THE difficulties of succession are highlighted within every farming operation when eventually the time comes for the baton to be passed from one generation to the next.
No farmer easily gives up the land that has absorbed their blood, sweat and tears, and some farmers continue to show up, season after season, long after their children have taken over the brunt of the operation.
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The bittersweet transition is emerging for Holly and Tom Godfrey, farmers from Cunderdin, who are slowly but surely taking over the farming enterprise at Godfrey Farms.
As with all good farmers, Holly and Tom's dad, David Godfrey was a "little reluctant" to let the kids control the farm - but each season is slowly letting them do more.
This coming season, the parents are planning to be away on a sailing trip for seeding, giving the siblings a chance to experience farming completely on their own.
The Godfrey siblings are excited to take the farm in their stride, although slightly hesitant about all the bookwork and accounting programs they will have to learn, which is mostly run by their mum.
"I suppose we're kind of getting thrown in the deep end, whereas mum and dad were brought up with everything," Ms Godfrey said.
The pair only recently returned to the farm, with Ms Godfrey exploring all that farms in England had to offer on a whirlwind European holiday, while Mr Godfrey undertook a apprenticeship.
Ms Godfrey admitted that perhaps they should have started learning "a long time ago" to make the transition easier, but agriculture was constantly evolving each season with new technologies.
"It's a lot of things that you have to learn, from selling to buying," she said.
"There's a lot more programs out there now, it's a bit harder for us - whereas when mum and dad started it was very basic - they probably had one program that they used for everything.
"And then they had their accountants just do most of it."
The Godfreys were looking forward to experimenting more with their enterprise, and have recently taken an agronomist onboard to advise with their future farming plans.
Mr Godfrey said it was easy for older farmers to get "stuck" with the chemicals they have always used, instead of experimenting with the newest innovations entering the market.
"Some of the chemicals we use came out 10 years ago, and we're sort of stuck there," he said.
With a new lease north of the farm that's a little bit run down, the siblings have found working with an agronomist extremely helpful for advice and keeping up-to-date with farming ideas.
They have just started using the Agworld program to manage their growing enterprise, which they hope continues to expand in the coming years.
Cunderdin is an extremely tightly-held area, with most properties being sold farmer to farmer in private deals, making it difficult for smaller farmers like the Godfreys to make their mark.
They are a part of the rare few farms in the region that are still small and family-run, with prices for properties that do enter the market being extremely high on the back of two amazing seasons.
"The price of land around here is ridiculous now - every time a farm goes up for sale, it's double the price," Ms Godfrey said.
"You have to buy a significant amount of land for it to be profitable, for what you're paying for it."
This year was a great season for the Godfrey family, with the weather kicking in at the perfect time.
"It was a dry start, that was a bit scary," Mr Godfrey said.
"We put a lot of our crop in dry, and we began breaking tynes, so then we had to pull out and farm the heavier stuff.
"But after that, it was pretty much perfect."
With some finishing rains and minimal breakdowns, the harvest ran smoothly with a "really good crop" waiting at the end.
Ms Godfrey said they generally went pretty average on canola, but this year was "a bit more exceptional," producing 1.7 tonnes per hectare over an increased 700ha paddock.
They produced 3.4t/ha of wheat, 3.6t/ha of barley and 1.5t/ha of lupins across their 3800ha farm.
"Everyone around this area had a really good year once again - so it's the second year in a row that has been pretty exceptional," Ms Godfrey said.
They were hoping for a hat-trick this coming season, after already receiving some promising rains early on in the year already.
After some trepidations about the CBH storage space in Cunderdin, the Godfrey's only sent limited grain to Northam, which they said was lucky - given they are so close to the Cunderdin receival site.
Mr Godfrey carts the grain from the Godfrey Farms to CBH to increase the flexibility they have onfarm, and to reduce wait times for trucking contractors.
He knew of farmers who had to wait for trucks that often serviced the bigger farms first.
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At the beginning of harvest, Ms Godfrey was concerned there was a lot of grain leftover from previous harvests in the CBH system and farmers from outside of Cunderdin started delivering there.
"Everything started funnelling down this way, a lot of trucks from out of Cunderdin were trucking into Cunderdin," she said.
"There was a bit of a race to try and get all your wheat in, so that was stressful."
However, Mr Godfrey said the only stressful part of the whole harvest for him was the grain marketing, as they wanted to sell to CBH for the higher prices.
Mr Godfrey would stop at 12.15pm everyday with his dad and log onto CBH grain marketing for half an hour, but according to Mr Godfrey "if you're not in within the first minute" there was next-to-no chance of getting a slot.
"Apparently, there's grain marketers that have programs on their computers that are set up for as soon as it comes online to get an allocation," he said.
"So it's hard to compete against that."
