My perfect farm

Now I've seen a fair few sheep and beef cattle on my way around SE Australia, so it didn't surprise me to see a field of Merino sheep as I drove around Tintinara. Not least because South Australia is quoted to be the driest state in the driest continent.

What I hadn't prepared myself for were 12 grower units housing over 1,000 pigs (from weaner to porker).

It's just not bovine or ovine. Makes a nice change though and good to see someone developing their farm in the piggie direction.

One key difference about Tintinara and many other places I've seen in SE Australia is the soil type.

He and his brother Alistair grow lucerne for seed, wheat and oilseed rape as well as running the ubiquitous flock of sheep (1,000), a herd of 300 Angus suckler cows and 1,800 breeding sows across 2 farms. That's all then!

Andrew's farm has a fair amount of limestone around - a la Cotswold brash soils, but with a MASSIVE cambridge roll (4' diameter) to break the rocks down to cotswold size!

Alistair's into his machinery and the Honda CRF450 was spied by our intrepid reporter in the repair shed. Bike storied were regaled and male bonding done while glugging a beer and chewing the fat over the back of the 'ute'.

What a cracking start to the weekend.

Plane flight tomorrow around the area with Andrew and then off to Kangaroo Island. It's a hard life!!

The serious bit if all this is that Andrew represents many Australian pig producers by sitting on the board of Australian Pork. Within Australian, pork and chicken are seen as poor cousins compared to beef and lamb. The main reason for this is the scale of operation and the fact that Australia is a net exporter of beef and lamb, but a net importer of pork. 

So who's got greater potential for expansion to fill the market demand? Arguably the pork producers I'd say. Now who's the poor cousin eh!?

As ever collaboration is not easy to achieve even within the sector, especially in a country where transporting animals for 4 hours or more is the norm in many cases and diesel is priced around £1 per litre.

Andrew is passionate about his farm, enterprises and making the most of every square metre of ground. Attention to detail comes as standard and I'm sure he's a massive force for good on the board of Australian Pork, let alone his commitment to Nuffield (he's on that board too!).

Wonder what he does at weekends?

Alistair took part in the Australian bike race called the Finke Desert Race. I'm told he completed the 240km race in 2 and a half hours - makes me sweat just thinking about it.