RICHARD Putter left South Africa with just a suitcase and six years later he has just purchased his own 400 hectare property at Nukarni.
Mr Putter, who had worked for three years on farms in America, came to WA in 2012 to visit relatives but fell in love with the country and decided to stay.
“In South Africa it was hard to get back into farming because my family sold the farm many years prior,” Mr Putter said.
“So I went to America for three years and I farmed over there and witnessed the cold.”
It took him six years in WA to get on his feet, but with so many similarities to South Africa it felt like home.
“It’s similar weather to South Africa which is probably what drew me here and the people are similar as well,” he said.
When he first moved to WA Mr Putter found himself working on a farm in Beverley.
He was determined to buy a farm but realised he couldn’t afford the land prices in a higher rainfall area.
So after five years working on the Beverley farm, he found an opportunity on Springvale farms, at Nukarni, working as a farm manager for Matt and Beth Smith.
At the same time he bought a nearby 400ha property, which he named Puttergrazing, with his wife Adele and the help of his cousins.
“I came out here where all the flies are and less rainfall just to farm for myself,” he said.
“So I am the farm manager for Springvale which is about 4050ha that is cropped and runs sheep.
“Being a farm manager has given me the income to purchase my own property but also to continue to have an income while I start to farm on my own.”
Mr Putter said to own his own farm, he had to think outside the square.
“You can’t think like everybody else, especially starting out,” he said.
“I didn’t have a farm that could be passed down to me and my dad didn’t help me to get a farm, so you have to think a lot about how you can make it work.
“How can you make money on something so small and how can you keep your costs that much lower to actually make a profit in the end?”
Mr Putter explained how his barley crop only averaged one tonne per hectare this year.
“Out here everyone did better than I did but still I made return on it and I can still farm next year, so as long as I make a return I am moving forward,” he said.
Coming from an irrigation background, it was a bit of a shock because there is no tap you can open and water it all.
“It’s just the input costs that I can’t put into the ground which make the difference, which eventually I will be able to afford.”
Mr Putter started his first Australian cropping season this year at Puttergrazing.
“It’s only 400ha with 50 per cent cropping barley and 50pc pasture for my sheep but it’s enough to get me started,” he said.
“I’m running 400 Merino wether lambs and 200 hectares of barley but you have to start somewhere.”
Mr Putter said the main thing he needed in Nukarni was livestock.
“You need to run as low cost as you can and we need to learn how to run more livestock on the same area,” he said.
“Livestock is low return, but it’s also low risk.
“The secret to feeding them is to just seed anything you can – anything cheap.
“Just graze it from start to finish.”
This year Mr Putter planted salt bush and blue bush, along with a few native grasses, to feed his sheep.
He also seeded some ryegrass and canola into it just to get some bulk growing.
Mr Putter said a big issue was funding the purchase of his first 400 sheep.
“My cousin went in with me on the sheep side of things because I couldn’t get a livestock loan,” he said.
“Because I am a new farmer I don’t own enough land yet to to use to get a loan.
“So the banks said no because there was a criteria I had to have and I couldn’t meet it.
“So I bought all my stock with cash, everything is done with cash and I have used up all my savings.”
Mr Putter said his biggest challenge so far was not being able to borrow money from a bank.
“For myself leasing is a better option until I can build up enough money to buy,” he said.
“You need 40 per cent of the amount and I don’t think there is anyone walking around with that in their savings account.
“The problem is the only land you can buy as a starter farmer is quite small and you don’t make a return on it.”
Mr Putter said small and new farmers could still make it work, with many farmers around him making a good life from farming.
The Smiths have made the transition into farming easier.
“I’m still to get the funds for all the machinery, so I find myself hiring the Smith’s machinery to put my crop in,” he said.
“I only have a truck and a few small things but I don’t have an air seeder and the big equipment.”
Mr Putter’s goal is to continue expanding every year by leasing more land until the farm is profitable enough to run as a farming enterprise and then buy more land.
“There is definitely a future in farming for people who want to start and work hard,” he said.
“It’s not easy, but it’s doable.”
Mr Putter said farmers could help more by creating opportunities for their employees by share farming or leasing them a block to start on and work together towards a goal.
“A farm worker is much more invested in his job when he knows he is his building his own future in farming and not only working for a salary package,” Mr Putter said.
“My goal was to farm for myself and I am finally on that stepping stone and getting into it now.
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“It’s a building process and any money I make is going straight back into the farm so, hopefully, I can build it up in the next five years.”
Coming from an irrigation farm in South Africa, Mr Putter said Australian farmers were the best farmers in the world.
“What we, Australian farmers, produce with our soil and rain constrictions and all the challenges we have is just amazing,” he said.
“The Americans and South Africans have it easy in comparison.”
He said he had to learn a lot from the land.
“It’s a little different out here and especially with the acidic soils, which I am not used to,” he said.
“Coming from an irrigation background, it was a bit of a shock because there is no tap you can open and water it all.”
But Mr Putter is keen to be involved with farming and all things agriculture.
“It’s good to see that there are new people still coming into farming,” he said.
“I think my story is something that will encourage people to think maybe they can do it as well.”