WHEN Jack Owen took on part of the family farm as his own, he had the world at his feet.

He had been given free rein on 330 hectares to run his own lamb enterprise and he was finally living his dream of being home on the farm, having moved away to get a trade first.

And, as attendees at the Hart Getting the Crop In seminar in Clare on March 12 will hear, initially it was all going swimmingly.

Interest rates were low, commodity prices were high and he was working long hours doing what he thought he had to do as a farmer.

Then things changed — rates went up, lamb prices went down and the weight of the responsibility hit.

“It was challenging, going from being a farmer’s son where you’re generally a leading farmhand, I guess you’d say, to going into a key decision-maker position,” Jack said.

“My parents had decided to stand out of the way and let me do my own thing with my land, instead of going into a partnership with me, which was probably a really smart decision looking back.

“The hardest thing was getting your head around how everything worked.

“I had to do a four-year electrical apprenticeship to put two wires together, and yet I could walk into a multi-million-dollar farming business, no questions asked.

“You can easily spend money on anything you want in farming, that’s the joy of being a farmer, you get to make so many different choices, but what’s the right choice? 

“And who is keeping you accountable?”

Jack started questioning why he was not happy with the results he was achieving on-farm, and yet other farmers achieving the same appeared content.

He decided to reach out and ask them why.

Despite more than 1000 rejections, 250 farmers were happy to share with Jack their tips for success, and he uncovered some common themes.

Jack has now collated what he has learned into a book, You Are Not Your Farm — What the top 5 per cent of farmers are doing that the average farmer is not.

He will be the farmer keynote speaker at the Hart Field-Site Group’s Getting the Crop In event on March 12, when he will share his journey as a next-generation farmer at Mt Emu in Victoria, and some of the tips for success that he has learned.

“The one stand-out point that kept coming up time and again from these successful farmers I reached out to, was what gave me the title for my book,” he says.

“I started to learn that the farm is a business, a vehicle for getting us to where we want to be in life.

“By understanding that, it removes the emotion from decision-making.

“So often we get stuck doing things because that’s what granddad did back in the 1940s or 50s or 60s.

“It makes zero sense on a piece of paper but because you tie emotion to it, that’s what you think you have to keep doing.”

You can hear more from Jack at the free Getting the Crop In event from 8am to 12.30pm on Wednesday, March 12, at Futures Church, Stradbroke Road, Clare, just north of the Clare racecourse.

A light breakfast and morning tea will be provided, thanks to the support of Precision Ag.

Tickets available via Eventbrite, or head to the Hart website for more information,
www.hartfieldsite.org.au.