PETER Haddrill has seen a very different way of farming compared to what his son Anthony now sees and what his grandson James will see in the future.
Working on the family farm at Northam since he was 15, Mr Haddrill, now 69, has seen a lot of changes over the past 50 years.
The Haddrill family, who started farming at Northam in the 1880s, is up to its sixth generations of farmers.
Mr Haddrill said things have been changing for the better with manual labour drifting out and efficient farming becoming the new way of life.
“It has made everything easier,” Mr Haddrill said.
“Especially for old blokes like me to stay on the farm longer with computers, autosteer and rock pickers.
“We don’t lift straw bales any more and we don’t need to be lifting wheat bags.”
Mr Haddrill said he did the same amount of hours but they were able to get more done.
But efficiency comes at a cost and he struggles to get his head around the modern economic side of farming.
“Our biggest thing is cost,” Mr Haddrill said.
“It’s the biggest risk we take now.
“In my day you didn’t buy anything until you had the money in the bank, which wouldn’t work now because I don’t think many people have a spare million to buy machinery.
“These days you take a risk and to get ahead you need to take that risk.”
Mr Haddrill said he also struggled with the cost of chemicals and machinery.
Anthony also agreed that times had changed.
“We are starting to see a lot of autonomous research and developments out there,” Anthony said.
“I won’t see an automatic tractor racing around this farm in my time but I am certain that my kids probably won’t have to drive a tractor.”
However Anthony said he was glad that technology allowed his dad to work on the farm longer.
“It will still be another 10 years until my son James, now six, is old enough to drive headers or tractors,” he said.
“So it’s good that dad can still be here until then.”
James is already keen on farming, telling his parents he wants to attend the WA College of Agriculture, Cunderdin, when he is old enough.
His younger sisters Maddison, 8 and Zoe, 4, are more than welcome to help with farming, but Maddison has taken a strong interest in sports and Zoe is still in love with putting make-up on Poppy Pete’s face.
There also may be another farmer in the mix with Anthony’s wife Georgia expecting her fourth and final child, a little boy, in the next month.
But for now the Haddrills continue to farm 2600 hectares, with 1800ha owned and 800ha leased, with the help of Peter’s brother Don.
Together they run 1200 Merino ewes and a few crossbred Suffolk lambs, with 1500 sheep in total.
Mr Haddrill said some years they cropped more than others, depending on the sheep rotation but it was usually about 1200ha of cropping a year.
Anthony said they would love to expand their farm but unfortunately land around Northam was tightly held and big dollars to buy.
Their usual crop rotation includes wheat, barley, lupins and oats for hay.
Last season they grew 40ha of canola for the first time in their farm history and Mr Haddrill was impressed with the overall result.
“I was dead set against growing canola but it come off at about 1.8 tonnes a hectare and the oil content was about 50 per cent so I’m not going to complain,” he said.
“It was a learning curve last year but it was something we wanted to try.
“It’s in this year’s plan, so it was successful enough for us to warrant it for another year.”
Another first for the farm last season was sowing 75 per cent of their program dry.
“We didn’t know if we were doing the right thing, like everybody else, but it turned out to be the right thing,” Mr Haddrill said.
“When we got the rain at the end of May, every single seed germinated evenly.”
Mr Haddrill said they would never have dreamed of dry seeding 30 years ago because they didn’t have the equipment to get it in the ground.
“Before you couldn’t get the machines in, now with the modern air seeder it’s a different set up all together,” he said.
Anthony said last harvest was the most grain they had delivered to CBH in the farm’s history.
“Everything yielded very well but there was no protein,” Anthony said.
“You can’t beat the prices at the moment and the grades didn’t differ too much with $340 a tonne for wheat, $400/t for oats and even barley was great with an $50 difference in the past 12 months.”
This year the enterprise is hoping for another successful season like last, with excellent yields and better than average grain prices.
“We are normally away this time of year but Georgia has to be close to Perth at the moment because we have four weeks until she is due,” Anthony said.
“It means I can get a bit of maintenance done and get everything ready for 2019.”
The job list includes picking up pellets and fertilisers, take the pump off the sprayer, soil testing, bank reviews and meetings with agronomists.
In the past they used to spread their own lime sand but have resorted to contract spreading 350 tonnes due to simplicity.
“They just do a much faster job and the sand can be a bit harsh on our spreader,” Peter said.
“We just need to get ready because it won’t be long until March is here and everyone will start burning.”
This year the Haddrills will burn their cereals but are hiring a stubble cruncher to do their 40ha of canola stubbles.
“Once March comes around we will be very busy with a new son and everything else that comes with running a farm,” Anthony said.