Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have
Neroli Brennan: a good yarn about ag life with producers who are
Neroli Brennan: having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers
Neroli Brennan: in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements,
Neroli Brennan: making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get
Neroli Brennan: a laugh out of some of their stories and also
Neroli Brennan: pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host,
Neroli Brennan: Neroli Brennan. Today, we're chatting with Richard and Bernie Sharp.
Neroli Brennan: Richard and his wife Bernie run their farm Coraki along
Neroli Brennan: the banks of the Bogan River, 40 kilometers northwest of Parkes,
Neroli Brennan: where they run their SheepMaster sheep stud Winton Park, as
Neroli Brennan: well as a commercial shedding sheep flock and some cropping
Neroli Brennan: to complement the sheep business. In this episode, Richard and
Neroli Brennan: Bernie talked to us about the difference between SheepMasters and
Neroli Brennan: other sheep breeds, as well as how they may complement
Neroli Brennan: different operations. Richard and Bernie are also new to the
Neroli Brennan: Parkes region and share with us their experience with buying
Neroli Brennan: rural property and farming across a variety of landscapes, including
Neroli Brennan: offering us some handy tips when purchasing our next property.
Neroli Brennan: Local Land Services Mixed Farming officer Rohan Leach sat down
Neroli Brennan: with Richard and Bernie at the Forbes office for this episode.
Rohan Leach: Good day, listeners. Today, I'm with Richard and Bernie Sharp
Rohan Leach: from Parkes. Welcome to the podcast, guys.
Bernie Sharpe: Thank you, Rohan.
Richard Sharpe: Thank you, Rohan.
Rohan Leach: Richard, can you start off with a bit of a
Rohan Leach: rundown of your operation at Coraki?
Richard Sharpe: Yeah, sure. We've got a mixed operation there, grain, grazing crops,
Richard Sharpe: and sheep, as well as a shedding sheep stud.
Rohan Leach: And hectares, what are we looking at there?
Richard Sharpe: Hectares is around about 1,000 hectares now, over two blocks here.
Rohan Leach: What's the management like over the two blocks? How far?
Richard Sharpe: Oh, they're only a K part, Rohan, so it's just all run as one.
Rohan Leach: And Bernie, what's your role in the business?
Bernie Sharpe: At the moment, I work off-farm four days a week
Bernie Sharpe: for a stock and station agent in Forbes. And I
Bernie Sharpe: help Richard on the farm on weekends as well as
Bernie Sharpe: take care of the administration and paying the bills and
Bernie Sharpe: things like that in the background.
Rohan Leach: So Richard saves up all the drenching of the shedding
Rohan Leach: sheep for the weekends?
Bernie Sharpe: Everything.
Rohan Leach: Yeah.
Bernie Sharpe: Sheep work, fencing, everything. Yes, yes.
Rohan Leach: Oh, it's good to hear.
Bernie Sharpe: Although he does tell me he's very busy during the
Bernie Sharpe: week as well.
Richard Sharpe: Yes.
Rohan Leach: Any right of reply there, Richard?
Richard Sharpe: No, but I've got to say she's very good with
Richard Sharpe: ramming posts in. We have a rammer, so she lines
Richard Sharpe: all the strainers up and we just ram them in,
Richard Sharpe: which is I couldn't do it on my own, so
Richard Sharpe: she's brilliant at that.
Rohan Leach: So just more of your block at Coraki, what are the
Rohan Leach: soil types? Describe the landscape to the people.
Richard Sharpe: Okay. So we're on the Bogan River, 30 odd Ks west of Parkes. Goes
Richard Sharpe: from a heavy clay underneath, goes from some heavier soil
Richard Sharpe: up to a red, what I'd call a red loam,
Richard Sharpe: then a red chocolate. And then it finishes a timber
Richard Sharpe: at the back, which we've signed with Biodiversity NSW. We've
Richard Sharpe: done an agreement there so that we can help in
Richard Sharpe: retaining that vegetation. But the soil's very tight. It hasn't
Richard Sharpe: been farmed. It's very run down and it hasn't been
Richard Sharpe: opened up over the last 30 odd years from the
Richard Sharpe: previous management. So now that we're hoping to do that
Richard Sharpe: with a combination of using machinery and multi- species cropping
Richard Sharpe: to get the air and water into the soil.
Rohan Leach: And so tell us a little about your multi- species cropping.
Richard Sharpe: Yeah, sure. So when we're in Tamworth, we started off
Richard Sharpe: up there and it's becoming quite a mainstream thing. People
Richard Sharpe: are replacing grazing crop sites in particular because they found
Richard Sharpe: the multi- species is allowing you to carry more per
Richard Sharpe: hectare and they're finishing quicker. So we brought that knowledge
Richard Sharpe: with us. I was doing quite a bit of contracting up there.
Richard Sharpe: So we're doing both summer and winter multi- species. We've
Richard Sharpe: used some very smart different mixes, which have probably got
Richard Sharpe: too many things in them that some of them just
Richard Sharpe: don't grow where we are. You ultimately will need about
Richard Sharpe: four to five plant species when you're doing it. So
Richard Sharpe: in a winter one, typically you'll have oats, daikon, radish,
Richard Sharpe: maybe buckwheat. And you need to get those roots like
Richard Sharpe: the fellows are doing with canola, get the roots into
Richard Sharpe: the soil and also get the microbes going. In summer,
Richard Sharpe: you're using things like sunflowers, buckwheat, or vetch is another one,
Richard Sharpe: things that get nitrogen and open the soil up. The
Richard Sharpe: animals really love it and they seem to eat different
Richard Sharpe: things at different times. One of the faba beans in
Richard Sharpe: our current winter, multi- species, they left it there, the lambs,
Richard Sharpe: for about eight to 10 weeks. Then suddenly they ate
Richard Sharpe: all the faba beans. They'd left them, they were sticking
Richard Sharpe: right up, and for some reason their tastes changed. So
Richard Sharpe: it's interesting to watch it the way they, especially with
Richard Sharpe: shedding sheep generally, they tend to selectively graze and they're
Richard Sharpe: different species.
Rohan Leach: It is funny how a plant will just go through
Rohan Leach: its natural progression of... And some days, yeah, they'll have
Rohan Leach: higher nitrogen and higher protein, and some days they'll have
Rohan Leach: higher sugars. And that's all it takes for the animals
Rohan Leach: to go, " Well, bang, that's tasty. I'm onto that now."
Richard Sharpe: It's not so different, Rohan, to humans. You can't eat chocolate
Richard Sharpe: all the time, although some people would think so, or
Richard Sharpe: drink beer all the time. So you need a balance
Richard Sharpe: of everything. And animals, they certainly know what they want.
Rohan Leach: Bernie, you guys have been here for about 18 months.
Rohan Leach: So what was your situation before coming down to God's country?
Bernie Sharpe: Yeah, that's right. We do love it here. We had
Bernie Sharpe: a farm in Tamworth. We were very lucky to purchase
Bernie Sharpe: that farm just before things in rural real estate went
Bernie Sharpe: a little bit crazy. And so we spent about three
Bernie Sharpe: years up there. And again, made quite a lot of
Bernie Sharpe: improvements to that farm. Absolutely beautiful spot. We love Tamworth,
Bernie Sharpe: and very picturesque as well. But we had quite a
Bernie Sharpe: lot of hilly country, not all of arable country, so
Bernie Sharpe: reasonable for grazing but there was nothing much really we
Bernie Sharpe: could do to improve the soil or to provide extra
Bernie Sharpe: grazing for our stock so we were quite limited as
Bernie Sharpe: to numbers there. And with prices having gone the way
Bernie Sharpe: they did there, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for
Bernie Sharpe: us to expand. And we were very keen to expand
Bernie Sharpe: with our SheepMaster sheep, so we started to look around
Bernie Sharpe: for different areas that would give us that opportunity to
Bernie Sharpe: buy some arable country. And we knew the area around Parkes.
Bernie Sharpe: We were familiar with it, and the prices there were
Bernie Sharpe: much more reasonable than the Tamworth so we decided to
Bernie Sharpe: make the move here and we're very glad that we did.
Rohan Leach: Yup. And so the move has given you a bit more
Rohan Leach: scale and room to build?
Bernie Sharpe: Yes, room to build, room to value add, room to
Bernie Sharpe: run more animals. Even on the same amount of acreage
Bernie Sharpe: as what we had there, we are just able to run more
Bernie Sharpe: animals here and have a more profitable operation.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. So what were you looking for when you were
Rohan Leach: looking for a property?
Bernie Sharpe: The main criteria I think for us was something that
Bernie Sharpe: was arable. That was the main criteria. And we also
Bernie Sharpe: wanted something that was not too far from a main center.
Bernie Sharpe: We're only about an hour and 15 minutes from Forbes.
Bernie Sharpe: We're less than two hours from Orange. There are good
Bernie Sharpe: livestock selling facilities at Forbes, which again is only 15
Bernie Sharpe: minutes away, as well as Dubbo. So we think being
Bernie Sharpe: in the sheep business, you need to have those facilities close
Bernie Sharpe: by and you need to have the services of a...
Bernie Sharpe: For us, having the services available and support available in
Bernie Sharpe: those towns is very important, and that's why we chose
Bernie Sharpe: this particular area. Like I said, price was a... It was
Bernie Sharpe: a big consideration for us. It's very easy to overpay
Bernie Sharpe: per acre, and you'll never make any money out of
Bernie Sharpe: it no matter how well you do or how well
Bernie Sharpe: you farm it. So that was a big factor for us.
Bernie Sharpe: And finally, we were hoping for something with a bit
Bernie Sharpe: of infrastructure, good infrastructure on it, shedding silos, et cetera,
Bernie Sharpe: and a nice house, a nice house.
Richard Sharpe: Yeah. Just to chime in on that as well, Rohan,
Richard Sharpe: I think how I've always bought farmland is to work
Richard Sharpe: it out per DSE. You've also got to allow for
Richard Sharpe: being near a bigger center like Dubbo and Forbes, but price you pay
Richard Sharpe: per DSE is the only way to compare areas within reason.
Richard Sharpe: And obviously you carry more livestock if you've got higher rainfall.
Richard Sharpe: Further west, you get maybe the capital growth. It's not
Richard Sharpe: as easy sometimes to sell a place as it is
Richard Sharpe: if you're at Tamworth or Armidale or whatever. So there's some other factors.
Richard Sharpe: But on the whole, you've got to have something to
Richard Sharpe: compare a farm at Tamworth, Murray, Liverpool Plains. Otherwise, you've
Richard Sharpe: got no idea what you... It might be deer in a
Richard Sharpe: certain area, but you might be able to run three times as many livestock.
Richard Sharpe: So that's always been the way that I've tried to
Richard Sharpe: work it out within reason.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. So you've bought and traded properties before in the past?
Richard Sharpe: Yeah.
Rohan Leach: So what's your background in that, Richard?
Richard Sharpe: I grew up in the Hunter Valley on a family farm.
Richard Sharpe: Went away to boarding school. When I came back, I
Richard Sharpe: was very lucky within a very short time of leaving school.
Richard Sharpe: I was managing a place, but then ended up buying
Richard Sharpe: part of that and then just expanded over time. And
Richard Sharpe: then we got bigger. In that area, we had about 6,
Richard Sharpe: 000 hectares by then and were cropping quite a lot.
Richard Sharpe: And I took the initiative of selling at the peak of
Richard Sharpe: the previous property boom. And took a couple of years to do it,
Richard Sharpe: but we bought country at orange and had a magnificent place
Richard Sharpe: that was very heavy carrying. And I had some off-
Richard Sharpe: farm things I was doing then and we were just trading steers,
Richard Sharpe: so we got down to a low labor input and I
Richard Sharpe: had manager running that. And we did really well out
Richard Sharpe: of that pure Angus steers and their currency anytime in
Richard Sharpe: a drought or whatever. And we turned them over every
Richard Sharpe: one and a half times a year, every eight months. And
Richard Sharpe: that was very simple. So that was a change of direction,
Richard Sharpe: and now we've ended up back in sheep again. So
Richard Sharpe: it's funny how things take you. I started off in sheep, cattle,
Richard Sharpe: and farming and then into cattle only and then back
Richard Sharpe: into the sheep and cropping.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. So getting back to your early comments about buying
Rohan Leach: per DSE, carrying capacity, any tips for listeners on where
Rohan Leach: that intersection or how to work that out for themselves?
Richard Sharpe: Where I see things getting way out of hand now
Richard Sharpe: is people have got great assets. In the last couple of years,
Richard Sharpe: people nearly doubled their asset in value, but unfortunately-
Rohan Leach: In terms of their land.
Richard Sharpe: In terms of their land. So this is the grounding from
Richard Sharpe: the logic. Equity doesn't equal cashflow. So a lot of
Richard Sharpe: people went out when the neighbors came up for sale,
Richard Sharpe: their own had gone up with value, so they borrow
Richard Sharpe: all the money to buy the neighbors and you've got
Richard Sharpe: to use everything to pay the new bit of land off.
Richard Sharpe: But it hasn't given you really any extra cashflow except
Richard Sharpe: for servicing the new block of land. And interest rates
Richard Sharpe: have gone up so it depends on when you enter
Richard Sharpe: the cycle. To answer your question, I keep it simple.
Richard Sharpe: I've always thought if you can pay 6 to $ 700 of DSE
Richard Sharpe: on average, then you've got the improvements to factor in. We've
Richard Sharpe: got a new brick home and good improvements. You might
Richard Sharpe: prefer more acres and not get the house. The house
Richard Sharpe: is always a bonus price- wise. There's just a set
Richard Sharpe: of factors, and when I think capital gains across everything
Richard Sharpe: is probably proportionate. The only thing that's really making it
Richard Sharpe: difficult for Australian farmers generally now is the outside interest
Richard Sharpe: coming in to use superannuation money, which is really putting
Richard Sharpe: a false floor in Australian farming to an extent because
Richard Sharpe: if only a few people, a small percentage are benefiting
Richard Sharpe: from selling their farms to the corporates, be it overseas
Richard Sharpe: money or local, whereas the majority just having to pay
Richard Sharpe: more to buy the neighbors and paying more rates. But
Richard Sharpe: they're actually not making any more money. Yes, it's a
Richard Sharpe: great asset if you can service it, but that to
Richard Sharpe: me is a really big thing. These funds have got
Richard Sharpe: so much money now. For example, Canadian teachers pension fund,
Richard Sharpe: the Mormon church just bought land in Queensland, 265 billion
Richard Sharpe: they have in assets, and it makes it very difficult
Richard Sharpe: for a farmer to expand and get his children on
Richard Sharpe: the land. I don't know where it's going to end.
Bernie Sharpe: That's right. And I think what you just mentioned is something
Bernie Sharpe: really important in terms of succession planning for farmers now
Bernie Sharpe: because if it was difficult before to pass the farm
Bernie Sharpe: on to someone, one of your children, it's certainly been
Bernie Sharpe: worth the land is worth now. It's certainly very difficult
Bernie Sharpe: to do that and it becomes prohibitive for a lot of families,
Bernie Sharpe: and they end up selling up because they just can't
Bernie Sharpe: find any way of making it even remotely fair. Also,
Bernie Sharpe: a massive barrier for new people to enter agriculture.
Rohan Leach: It's pretty hard to split a 5 to $ 10 million
Rohan Leach: asset that's one parcel of land pretty fair and equitably,
Rohan Leach: isn't it?
Richard Sharpe: And there's a difference there of what's fair and what's
Richard Sharpe: equitable to keep a viable family farm going and to
Richard Sharpe: look after the others that aren't on the land. So
Richard Sharpe: that makes it very difficult. And to give you an
Richard Sharpe: idea of buying power, back in the '70s, I remember my father saying, one,
Richard Sharpe: we used to gross 10 to 12 bags where I grew up
Richard Sharpe: of wheat to the acre. And in those days, land and
Richard Sharpe: a ton of wheat was just about the price of
Richard Sharpe: one acre of land gross. And the expenses were one
Richard Sharpe: fifth of the price of a ton of wheat. Gosh,
Richard Sharpe: today it's just, I know wheat's a bit better, but it's
Richard Sharpe: going backwards in real terms the whole time. I know
Richard Sharpe: people say you've got to get bigger, but that's the
Richard Sharpe: other problem now with the community generally around Parkes, Forbes,
Richard Sharpe: wherever it is. We're getting less and less people in
Richard Sharpe: those communities because people are getting bigger machinery. There's less
Richard Sharpe: people there to be on the local cricket club or
Richard Sharpe: whatever it is. And so it's wrecking the fabric of
Richard Sharpe: all these little towns and you can't get doctors and
Richard Sharpe: can't get other services, and so that makes it really difficult.
Richard Sharpe: So it's not a bugbear of mine, but it's something
Richard Sharpe: that I find sad that wherever you go, you see
Richard Sharpe: all these little halls and clubs falling down because the
Richard Sharpe: people just aren't there anymore for various reasons, yeah.
Rohan Leach: Getting back to your point about 20% of your input
Rohan Leach: costs being the value of the grain, I think the
Rohan Leach: CSIRO farming systems trial, which is going on at the
Rohan Leach: moment all across New South Wales in various locations, a
Rohan Leach: recent figure I saw in that was anywhere from for
Rohan Leach: every dollar invested, you're maybe making between $1.20 and $1. 40 in some
Rohan Leach: of the better scenarios in cropping. So that's a scary thought.
Richard Sharpe: Yeah. Well, if you compare that to racehorses, I think you've
Richard Sharpe: got a better chance at Randwick each way than doing that.
Richard Sharpe: And going back 50 years, when you purchased a farm,
Richard Sharpe: that was the biggest outlay you had. You could control
Richard Sharpe: your costs. These days when you purchase a farm, most
Richard Sharpe: banks won't go past 65% LVR, but you then need, for
Richard Sharpe: the smallest farm debt- free, you need about $ 200,000 to
Richard Sharpe: open the gate these days. So it's completely changed. And
Richard Sharpe: when you speak of a dollar invested for every $1.20 to a $1. 40, we're
Richard Sharpe: relying on the weather. If you said to someone in Sydney, " Oh,
Richard Sharpe: I'm going to risk your whole income for the year
Richard Sharpe: and you'll be 20% or 40% better off next year," they'd look
Richard Sharpe: at you as if you are crazy.
Rohan Leach: I think everyone probably wonders why they're in agriculture at
Rohan Leach: some times, but maybe let's get onto the points of
Rohan Leach: why we are in agriculture. So you mentioned earlier that
Rohan Leach: you've got a SheepMaster flock and stud. So can you start
Rohan Leach: off with what are SheepMasters?
Bernie Sharpe: SheepMasters, yes. We came across them about four years ago.
Bernie Sharpe: They're an Australian developed breed. They were developed in Western
Bernie Sharpe: Australia and they've been around for about 30 years now.
Bernie Sharpe: They're a beautiful shedding sheep, very clean shedding. They're designed
Bernie Sharpe: for Australian conditions. They do very well under Australian conditions,
Bernie Sharpe: even quite marginal conditions. They're designed to be able to
Bernie Sharpe: forage and to be able to travel quite well over distances.
Bernie Sharpe: So they're quite well suited to the medium arid to
Bernie Sharpe: arid areas, although they have a very good structure. They've
Bernie Sharpe: got excellent feet so they can actually tolerate quite a
Bernie Sharpe: bit of moisture as well.
Richard Sharpe: Where they were developed in Western Australia near Albany, they
Richard Sharpe: were developed within three kilometers, I think it was, of the sea. And it rains there
Richard Sharpe: I don't know how many inches of rain a year. It
Richard Sharpe: could be 50 inches. But even when we went over
Richard Sharpe: to the sail, they were standing in three inches of water. And I think I might've
Richard Sharpe: seen one sheep that might've been a bit limp- y.
Richard Sharpe: But if they do there, they'll do anywhere. And this has been a...
Richard Sharpe: We're constantly asked by people how are the feet because their
Richard Sharpe: other breeds, there's some that people aren't so happy about
Richard Sharpe: with their feet. These are bred for, as Bea said,
Richard Sharpe: for walkability, but they've got very good feet. So yes, they're bred in a
Richard Sharpe: very wet, unnatural environment for sheep. On that note, also,
Richard Sharpe: just out of interest, January before last, the manager of
Richard Sharpe: that stud over there came over the wall of a dam.
Richard Sharpe: It was very hot weather they were having over there, in the 40s,
Richard Sharpe: and he found nearly 40 of these lambs swimming not
Richard Sharpe: on the edge, so swimming in the dam. And by the time he
Richard Sharpe: got his camera out, his phone, I think he got 26,
Richard Sharpe: that's on YouTube, of the sheep actually having a swim. So
Richard Sharpe: they're totally different. So when we mention water, it's not
Richard Sharpe: something they worry about too much. So creek crossings with
Richard Sharpe: water in the mark are negative, aren't very good as
Richard Sharpe: a boundary.
Rohan Leach: I'm just imagining delinquent lamb children just duck diving in
Rohan Leach: a dam together. So that's where my mind's gone. Bernie,
Rohan Leach: can you tell me a bit more about what's the breeding,
Rohan Leach: the background behind them in terms of what have they been bred from?
Bernie Sharpe: Well, there was a number of breeds that went into
Bernie Sharpe: the development originally. Quite a few breeds were used in
Bernie Sharpe: the early days, anything from Dorpers to White Suffolk, Damara, Kojak.
Bernie Sharpe: So I think there were up to about seven breeds initially.
Bernie Sharpe: Some of those were only used for a very brief period.
Bernie Sharpe: There's not much infusion there. But the breed's been stabilized
Bernie Sharpe: for quite a number of years now where they've just
Bernie Sharpe: used pure SheepMasters and they've gone on with that. So
Bernie Sharpe: what we have on hand now is very stable breed that's
Bernie Sharpe: been bred back to itself for quite a while now.
Rohan Leach: So what differentiates the SheepMaster from other shedding sheep?
Bernie Sharpe: Well, we've tried other shedding sheep and we still have
Bernie Sharpe: other shedding sheep as well. We bought a couple of
Bernie Sharpe: good lines of Dorpers in the early days. This is
Bernie Sharpe: before we got onto the SheepMasters. And we've also got
Bernie Sharpe: a few lines of very decent Aussie Whites. I think
Bernie Sharpe: there are a lot of good shedding breeds. I don't
Bernie Sharpe: think that one shedding breed necessarily does everything for all people.
Bernie Sharpe: One of the reasons we were still looking even after
Bernie Sharpe: we'd bought those sheep was that we just felt that
Bernie Sharpe: in terms of structure, walkability, shedding ability, and just being
Bernie Sharpe: able to produce a larger carcass without being over- finished.
Rohan Leach: Yeah, they look very slug. Having seen them for the
Rohan Leach: first time at your open day the other week, they
Rohan Leach: look very different to your well- muscled Dorper where you can
Rohan Leach: almost see the lamb cutlets on the back end. But
Rohan Leach: these SheepMasters are very different, quite long and leggy. But yeah,
Rohan Leach: they're still obviously a lot of weight in them.
Bernie Sharpe: Yes, they're heavier than they look, I think, sometimes. I
Bernie Sharpe: think for us they are an ideal sire to put
Bernie Sharpe: over other shedding breeds, like you mentioned, the Dorper. Some
Bernie Sharpe: of those Dorpers can really... They're beautiful sheep and they
Bernie Sharpe: shed beautifully and they share the same fertility as a SheepMaster,
Bernie Sharpe: but they can get almost a little bit muscle- bound,
Bernie Sharpe: almost a little bit too short in the leg. And
Bernie Sharpe: this is a... A SheepMaster is a great way to add
Bernie Sharpe: just a little bit of height, a little bit of
Bernie Sharpe: range to the sheep, a little bit of length, and it allows
Bernie Sharpe: you to maybe grow it out to a slightly heavier
Bernie Sharpe: carcass than what you'd be able to take your Dorper to, thereby
Bernie Sharpe: maybe just increasing a little bit of what you actually
Bernie Sharpe: get for your sheep at the end of the day.
Rohan Leach: And Bernie, I know you work in the Forbes sale
Rohan Leach: yards
Bernie Sharpe: I do.
Rohan Leach: With one of the agents here. Have you seen any
Rohan Leach: differences in performance in the sale yards compared to other shedders?
Bernie Sharpe: Yes. What we've put through so far through the sale yards,
Bernie Sharpe: we don't put a lot of sheep through the sale yards.
Bernie Sharpe: We prefer to sell direct. It's only when we have
Bernie Sharpe: little lots that what we have put through has been
Bernie Sharpe: Aussie White crosses and Dorper crosses. In the yards at
Bernie Sharpe: the moment at Forbes, pretty much all shedding sheep are
Bernie Sharpe: called just a shedding run, but they seem to hold
Bernie Sharpe: up the same as other shedders. They seem to hold up
Bernie Sharpe: well in terms of price per kilo paid. I don't
Bernie Sharpe: think you're going to get a premium necessarily, and that's
Bernie Sharpe: not what we are looking for. We're just looking for a good
Bernie Sharpe: size sheep that you can hang plenty of meat off
Bernie Sharpe: and get paid well by the kilo and have plenty
Bernie Sharpe: of kilos.
Rohan Leach: Richard, what's the thing that you like the most about them?
Richard Sharpe: A couple of things I like is the fertility. These things will join at 12 months
Richard Sharpe: of the year. They're unbelievable, which is a great positive,
Richard Sharpe: and no seasonality whatsoever. The other thing that I love
Richard Sharpe: about them is they actually, when you get a pure SheepMaster,
Richard Sharpe: you actually don't even get any wool on the mainstream growing.
Richard Sharpe: It's more like a satiny loose skin. So they just,
Richard Sharpe: you've seen it yourself on some of ours, and that's as long
Richard Sharpe: as it gets. They might get the slowest bit of fuzz,
Richard Sharpe: so you haven't got anything dropping off. And the size
Richard Sharpe: of them, as you saw, we've got one ram there
Richard Sharpe: the other day. It weighs 163 kilos. Now, he's rising four
Richard Sharpe: from memory, but they get well into the 130s. Now,
Richard Sharpe: if you were person producing normal prime lambs, the shearers
Richard Sharpe: that have a fit, you wouldn't probably get shearers if
Richard Sharpe: you had to shear ewes that were 110. But what I'm
Richard Sharpe: saying is if you can get them bigger, but they're not
Richard Sharpe: something that people have got to handle, that's better for
Richard Sharpe: your carcass. Normally, the ewes on these are 70 kilos
Richard Sharpe: or something, but they are getting bigger, whereas some of the composites now,
Richard Sharpe: they're getting up into the 100 kilos for the ewes.
Richard Sharpe: And I don't know how the shearers are going to
Richard Sharpe: handle those. So to answer your question, the fertility really
Richard Sharpe: is amazing and the walkability and the length of them,
Richard Sharpe: and I think you can always strive more and more.
Richard Sharpe: We are really focused on the eye muscle as we
Richard Sharpe: go along. We are going to put together a lot
Richard Sharpe: of data and we're probably one to two years away
Richard Sharpe: from really having a lot of data where some people
Richard Sharpe: want data, other people don't want any. Personally, you look
Richard Sharpe: at an animal. If you like it, you then look at
Richard Sharpe: the data to see what it tells you.
Rohan Leach: So yeah, you've probably already dabbled in what my next
Rohan Leach: question was, but what are the plans for your stud?
Bernie Sharpe: Main thing is we need to get our numbers up,
Bernie Sharpe: especially in terms of our ewe flock still, because we
Bernie Sharpe: can also see that as well as a market for rams,
Bernie Sharpe: there is a massive demand for ewes. We get asked
Bernie Sharpe: for ewes all the time. And at the moment, really
Bernie Sharpe: by the time we class our sheep, we use all
Bernie Sharpe: our young ewes as replacement ewes. So we are really looking forward
Bernie Sharpe: to building our numbers quickly enough that we can get
Bernie Sharpe: rid of all our cross-breds and all our original sheep
Bernie Sharpe: and really replace those with SheepMaster ewes, which will also
Bernie Sharpe: give us an excellent base to choose from for our rams.
Bernie Sharpe: Our big thing with our study is that we want
Bernie Sharpe: to continue to bring in those outside genetics. We believe
Bernie Sharpe: that that's the best way forward for us. There are
Bernie Sharpe: several SheepMaster studs doing absolute, including the wild oat, and
Bernie Sharpe: the parents start doing an excellent job of producing absolutely
Bernie Sharpe: top quality sheep, and I think that's a very quick
Bernie Sharpe: way for our stud to move forward. So one of
Bernie Sharpe: the big things for us to concentrate on going forward,
Bernie Sharpe: like Richard says, is data. We know our sheep are good.
Bernie Sharpe: We can look at them and know they're good. We
Bernie Sharpe: know the size we buy are excellent. And it will
Bernie Sharpe: just be a real help for people in making a
Bernie Sharpe: purchasing decision to have some solid data behind that. But
Bernie Sharpe: that obviously takes time to record that we already electronically
Bernie Sharpe: ear tag everything we have. We have all the equipment ready.
Bernie Sharpe: It's just a matter of having the time to do it.
Bernie Sharpe: So that's something that we will definitely focus on going forward.
Richard Sharpe: And on that also too, when we bought the initial
Richard Sharpe: 10 stud rams when we first started, the muscle score
Richard Sharpe: on those was it ranged from I think the last
Richard Sharpe: was 46 up to 53, which is quite extraordinary for
Richard Sharpe: an eye muscle reading. And so that's what we'll be
Richard Sharpe: focusing on as well, because you can use them as
Richard Sharpe: a maternal, a paternal, or put them as... Bea mentioned
Richard Sharpe: earlier that we will be at the national field days
Richard Sharpe: again this year, and last year I remember people coming
Richard Sharpe: up and asking about them, say, " Well, I've had an
Richard Sharpe: experience with this other breed." And I say, " Look, yep,
Richard Sharpe: we've got those as well. Put these over them and
Richard Sharpe: you'll actually be amazed that cross is a really good cross."
Richard Sharpe: And we're trying to explain to people. You want people
Richard Sharpe: to put the toe in the water and see what
Richard Sharpe: the benefits are. And if there's something that's troubling them
Richard Sharpe: with another breed, see what you can do with crossing. And
Richard Sharpe: if you're happy with the cross, well, you've only got
Richard Sharpe: to go one more and you're nearly, you got three- quarter cross anyway,
Richard Sharpe: back to the SheepMaster. The other thing that's interesting too is
Richard Sharpe: that information that's just come out from Matt Dalgleish, I think his name is,
Richard Sharpe: from Episode 3 and the fact that in four years,
Richard Sharpe: the shedding ewes in Australia have gone up three and
Richard Sharpe: a half times. From '20 to '24, they've gone from 2% of the
Richard Sharpe: flock nationally to 7%. So there's obviously a change in the air.
Richard Sharpe: And Bea mentioned earlier about having rams for people, it's
Richard Sharpe: a bit of chicken and egg. We've got quite a
Richard Sharpe: few rams now available. But if you haven't got them,
Richard Sharpe: people might go elsewhere. But if you have got them,
Richard Sharpe: then you've got to get the bars. So it's people
Richard Sharpe: making people aware of what's available. We think Southern Queensland
Richard Sharpe: is a large untapped market now because of the amount
Richard Sharpe: of exclusion fencing that's being carried out on country that
Richard Sharpe: was traditionally properly Merino, Longreach and north of Longreach right up to Hughenden. And
Richard Sharpe: that's where these sheep will be easy for people that are
Richard Sharpe: probably cattle in mentality but would like to try sheep again.
Richard Sharpe: And if they've got exclusion fencing, it's a no- brainer.
Rohan Leach: So you guys sell your rams at a sale or
Rohan Leach: just off- farm? Have you got an open day?
Bernie Sharpe: We have sold our... This year is actually the first
Bernie Sharpe: year that we've had rams for sale that we feel
Bernie Sharpe: we want to stand behind the quality and we want
Bernie Sharpe: to stand behind our product, and we felt that this
Bernie Sharpe: is the first year we've reached that. So we sold
Bernie Sharpe: rams at two separate sales early in the year. We
Bernie Sharpe: sold at the national sale, multivendor sale, and we also
Bernie Sharpe: sold at a friend's sale in Dubbo. Our rams sold
Bernie Sharpe: very well there. We're extremely pleased. We sell rams just
Bernie Sharpe: on the farm at any time. Obviously we've just had
Bernie Sharpe: the field day. We've sold some more rams there. It was
Bernie Sharpe: really good to see people new to the breed coming
Bernie Sharpe: along as well to that. And we will be at
Bernie Sharpe: the Orange Field Days, Australian National Field rays. We'll have
Bernie Sharpe: some great little selection of Rams.
Richard Sharpe: One that I've touched on already, which a lot of
Richard Sharpe: farmers don't mention, but I just wonder if that overseas investment,
Richard Sharpe: which is just seems to be almost open slather through
Richard Sharpe: the Foreign Investment Review Board, how it's affecting us. I
Richard Sharpe: don't think people realize how that's flowing down for normal
Richard Sharpe: farmers trying to buy more land, and there just seems to
Richard Sharpe: be no stopping the flood of that coming in. I
Richard Sharpe: see that as being long term. And they're identifying Australia as
Richard Sharpe: cheap land, but are they identifying just as an investment
Richard Sharpe: because cheap land, or I'm just being cynical, not sure that
Richard Sharpe: they're wanting to grow food and feed the world. It's
Richard Sharpe: just an investment to a lot of funds. That's probably
Richard Sharpe: one of my biggest negatives for ag, Rohan.
Rohan Leach: And maybe on the opposite of that, Bernie, what do
Rohan Leach: you see as a big win in recent years?
Bernie Sharpe: If there's something I would mention, it's probably the free
Bernie Sharpe: trade agreements that seem to be negotiated in more recent times,
Bernie Sharpe: and hopefully that will be a positive thing for Australia.
Bernie Sharpe: I know certainly in the livestock industry, exports in both
Bernie Sharpe: beef and lamb are up phenomenally this year, so that's
Bernie Sharpe: got to be a good thing. So yeah, I think
Bernie Sharpe: that's what I would say.
Rohan Leach: Fantastic, guys. I've had a great time today, and thanks
Rohan Leach: for coming into the Forbes office. It's been great learning
Rohan Leach: a bit more about the SheepMaster sheep.
Richard Sharpe: Thanks, Rohan. Really appreciate your time.
Bernie Sharpe: Thank you, Rohan.
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