YOUNG gun farmers and Coorow brothers Laurie and Jackson Bothe have found their way back to the farm to follow on a 110-year family tradition of farming in the area.
Fourth-generation farmers, 18-year-old Laurie and Jackson, 19, go hand in hand.
Being so close in age, they grew up in each other’s back pockets in the small town of Coorow, with a shire population of 1000, which meant they were in the same class at school, the same sporting teams and home on the same farm.
Both boys attended Coorow Primary School from kindergarten to year 7 and continued on to Wesley College until year 12.
Jackson, who has been home on Roodale Farms for the past two years, said they both completed their ATARs and received reasonably good scores, but were indecisive about their career plans.
It’s so hard to get back into sheep, especially with no fences, but the paddocks are a big waste so we need to do something.
- Jackson Bothe
“We probably should have gone to university or got ourselves a trade but we both came home because we couldn’t decide between the two,” he said.
“I come home for a gap year last year and I have just stayed through to this year.
“Now this is my second year and I will probably be here next year too.
“I guess I just fell in love with the lifestyle and what we do here.”
Jackson said he wished he had started an agribusiness degree but said there was still time to reconsider his choice.
“I still have the option to go to university if I wanted, but I love it here,” he said.
Like his older brother, Laurie also couldn’t decide on his next educational step, but instead of university he was torn between farm life and a trade.
“I could still get a trade as well, which is most likely my option, but it would have to be something useful to farming,” Laurie said.
“I will probably stay on the farm because I just love it here with my family and I enjoy the work we do.”
Born and bred on the farm, the boys said they have always helped their mum and dad, Kath and Jeff.
“We have just gone out on the farm and learnt to do everything since we were very young, so it’s a big part of us,” Jackson said.
“We learnt to drive when we were old enough to reach the pedals and even before that we would steer on dad’s lap.”
Jackson recalled a time when he would go in the header with his dad.
“Laurie would sit under dad’s legs and I would sit on the seat for pretty much a whole day, watching us drive up and back,” he said.
The boys agreed that a lot of people thought they were twins because of their closeness in age.
“We are still pretty close, we grew up doing everything together and we still party together,” Jackson joked.
But with the two boys home on the farm to stay, the Bothes need to look at expanding their farming operation.
“Dad loves having us home,” Laurie said.
“He doesn’t have to work, well he still works but he gets to kick back a bit.
“If we didn’t come home he would have slowed down a bit, but he knew we were coming home so he kept charging on.”
Their dad underwent a knee reconstruction at the start of the year which made him “useless” for three or four months, the boys said.
“I don’t know how long he would’ve gone without us here,” Laurie said.
“We have definitely helped him out and after the surgery he was lucky we were here to keep things going, as he is still recovering now.”
With 3000 hectares of cropping and a further 1000ha of almost unarable sand, the pair hope to make some changes to the family operation.
“We don’t run sheep but we are looking,” Jackson said.
“We have a heap of land which is horrible sand and it’s not profitable.
“We don’t crop it and all the fences aren’t great either.”
The two boys have made it their mission to help build up the fences and get back into sheep after they sold them 10 years ago.
“Dad just didn’t have the labour to do it on his own and now we are home we want it to be a part of the future,” Jackson said.
“It’s so hard to get back into sheep, especially with no fences, but the paddocks are a big waste so we need to do something.”
When their dad decided to sell the sheep the boys were only eight and nine years old, but Jackson said they were lucky to be just old enough to do a bit of work with them.
“We loved it at the time, but now we are older it’s hard to tell if we will still enjoy it,” Jackson said.
“We have been doing some sheep work for an older ‘fella’ out west of Coorow and we seemed to enjoy that.
“But we are out there helping him because he needs the help and they aren’t our sheep, which I think is different.”
The boys’ future project is to put some work into the 1000ha block, including fences, ripping and seeding it down to perennials.
“There is no point cropping all that bad sand we have out there,” Jackson said.
“Sheep are worth a bit at the moment so we might as well give it a go while we are all home and keen to do something.”
“It’s hard to get back into them with the prices up but we will get back into them over time,” Laurie said.
The boys have also looked into the possibility of growing canola, especially on the sand they plan to deep rip or plough, instead of their 2000ha of wheat and 1000ha of lupin rotation.
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Both boys are heavily invested in the farm and consider themselves more than just workers but also decision makers and the future of Coorow farming.
“This year the season was going great until the start of September,” Jackson said.
“It looked like it would be a record breaking season for us, but we had a three week period where we had a few millimetres of rain and on sand plain that is so crucial.
“In the future we want to expand for the two of us to make it more viable but it just takes time.”
Currently living with their parents, the boys said it was good to come back to the family home and talk about farming across the dinner table.
The Bothe family starting living in the area permanently in 1910 and hope to continue into the future.
“There is a lot of history here and it’s important to us to keep the family tradition going,” Jackson said.
“With all those years of farming it would be sad to see it just disappear.”