Redefining the modern farming family
“You look after the land and the land will look after you.” Tom Simson on his family farm, The Plantation, near Premer, NSW.
Words: Riley Wilson, Photography: Nat Salloum
The Simsons are a modern farming family - a relative concept for a family that’s farmed this patch of the Liverpool Plains since 1928. At Plantation, near Premer, four generations of Simsons have sowed, planted and harvested, reared calves and raised cattle, and watched the sunsets slip away from the homestead’s wraparound verandah. The land is, patriarch Ed laughs, in their blood. In return, they’ve given it their blood, sweat and tears. “The beauty of the Liverpool Plains is we can nearly grow anything, just quietly,” he says, “if we get the stuff from the sky.”
Rain didn’t come in 2016. The drought forced Ed, wife Fi, their son Tom and his wife Georgina to make difficult choices, one of which Ed reckons would’ve broken his father’s heart: to sell off their long-established Poll Hereford breeding herd and proceed with a leaner livestock enterprise. Now, the 13,000-hectare mixed-farming operation blossoms year-round, with wheat, durum, faba beans, chickpeas, sorghum, cotton and pasture-raised trading cattle. “I’m really proud of how Tom’s implemented changes,” says Georgina. “If we do get a dry spell, we’re much better set up for it.”
The main homestead at The Plantation
Sustainability is front of mind for the younger generation, as they work on environmental and educational projects – including habitat regeneration and a koala corridor, cover crops and urea-use reduction, agritourism rail tours, and cottage homestays designed to introduce non-farmers to the reality and beauty of farming. There’s a precedent at Plantation, with trials and research hosted here since the 1960s.
“That’s part of the whole thing, really – to keep it going for the next [generation],” Ed says. “I believe, and Tom does too, and my grandfather and father believed, you have to make the best of the land you have, to treat it the best you possibly can. You look after the land and the land will look after you.”
Refurbishment of the worker’s cottages should be complete by September 2024. Georgina’s excited to kickstart difficult conversations with visitors. “Unless farmers start sharing what they do, people are going to keep having conversations on the farmers’ behalf,” she says. “Farming in Australia is very innovative; that needs to be talked about and celebrated more.”
This farm’s future is rooted in its past, focused as it has always been on land health, agricultural sustainability and family. That’s a tradition worth holding on to.
