JOHN Sanderson's plans to farm on his family's property at Grass Patch, were sped up by about 10 years when he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in his twenties.
Mr Sanderson was born in 1990 - the same year his parents started leasing a farm at Grass Patch, which they now own.
With the farm not making much money in the 1990s and early 2000s, Mr Sanderson's father Dan also worked as a heavy diesel mechanic, keeping maintenance contracts in the Goldfields.
"He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him I badly wanted to be a farmer and he said if you want to be a farmer you have to go and get something else - a trade or whatever before you come home," Mr Sanderson said.
As a result, Mr Sanderson decided to follow in his father's footsteps and travelled to the Goldfields at the tender age of 15 to live with his uncle and start an apprenticeship as a heavy duty mechanic.
In the fourth year of his apprenticeship the global financial crisis hit and Mr Sanderson's company asked him to fill a temporary position at its branch in Port Hedland.
"Within three months I was the field service mechanic for Truck Centre WA in the Pilbara and within six months I had finished my trade," Mr Sanderson said.
"It was one of the most enjoyable years of my life, a huge challenge and I thrived on it."
However while living in Port Hedland and at just 20-years-old, Mr Sanderson's health took a turn for the worst.
"I loved it up there but my body couldn't handle the conditions and I got really sick, so I did one year and then came home," Mr Sanderson said.
After helping Dan put the farm's crop in in 2010, Mr Sanderson worked in the underground mining equipment industry for about a year.
But by the end of 2011 with his health continuing to rapidly deteriorate, Mr Sanderson was struggling to keep regular work hours, so he decided to head home for harvest with the intention to head back to the Goldfields afterwards.
"I was really sick and was struggling to hold down a job so I came home to the farm and the business wasn't really big enough to support a full-time worker at that stage, but mum and dad paid me what they could, which was very generous of them and I helped out the old man where I could," Mr Sanderson said.
Diagnosed with a form of Crohn's disease where the immune system continually attacks the digestive system, in February 2011 Mr Sanderson weighed 85 kilograms and by May that year he had lost a staggering 25kg.
Mr Sanderson said the support of his family and then girlfriend, Desiree, now his wife, was what kept him going.
"Desiree and I had only been together a couple of months when I got sick - I went from a strong young bloke earning plenty of money and liked having a good time, to becoming a skeleton struggling along day-to-day," Mr Sanderson said.
"She didn't have to stick by me, but she did, unwaveringly, the whole time.
"Even now the cooking and preparation she does for me and the allowances she makes are huge."
Mr Sanderson said his parents were also a rock for him through the difficult times he experienced.
"At the time they couldn't really afford a full-time worker but they put me on, even though I was only about 40 per cent productive," Mr Sanderson said.
Even though he was often too sick to do the physical work, Mr Sanderson's father brought him into the business, allowing him to help with decision making and farm management.
Fairly close to living a normal life by 2015, Mr Sanderson said a strict diet and some "questionable therapies" have, to his surprise, helped him manage his illness.
Despite his plans to return to the farm having to be brought forward, Mr Sanderson is grateful for the time he spent away from the family business and said there was much to be gained by departing from that which you know.
"I think it's really important for future farmers to go and work for someone else other than their parents," Mr Sanderson said.
"To learn what it's like to work for, and with, good and bad people - it doesn't matter what it is you do, even working on another farm, there are always experiences to be gained by working in other businesses."
After looking at farm management programs for their operation, Mr Sanderson discovered a passion for data collection and utilisation.
As a result he recently founded Esperance Zone Innovation (EZI), a grower group focused on the ag tech and data space, with fellow Esperance grower Belinda Lay.
Mr Sanderson said by collecting decades of historical data into one database farmers would be able to make sure they get the right information to back up important decisions for their businesses, such as their crop rotations.
"We think we've found a gap in how to handle, collect and aggregate data and that's what prompted us to start the group," Mr Sanderson said.
"We would like to put the data that we've already collected, for example from our weather stations, our soil probes and our farm machinery, into one spot so that as we add more information from other various pieces of tech, farming businesses can just seamlessly bring that into the database."
Having participated in the 2018 Rabobank Farm Managers program, being a member of SEPWA and Asheep in the Esperance port zone and now participating in the Grain Growers Leadership Program, Mr Sanderson said he hoped to become even more involved in the ag tech and data space.
"I'd like to get to a point in the next 10 years where I can step back from the day-to-day running of the farm and take on more of a management role," he said.
"Obviously my health issues are not good for longevity so the sooner I can take it easier on my body the better.
"I'll never leave farming but I'd like to become more involved in data collection and utilisation."
Expanding their farming operations last year, the Sandersons purchased a farm 200 kilometres away so that they now crop 6000 hectares all up, including a share farming property.
The family's cropping rotations are made up of wheat and barley with break crops of field peas and canola and more recently trialling faba beans, lupin and chickpeas.
Now focused on consolidating their position and tidying up their new farm, Mr Sanderson said it was the first time since his parents started farming in the early 1990s that they had enough land to farm comfortably.
"Providing my parents with the retirement they deserve is pretty important for us," he said.
"I doubt that dad will ever truly retire, but they have built the foundation that we used to take it to the next level and they deserve to reap the benefits of their hard work."
With one little girl and a son on the way, Mr Sanderson said he and Desiree were slowly taking on the running of the business.
"Ultimately, I'd like to be able to offer the opportunity to my children to continue on the journey if that's what they wish to do," he said.
