isn’t a better place to raise a family and have the freedom to do what you want. We make a good team; Amy’s marketing prowess is a great strength combined with my knowledge and experience in the livestock sector. I’m extremely passionate about the health of the farm and livestock management, and I enjoy helping animals reach their genetic potential. The Speckle Park breed has us both very excited about where we think we can take them. I love the business side of it, but I’m largely a hands-on person and prefer being out in the paddock. This dry time has not been easy, but it’s a bump in the road. We take measures in good years to set ourselves up a little bit better. I’m pretty proud of how we destocked early, and we’ve been able to feed the animals we’ve elected to keep in a financially viable way. Our livestock is healthy and we haven’t beat up our land asset to do it. The day it rains and breaks we’ll be straight back into business. >
AMY My family were first-generation farmers in the Inverell district. I was always the girl on the horse helping Dad at every opportunity, and it was my dream to be on the land. I lost Mum when I was 17 in 2001, and Dad lost his zest for farming and sold the farm in 2004. Justin and I never thought it could be a reality to own land because of the capital requirements of being a start-up farmer. Dad used to say to me that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and we knew we had to be creative about how we got our start. Justin’s previous employers, Nigel and Kate, have given us so much through mentoring and the education Justin received while he worked for them. I lost Dad in 2009, so Nigel and Kate are like surrogate parents to me and dear friends. They gave us the courage and confidence to go out and have a crack. Justin is my best mate and means the world to me. To be in business with him is a privilege and we are a really strong team. I’m the big picture-thinking extrovert, while Justin is more analytical, bringing me back to earth while also being happy to innovate in our business. The last 15 months around Yeoval have been very ordinary, but we treat it as a point in time; the very nature of Australian agriculture is that there are good times and not-so-good times, and we take a regenerative approach to farming to build resilience in our business. That’s resilience in our people through education, and resilience in the land through building up the pasture base. It’s about trying to keep on top of change and plan for climate variability. I’ve been in tears over the drought, but our land is poised to bounce back when it rains. We haven’t depleted our pasture base and our animals have maintained their production capacity throughout. It wasn’t so long ago that owning our own property was just a dream and we didn’t believe it could become a reality. It’s just so special to be able to take our kids out; the four of us get in our ranger with a lunchbox of snacks and away we go. We explain to the kids what we are doing and why, just like my father did and Justin’s father, too. There’s a succession of knowledge being transferred and that’s really special.