James McColl
This article is the first in our conversational series, where we chat to some everyday country kids, calling regional Australia home. I wanted to put together this series to showcase some of the brilliant young minds making the active decision to come home and make a real contribution to the future of regional communities. To show that it only takes a willing few to really make a difference to the prosperity of a region. James McColl was an obvious choice for our first feature. He’s a go getter, terrible overthinker and down right genuine guy.
James shares some of his home growth truths about family legacy, his time out in the big wide world and what it’s been like since he returned home four years ago. Now James spends most of his days working on the family farm with his old man Mal, while juggling work as an agronomist.
What was it like for you when you first came home? Juggling a full-time job and working on the farm?
When I first came home we were also in the middle of the drought and that was a massive transition in itself. One thing they don’t teach you at uni is how to prepare for the emotional turmoil of it all and how to deal with it. I was fresh back at home, the drought was well and truly here and we had a sorghum crop in. I spent every night over the summer staring at the radar, not getting any sleep. I remember just watching the radar relentlessly, being so consumed by the anxiety of it all. In a lot of ways that's been the biggest thing I’ve had to face, learning how to manage my own mental health. It’s still a huge challenge and something I think we need to be more considerate of when young people are coming home to the farm.
So what does the actual day to day look like for you? What does a day look like when you’re juggling agronomy and the farm?
The juggle isn't so bad now that I’ve scaled back my clients, but it was tricky there for a bit. I was spread too thin and didn't feel like I was doing enough at home or for my agronomy clients but I’ve worked out a better balance now. It seems to be working. Now that I’ve got it sorted it does really feel like I’ve got the best of both worlds. It's great.
It does depend on the time of year as well. It fluctuates a lot, generally before planting you're super busy being an agronomist. Once planting is actually underway my clients don’t need me around so I can go home and plant for myself. The year is full of cycles like that. It also helps that I’m technically our agronomist as well. Two birds, on stone there.
You went away to school and to uni, in hindsight was that the right thing for you?
When I was younger I thought I would just be a rugby superstar honestly. I literally went away to school just to play rugby, I had no big plans.
Is this where we should mention that you played for Australia?
No, please don’t, but I did really think that rugby would be a huge part of my future and that I would just come home to the farm one day, definitely not before I was thirty, and it would all just be here waiting for me. Even though I loved farming and loved being home, driving headers, chaser bins and working the farm with dad. I went to uni and wasn't really aware of what I was doing, it was only in my second or third year that I really knew I was doing it to become an agronomist and I was coming home. I definitely wasn’t one of those kids that knew from the moment they were 10 that they were destined to be on the family farm.
It is really nice that you never felt the pressure. I know so many kids that, particularly during rough years, felt this immense pressure to get home as soon as they could to help out and ease the burden on their family.
If anything Mum and Dad were pushing me away, they had lived a pretty hard life and a very stressful life. I never felt compelled to come home, it wasn’t until 2018, when I saw the impact the drought was having on my parents that I wanted to stay for them. If there was ever a time to come home and to really earn your spot it was those years, battling one of the most severe droughts we’d ever experienced.
Your family has been on this place since 1922. That's very impressive and such a cool thing to think about. Do you think about the legacy of it all?
When I think about it, it’s just a love for this place and the desire to keep it going. Mum and Dad always made it really clear that I could do whatever I wanted but this dirt is my home. I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d want to end up. 100 years of it being in the McColl name makes it hard to not to feel a strong connection to this place. It's pretty cool, I’m walking on the same earth that my great grandfather did.
It's also been invigorating for dad as well, knowing that I wanted to be here and that I was willing to fight just as hard as he had to keep the place, that I wanted it just as bad. It's been so good, Dad and I have been working together more and more over the last few years. It's only been a short period and I’ve also been working elsewhere but in dad's eyes I feel like I’ve pretty quickly shifted from the fresh kid that doesn’t know anything to being given a real seat at the table. Now Dad and I are making a lot of the big decisions together. There is still so much I don’t know and there is so much I have left to learn.
Do you think that your parents hold a bit more respect for you and do your opinions because you’ve worked outside the family business as an agronomist?
I think so, it gives you more merit. You see a lot more and gain some perspective about how others are farming. If I’d just come home I don’t think I’d be at the stage in the business as I am now, I wouldn't have the same decision making power. I think people don’t realise how often kids go straight home to the farm but aren’t treated any differently to a farmhand. They're not offered any decision making power or are privy to the actual business side of things for a long time which makes it hard to learn. I’ve been lucky that my parents have placed a lot of trust in me and they are sharing a lot of their knowledge. But if I had to take over now I would have a very hard time. I need them to stick around for a little while yet!
Do you feel like there is a tension between you and your old man sometimes? Do you have to fight hard to try new ways of doing things, of implementing more progressive ways of practice?
Yes, but as time goes on he is trusting me enough to let me run with it, in the paddock anyway. When I first came home he wouldn't have a bar of it, I remember throwing around some ideas and it was just laughed at but I’ve kind of earned my stripes and proven myself. There are still some setbacks for sure. We’ve got some soil at the moment that's not performing the way that we want it to be and I’ve thrown some ideas around. They didn’t land well but in a year I bet it will be dad's idea! But for the most part we work together well and there is always the barrier of cost. Bigger and better things are never cheap. It's all well and good for someone to come in and tell you how much money their new technology is going to make you but at the end of the day if you don’t actually have the cash to invest in that then you just can’t do it.
Do you think that your agronomy puts you in good stead for the rest of your farming life?
It’s just something I know I’ll always be able to fall back on, and for now it's one less financial strain on the farm because I can pay my own way from my agronomy work.
You’re really good at getting off the farm and taking a break. Do you think it keeps you sane? I know a lot of people do get really stuck on the farm. For whatever reason they feel like they have to be there.
Obviously there are weeks when you just can’t leave because it's so busy, but I try to get away as often as I can and it’s a lot of the reason why I still play rugby. So I have an excuse to get off the farm during the week and travel on the weekends. When we were in the midst of the drought, I really quickly became consumed by the stress of farming, you just never got a break. So I learnt that I needed to force myself to have those breaks, I had to start taking trips and playing rugby. Trying to make new friends. And this year I’ve moved off the farm into my own place in Goondiwindi for that exact reason, just to get that break from the farm.
To circle back to your comments about struggling to manage your mental health and the impact the stress of farming can have. Do you think that is one thing that you’ve done that has been good for your mental health? To get away and to create that space between you and the farm?
100%. You have to take any opportunity you can to go and do something a bit different. I always try to make that effort. If I get invited to something or if something is on, even if I have to drive 500kms to get there, even if the event is terrible you might meet someone new or it might just give you something else to think about for 1000kms. You have to have a crack.
What’s it like farming in North Star, an area with a stellar reputation for great farming country?
No matter how great your country is you still need to know how to look after it. Our country is also so diverse, we’ve got some of the district's worst dirt and best dirt in the same paddocks. So I hope I can put some of the progressive things I’ve seen and learnt, working as an agronomist, into practice and we can support that soil to perform better. Really optimising what we have moving forward.
Continuing to learn is arguably the most important thing any of us can be doing. What do you do to keep learning?
Just listen. I’m pretty lucky that I get to learn so much from Mal. He’s been farming this country on his own for just shy of 40 years. I have so much to learn from him and all of the things that contribute to his decision making. He’s explaining constantly the history of the land, why somewhere will or won’t be performing well. It's so important to look back and observe just as much as it is to look forward. There is a lot for me to learn from my agronomy clients as well, all of their experiences help us to make better decisions in the paddock everyday. I’ve got three very skilled agronomists that I work under at Total Ag and I’m very grateful to be able to learn from them as well. I’ve got good people around me that are willing to share their knowledge, it’s invaluable.
Do you think about the changing climate and what it potentially means for the future of farming?
Dad and I sit in the shed and talk about this almost every afternoon. Even at 65, Mal has come around, knowing that the climate is changing so we’ve got to adapt. We are seeing it in the paddock and that doesn’t lie. The last three years have been the driest we’ve ever tried to farm so we’ve been working to make our operation work with minimum moisture to grow decent crops in the dry years. So we’re constantly thinking about it. There's going to be variety changes, planting timeline changes. Even though this year is now one of the wettest we’ve ever seen, I think overall the norm in the country is going to be bloody dry. So we’re going to have to make farming work, or none of us get to eat.
It makes it bloody hard when what is emerging as the new norm is also about severity, you're facing extremely dry years backed up by extremely wet years.
Absolutely right, we've gone that hard in the last few years trying to make dry work and the next minute is wet as buggery. We've had this incredibly wet year but it hasn’t translated into the best yield, things were drowning and we couldn’t get it out of the paddock. The severity is definitely here to stay. The key will really be who can figure out how to be the most adaptable. I think about it all the time, how do you make hay when the sunshines per say and that comes back to us getting better and better at conserving and storing that moisture in the wet years. Machinery and farming practices play a big part in this. We’re completely changing the way we’re treating each paddock.
To that point, do you think that broad acre farming can actually be farmed in a regenerative way? A lot of people would argue that you can’t.
Everyone's interpretation of what regenerative farming really is differs but at the end of the day, doing everything we can to promote soil health is what it’s about. Australian farmers really are on the front foot. We make the climate we have work, before the onset of climate change the Australian climate was already quite severe. You are talking to an agronomist so you won’t see me going chemical free anytime soon but with good soil conservation practices, diverse crop rotations etc. we can go a long way to maintaining a healthy ecosystem that promotes soil health and productivity. Having said that, I do have some clients that farm organically and there are aspects of that that I’ve learned to incorporate into more traditional farming methods to support healthier ecosystems.
What do you think the next five years have in store for you?
I’m hoping we have a few good years and the pressure comes off everyone a bit. I hope there is some way I can take over some of the burden Mum and Dad have carried for so long.
If you’re interested in seeing more of our work - we hope you’ll consider subscribing to our physical paper here.
All images used here are by the incredible Heidi Morris
