WYALKATCHEM farmhand Brad Phillips loves the country life and hopes for a long-term career in the agricultural industry.
For the past three years he has worked alongside Campbell Jones on Modesty Farm, just north of Wyalkatchem, doing “a bit of everything” – seeding, spraying, harvesting, mending fences, fixing equipment and so on.
“I enjoy the lifestyle on the farm,” Brad said.
“It’s my office.
“There’s something different everyday.
“It’s something I wanted to do since I was a kid.”
The Phillips family moved to WA in 1983 from Victoria after a holiday, falling in love with the State.
“They moved to Bakers Hill and then eventually to Wyalkatchem for work,” Brad said.
“Mum was a nurse and dad was a farmhand – a jack of all trades.”
Brad attended the Wyalkatchem District High School until Year 10, when in 2000 he decided to accept an opportunity for a trade as a butcher at Wyalkatchem Meat Supply instead of continuing an education at the WA College of Agriculture, Cunderdin.
He served his apprenticeship from 2001-2004 and worked a further three years at the store.
Before taking up work on the farm Brad did a stint at the Flying Fox mine, 80 kilometres north of Hyden.
“I worked underground as a dump truck driver,” Brad said.
“I progressed to services crew and then onto loaders.
“In 2013 I lost my job due to cut backs.”
Still living in Wyalkatchem meant he kept in touch with friends and the local community.
“After that I did odd jobs for about 12 months until Campbell offered me a job – and I didn’t look back,” Brad said.
“Working with Campbell is fantastic.
“We get along really well.
“Campbell is involved in community groups and there’s always something going on.”
Brad has been involved with the local fire brigade for 16 years and said it was rewarding and a good social group.
He said they met once a month for training drills and skills development.
Brad said while it had been relatively quiet, sadly, the majority of the call-outs were for car crashes.
“We’ve seen a few fatalities over the years,” he said.
While he is full-time on the farm, every Wednesday afternoon he heads into town to help out at the Wylie Community Meats store.
The store opened on May 24 after the previous butcher left and the community realised it needed to keep the business in town to support the local community.
Wyalkatchem farmer and Shire president Quentin Davies, Landmark merchandise manager and butcher Simon Pontifex, Mr Jones and Brad pulled their resources together to keep a butcher in town.
This has gained plenty of media attention and community support.
Brad’s attention has also turned to spraying the crops, getting them ready for harvest.
The season has been dryer than usual with only 276.7 millimetres of rain recorded this year.
“We usually get about 325mm,” he said
“With the latest rains we saw 22mm – which was a bonus.”
They received rain most months but not enough to see the crops take off like last year.
“We dry-seeded in May and we were lucky to get enough rain to get the crop up,” Brad said.
“The wheat is thin but the heads are coming along well, so we will see how it turns out (in terms of tonnage).
“Last year was our best crop ever.
“The GM canola was so thick you couldn’t walk through it.
“It’s nothing like that this year but we’ll make the most of it.”
Modesty Farm has 4000 hectares of arable land which is fully cropped with about 700ha in barley, 1000ha of canola – genetically modified and non-GM varieties, 2500ha Mace wheat and a small 70ha paddock of lupins.
The soil types are mainly heavy red loam, with about 10 per cent lighter soils.
Brad said the weather was a major component to the success of the cropping program.
“We have had to spray out 350ha of canola this year because it just didn’t get going,” he said.
Brad said having the right amount of rain at the right times and avoiding frosts, heat stress and pests made all the difference in yield.
He said it was often windy in Wyalkatchem, and combined with warm weather, it could dry the crops out in a matter of hours.
Mr Jones said they would be trying a different technique to combat the heat – by sowing seeds north/south instead of east/west -– which would allow the heat to better escape the rows.
They would also plant more drought tolerant crops if available.
Modesty Farm was purchased by the Jones family in 1907.
It was originally about 800ha but has since been added to over the years.
Campbell is a fifth-generation farmer – having split off from his brothers – to run his own enterprise, and he leases a property from his uncle.
“We started expanding in the early 2000s and we had a bit of a bad run for a while,” Campbell said.
He said he wasn’t concerned about frost and has changed his operation over the years to allow for the change in weather patterns.
“We are still a couple of weeks away from harvest and that is unusual for us,” Campbell said.
“While the crop is thin the heads are coming along well so the extra time will give them an opportunity to grow.”
