Outside the town of Mitchell in south-west Queensland, Nigel and his family farm 15,000 hectares of which around 3000 hectares is currently growing organic wheat and barley in winter, then sorghum in summer.
He’s a third-generation farmer and still farms the land his grandfather took up in 1914. Alongside his wife Rosemary and their three adult children, Felicity, Charlie, and Lockie, they manage several farms at Mitchell and more land about 400km south at Cunnamulla.
About 4 years ago, they made the decision to start growing organically for several reasons. Initially they began planting wheat and barley on country where the Brigalow and Belah scrub ensured nitrogen-rich soil, and the fact that no artificial fertiliser or chemicals had ever been used on the area made it ideal for converting to organic cropping.
There was also the recognition that, as Nigel puts it, “agronomists are in the business of selling chemicals” and he wasn’t keen on the dependency created through use of all the synthetic inputs farmers are encouraged to rely on.
Instead, their crop management practices use another important part of their farming business – their merino sheep. Nigel’s father began breeding merino rams in 1956 and the family continues to focus on quality wool sheep, winning “Ram of the Year” and “Ewe of the Year” at the 2025 Qld State Sheep Show in Roma.
They use both sheep and herds of goats to intensively graze the fallow paddocks. While the animals munch on the weeds, chewing them down to the root, their cloven hooves break up the hardened surface of the soil aerating it naturally and minimising the need for soil treatment or ploughing prior to planting. In between the wheat and barley, cover crops of cow peas and mung are used for nitrogen-enrichment, when conventional farmers would be using synthetic fertilisers.
Each year they aim to turn over more country for organic usage. Like many farming families they’re thinking of the future viability of the farm. They know this depends on the health of their soils. With a family farming tradition stretching back more than a century, they see organic farming practices are vital for building a sustainable future.
