TWO and a half years ago Borden farmer Jamie Spence didn’t know he would end up taking over the family farm.
The 29-year-old studied marine science and conservation biology at university, stemming from his love for being outdoors.
“I was living the student life, trying to make something of myself,” Mr Spence said.
With unemployment rates in WA affecting Mr Spence’s career choice in marine science, he completed his diploma of education in a bid to secure work.
“The only thing I could find was full-time volunteer work in the science field, which isn’t sustainable,” he said.
Mr Spence started teaching maths and science at Quairading District High School, which he said wasn’t for him.
“I just did manual labour jobs for a while when I was in Perth and then ended up coming home,” he said.
“I have three younger brothers and one of them had an interest in the farm so I thought I would keep pursuing my own thing and see what he wants to do.”
It wasn’t until his younger brother decided farming wasn’t for him that Mr Spence returned to Borden at the end of 2015 to run the 4812 hectare property.
Coming into farming with only the knowledge he had gained part-time over the years, Mr Spence said he had a lot to learn.
As much as his dad Alan wanted him to return, he was never pushed into it.
Alan is now semi-retired and the farm also has employee Gary Jansen van Vuuren, who has been working for the family for the past 11 years.
Mr Spence said people always ask him if he enjoys farming.
“I think maybe that’s not the right question to ask,” he said.
“I enjoy the lifestyle, but farming itself is a package deal.
“When I said I was coming back to the farm, a few older guys said I must be joking, but I love the country and I like doing manual work.”
Mr Spence’s great grandfather Horatio started the farm in 1951 before handing it to his grandfather who in turn handed it to his dad Alan, who will retire to Albany next year.
Mr Spence said he was still getting his head around the business side of things and having his dad involved was good for the transition.
“We have all our consultants, but it’s still nice to be on the same page as they are and I have been doing more and more of the paperwork lately,” he said.
One of Mr Spence’s challenges is gaining the experience so he knows when to put the crops in or when to sell what.
The decisions are based on historical farm data, with Mr Spence saying he was still lacking a bit of time and experience.
He has no plans to go anywhere and is happy to stay on the property.
“At all these farm talks they have during the year there are always these succession talks and I keep trying to get dad to come along and get him up to speed with things,” he said.
“At the moment I have no plans to go anywhere else and I have been settling into the community, along with committees and organisations.
“I’m back after a few years away and I have finally settled back down at home.”
Farming at Borden has its challenges, with only 80 per cent of the property arable.
About 900 hectares is unarable and includes 180ha of bush.
To combat this the property normally runs 5000 sheep but that number has increased to nearly 6200 at the moment.
Mr Spence said they would soon cull 300 new yearlings, 450 of their oldest ewes and about 900 of their oldest wethers, cutting the number back to 4500.
Split lambing was the answer to Mr Spence’s management issue, with lambs either born in March or June.
“It’s just less work,” he said.
“It rations out the feed as well, which is good because we run sheep at a low maintenance here as they are a bit of an insurance on the rest of the farm.”
This year’s cropping program will cover 2000ha, including 658ha of canola, 217ha of lupins, 651ha of noodle wheat Zen and 857ha of Scepter wheat.
Seeding is only just getting underway after only receiving 12 millimetres of rain in April.
“If it didn’t rain in the middle of April, we would have started dry seeding the canola,” Mr Spence said.
“But since we got 12mm, it’s enough to get the weeds to germinate.
“So we will get one more knockdown, then start after that.”
Mr Spence said good rain in the past three years meant weeds kept growing and five knockdown sprays were needed, resulting in built-up resistance.
“This year has been good with the dryer weather because whatever normally grows, the sheep have just mowed down straight down,” he said.
Without any interruptions, Mr Spence said it would take about two to three weeks or so to finish their seeding program.
He said he would switch roles with Mr Jansen van Vuuren to help them broaden their experience.
“Normally I am doing the spraying and driving the trucks and our worker does all the heavy work like the header and the seeder bar,” Mr Spence said.
“But we will switch it around so I know what is going on and how it all works.”
