G’day, I’m Angus Combe. I farm with my parents, Anthony and Gabby, just south of Crystal Brook in South Australia’s Mid North, on 1,800 hectares of red-brown clay loam soils right on Goyder’s Line. Crystal Brook is also known as the southern gateway to the Flinders Ranges, so we get a mix of landscapes and weather.
I’m a fifth-generation farmer, and I honestly couldn’t imagine doing anything else — I love it.
On our property, we grow wheat, barley, vetch, beans and lentils. Lentils are a popular crop in the area, but we also find that beans perform well in our rotation. We run a few cattle and sheep when the year allows, but cropping is the core of our business.
We kicked off seeding last week, so this week’s been the usual mix of spraying, sowing and shifting the bar around. Like many others, we’re dry sowing again this year. Last year we only recorded 220mm of rainfall — well down on our average of around 400mm — and so far, we’ve had just 14mm this year. However, even with the dry start, we’re staying optimistic.
Learning on the job is one thing, but we’ve found real value in stepping off-farm occasionally. Dad and I recently went along to a GrainGrowers workshop on navigating risks in grain marketing contracts. It was a great session, and I appreciated that it covered both the fundamentals and more complex aspects of grain contracts. It was perfect for someone like me who’s newer to that side of the business, and Dad got plenty out of it, too.
I’m really interested in how technology and innovation are driving change in agriculture. Anything we can do to improve input efficiency is exciting, and the research into crop varieties better suited to specific conditions has huge potential. I’m also keeping a close eye on autonomous machinery — it’s incredible to see how quickly that space is moving. It makes me optimistic about where the industry is heading.
At the end of the day, harvest is my favourite time of year. After all the work that goes into it, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing the crop come off and knowing you’ve played a part in producing something that not only ends up on kitchen tables here in Australia and around the world but also helps support rural communities like ours.