BCG Farmer in Focus – Brent Sheahan

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By Angela Mazur - BCG

BCG Farmer in Focus – Brent Sheahan

Brent's family farm is spread between Birchip and Quambatook, with some owned, some leased and some share farmed. While Brent has been working at ANZ for the past 6 months, he is still highly involved in the family farm, which is managed by his Dad, Richard, and Uncle, James. One of his brothers has come home to work full time on the farm, and another is also involved but works off farm as a mechanic. The other siblings have all shown interest in returning to the farm one day but are currently working elsewhere.

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Enterprise mix:  Mainly broadacre cropping, with a livestock component. They have just introduced a contract baling service to drought-proof the farm.

Soil type:  As the farm is so spread out, there is a diverse range of soil types, going from red to grey. Soils include; sandy loam, red loam (creek areas), towards Lalbert grey clay.

How  do you feel about the season so far?  "Everyone is pretty happy, we are situated in a nice little pocket in the southern Mallee, so everything is looking really nice. We have some good subsoil moisture, which gives us confidence with fertiliser spreading etc. We are pretty optimistic, and if we can get another 50 mm for the rest of the growing season, we'll do pretty well."

Has the season changed your nitrogen decisions?  "We  sit down with our agronomist at the start of the year, deciding on and budgeting for a blanket coating of 50 kg/ha. Obviously, this rate has gone up this year due to having the moisture there. The yield potential there, so we're going for that."

What are your goals for the farm in the future?  Brent says that the next step the farm needs to take is to get to a corporate level in its management.

"My brothers, Rick and I have started a contracting business, we have a couple balers and a mower. We've been working pretty hard on getting it up and going this year; and looking forward to the up and coming hay season. It sounds like there will be a bit around, and now there are so many avenues for markets, especially export".

Dad, Rick mentions that they are in the process of succession planning. He has three sons and a daughter interested in agriculture, so the family farm is starting to "get to many hands in the pot" so to speak, and thus getting too hard to run.

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Do you think you need to be passionate to be a farmer?  "Yes definitely, from an outside perspective it looks pretty rosy, but you try doing a harvest or a peak period and you soon realise it's not like that at all; you've really got to be passionate about it or it's not worth being there. My generation have been given an opportunity that previous generations never had in terms of being able to go and get an education and get a taste for that city life. If I wanted to stay down in Melbourne and get a job in a financial institution, I could have easily done that. But the fact that my siblings and I, wanted to come back here says that we are passionate about farming".

What is a key message you've learnt so far? :"Success means different things to different people, defining exactly what that is for your enterprise is the key to getting there".

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