Oli Le Lievre  00:04

G'Day. I'm Oli Le Lievre, and welcome to GRDC In Conversation as we've traveled across Australia, sharing these different stories of people involved in the Aussie grain sector, we'd like to acknowledge the traditional lands on which the podcast is produced and recorded. We pay our respects to First Nations Australians, and use the art of storytelling to help us understand the stories of different people involved in the grain sector, sharing wisdom and understanding that they're going to shape our future. This series is a GRDC investment that takes you behind the scenes with the people shaping our grain sector, uncovering their stories, learning more about their passions and highlighting the projects that are part of their everyday our journey continues in Western Australia to meet some of the Southern Communities, the innovation through growers, advisors and people that are shaping the area in South West WA. So welcome to the conversation.

Oli Le Lievre  00:56

I'm absolutely loving this series across southern Western Australia, not only am I able to go for a bit of a swim in the ocean in the most blue of blue waters, but I'm also able to sit down with just extraordinary people, and we're continuing that with this episode sitting down with Neil Wandell. Neil's story goes from farming in South Australia and making the decision to head across to Esperance. Ultimately, it's allowed them to grow their business at scale and also diversify into different areas. I sat down with him at their grain handling facility, which continues to go from strength to strength with multiple kids. He's been able to create different opportunities and pass on different areas of the businesses to them, and we chat about what the future might look like. He is 70 something, but he is definitely not slowing down. And it's this passion and energy which I just absolutely love through this conversation, and can't wait for you to hear it.

Oli Le Lievre  01:55

And yeah, I guess just for like a bit of context, you're able to just tell us a little bit about the site that you've got here, and what you guys are doing here.

Neil Wandel  02:03

We we had two farms when we were expanding all the time, and they were 60 kilometers apart, one north and one North Western Esperance. And then we were having trouble with moisture and cleaning. And we started, you know, if we going to do something, we need to invest in town. We're planning on drying, not told me we've grown between farms. It's too expensive. So initially we leased the shed at the port, if you were quiet, and used that for a couple of years. And then we bought the shed across the road here in 97 and we're just using the shed and with small dyes and cleaners. And then we had a really wet year and lost a lot of money with quality and stuff. We took the boys to Queensland, they were very old, and looked at some facilities up there. There was none in Espen, Western Australian look at sort of three, 4000 tons. And met Bob Denny at Denny silos, and then decided to put up seven silos. And we just kept growing now, and we've got 36 silos now. And the business we virtually clean and dry grain. Market grain sell anything, you know, seconds, wheat, anything, but my main part of business is by cleaning and drying and grain. The million ton gets delivered across the road to CBH every year. So if three or 4% of that gets rejected for various reasons, they bring drugs here, we clean up, dry it, and re deliver it back to CBH.

Oli Le Lievre  03:27

Gotcha So, mate, yeah, it really is complimentary.

Neil Wandel  03:30

Complimentary. And then three years ago, we started exporting cultures, because I've always been very keen on the pulse industry and in containers. So that's been really good.

Oli Le Lievre  03:41

Unreal. So if I'm right, you, you grew up in South Australia, didn't you? Yeah, I grew up in the mid north. And you had, what, only a few 100 acres, yeah?

Oli Le Lievre  03:50

And just, literally, just hard work to get through. Did you Did you see a future for yourself at the farm?

Neil Wandel  03:50

Dad had about my father had, I think, probably, and couple 1000 acres we ended up with. But then there's my brother come I come home and left school. When I was 14, my dad pulled me out of school. I had to do six months correspondent because I wasn't old enough to leave school, and worked on the farm. Then my other brother come home, where it's two years later, and then dad said that I'm haven't got enough work for you. So I started sharing. I started shooting when I was 16. Why did he pull you out of school? Well, then regret, oh, I had been struggling in school. He sort of needed me home, and my father didn't believe in education, yeah, and he did, you only did the year, and that, you know, that's one regret I should have. Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't done. I used to struggle at argumental College in Adelaide boarding school. You know, I used to struggle with English and language, but we're going top of the maths class, or at least Elizabeth girl used to be neck and neck with her. But anyhow, that's part of it. And then, then, from 16, I and then eventually I'm always 28 I used to sheer eight months a year to be home for setting harvest, have some time off in January.

Neil Wandel  04:39

Well, I did. My dad was my father was pretty good, really. He transferred. He's almost sure, when he went into the farm, even after I got married, really, yeah, and my wife, the teacher, you know, and that now, when you look back at now, you wonder, but my dad had transferred a bit of land to me...

Oli Le Lievre  05:29

In exchange for?

Neil Wandel  05:30

Exchange, and, yeah, which was pretty good about. And then my younger brother came home, and he went, did year 12, and went and did some other things, and decided to come home. We sort of didn't. I didn't get on with him that well, we did all right. We did all right. Now, long story short, but my brother and then we certainly looked at myself. My brother came for a holiday across here, and then he was so excited about buying a farm or moving to the west, but then his wife wouldn't move. And I said to my wife, well, why don't we go? So we sold to the youngest brother over there. And then came across in 1979.

Oli Le Lievre  06:09

And what did Esperance as a town look like back then?

Neil Wandel  06:12

Oh, with town was about half the size of it is today. But you know, people, we still had a lot of friends, still living in sheds. The estimates really took off in the 60s, mid 60s, when Chase Flat Hatton bank and all the country got cleared on the sand plane. You know, we're in 79 so we're sort of right at the end of that. We've never pulled any Bush down. But we the place we bought, we bought 2300 acres and a quarter that we still just being blade clout, and we cleaned up some stumps. So yeah, and my wife was pregnant with a second child, and she cried because we saw in September and the clover was everywhere, and where we come in February, it was all stumps and rough. And yeah, wasn't what we expected. Well, wasn't what she expected. But anyhow, I said to her, then that's all the land we'll ever need. We'll set the whole family up on this 3000 acres. So we had 500 in South Australia, and we had 50 per cent equity that we had. Wow, good. Walk in, walk out. Glenda finance, the banks would never make money.

Oli Le Lievre  07:17

And was it sheep then that you're going?

Neil Wandel  07:19

Yeah, a lot of sheep. Esperance at that stage, had 4 million sheep out of cropping. And, you know, we, we started cropping a little bit different initially.

Oli Le Lievre  07:32

And what was that transition of that business like for over the over the years? How did it evolve? Yeah, on the farm, from sheep right through to, I guess cropping.

Neil Wandel  07:42

Yeah, we the first, the hardest land to buy was the first block we ever bought because, you know, we only had two and a half 1000 acres, and over here, they're all 3000 acres sections, virtually. But we managed to buy 1000 acres. The bloke was able to subdivide off. So it's a... that's how we got started. But, and we were sort of running sheep. We started share farming, leasington country. And we got up to, I think we were sharing 500 barrels of wool for your time. 30, 40,000 sheep, and cropping four or 5000 acres. And then in 88-99 when the wall crashed, you know, things and sheep weren't worth nothing. And I decided with my wife that, wool wasn't going to became good for 10 years, and we shot 4000 sheep, buried him straight off. I should have shot more when I shot 4000 and buried him and sold our sheep country and went to Ridley and started buying country and went farming, started growing more cereal.

Oli Le Lievre 08:45

What was that like to obviously, have such a huge portion of your income worth nothing to after yet?

Neil Wandel  08:52

Oh, that was really tough. Yeah, we're really we're we'd made one good decision the year before. If not that, we probably would have gone broke.

Oli Le Lievre  09:00

And what was that decision?

Neil Wandel  09:01

We were with the common development bank, and we had to pay a fixed payment over 15 years. You know, it's interest and stuff all calculated so much a year. And we went to and we had one big wool check before the price crashed, and we wanted to pay some debt off. And that's an I can't pay any debt off to you to survive these amortized loans, but you can pay one year's payment in advance, and we paid two payments that year, and next year, interest rates were 22% next year, I don't think we were able to make the payment. And there was friends and people going broke and getting sold up. So, you know, and we, we raised, you know, lucky. I had nutrient landmarks supported me really well. I was feeding feedlot in cattle and turning over a bit of money and stuff and working pretty hard. So they got us through three or four years from there. And then we kept buying farms, kept bought a lot of that land in my 90s?

Oli Le Lievre  10:00

Were you, um, like, going back to that schooling piece, so having left school early, did you end up finding yourself different mentors and advisers and people you're able to surround yourself with, or was it a lot of just decision making as you're going and just bit of blind hope at times?

Neil Wandel  10:16

We had some, some good neighbors and good good friends, and you know, my father had taught me ability to work. And, you know, with our share farming and leasing, we used to look after our country the same as we'd look after our own. You know, we had so much stuff offered to us, we sort of flat out all the time. But, you know, with a gut feeling, I I'd never done any computers. My neighbor gave me an old computer, and I learned agri master. I actually used to have the keys paid up. I could pull the keyboard apart and then re solder another key and do it work, unless other one working and sort of talk myself on that other you know, they've always been pretty strong on that budgeting and finance.

Oli Le Lievre  11:03

And that was, that was really where the the core of the decision making came down?

Neil Wandel  11:07

Yeah, makes sense, yeah. And I must admit, I probably learned a bit of a the secret is to be a head of the pack, you know, to have enough gumption to move a year before anybody else moves. And, you know, few things. We've made a few good decisions that way.

Oli Le Lievre  11:23

I'm really interested. How do you how do you get ahead? Like, is it, are you seeing things that other people aren't seeing? Or is it just you've got more you had more courage than the others, and everyone else was talking as opposed to doing?

Neil Wandel    11:35

You know, you never you know. If you're going to buy another farm. You can't go and talk to all your neighbors and say, I'm thinking of buying it, because then they'll slip in and buy it. So normally, we buy by land, we just put an option sub bit for that. Get it tied up, and you've got an option if you if you can't get the finance to get out of it. So yeah, I'm not sure. Since in the last what have we been here 45 years? Probably bought 12 farms, 13 farms.

Oli Le Lievre  12:10

And so did you find that there were things that you were quite open with in terms of sharing and bouncing ideas off that, like when it came to the opportunities?

Neil Wandel    12:17

Yeah, we always, you know, Esperance has been a really great district for you know, it's not that traditional people always think outside the square and, you know, you do something a bit different. They they won't criticize you, but they'll learn and see if it works or it doesn't work. So, you know, and that's been a really exciting district like that, not like at a real, traditional district. I think the most successful thing we've done that farm family business is I got on the board of CBH. I got the board at CBH for 12 years, and as soon as I got on the board, I saw the beauty about structure and strategy and that type of thing. So I set up a family board when the kids were and the two sons were, one was 21 was 19, and the other one was only 21 I think, like quite early with independent chairman. And we ran that for about 10 years, and it was quite structured, independent chairman.

Oli Le Lievre  13:19

Yeah, right.

Neil Wandel  13:20

And, and that really saved the family succession planning. And when we decided to split partnership, you know, my son would get on, but they weren't going to work together for long, since they started having their own kids. Yeah, so we decided to split the partnership, and that's been and now the families still all get on really well, brought in lawyers and all that. And, yeah, the end of the day, family's The best thing about it all, literally, yeah. So, you know. And to keep them together

Oli Le Lievre  13:46

I want to ask you, obviously. So I was talking to someone recently, and they their piece is they really work hard in and their business is really working with farmers in that five to 10 years before you're going to go through any sort of succession plan to exactly is what you're saying it, get the structure right, learn how to communicate, etc. What did it actually look like? So you your kids were young that were working on the farm, who was involved in that family board, and did you all have equal say? Or how did you actually like structure it back then?

Neil Wandel  14:21

We said that we're fortunate we had a good chairman who was working on a farm and he was quiet and astute people person. Mark and Hayley were married. Just Married. He got married when he's 20, and Hayley came out of the bank. She was a teller and the bank. And Scott's always engaged, and his partner was a school teacher, so you say. But when we sat down the table the very first board meeting that were probably half an hour in, and the Chairman said, Neil, you're saying too much. Go down the other end, and I only want you to speak when I ask you a question. And I found that quite hard, because we'd had family meetings, and I'd sat there in the table where she realized and told the kids what we're going to do, yeah. So then we had to draw, draw the good kids out, get on a few things. And he's, I remember that he said to the girl, he said, Do you have enough to live on that? So like most partnerships, you just take some drawings out. And then he said, you realize you should be drawing out for your personal living, like you're trying to work it. And then he said to the daughter, or future daughter, go and come back and present a budget. Work what things should be fair. So they came back and presented with the thing. And then my wife had never seen so much money in her life. We started valid drawing out the business. And he said, well, the business should afford to pay you reasonable wages. Yeah. And, and if, if someone wanted to buy a new plant, they could spend they were separate businesses, really, but we're all working the same machinery. If someone wanted to buy new equipment, it was over $10,000 they had to come and give a formal presentation to the board.

Oli Le Lievre  16:08

How good?

Neil Wandel  16:08

The reason, what it what was. And then, in the end, we just had people lined up, one to come and present to the board and make chemical companies we just hold every six weeks and that. And then after eight, nine years, we could see we need to split. So we decided, and we set a time, which took two years. We're fortunate. We've bought most of our land in Family Trust, so we transferred a lot of the land across to the boys, to this, to their partnerships, and we kept you gotta be careful in that you you don't give too much away too early. You need too much, you know, because I was only 60 odd there, you know, you gotta make sure that you had enough to income to divide, because there's no way, when the children have their own family, they're not going to buy me a nursing home or buy me retirement. But it's that so we try to get three farms. Yep, that that during that phase, when I tell them I bought a CBH I'll, I was buying rundown farms and doing them up.

Oli Le Lievre  16:23

And then to resell, or to then operate?

Neil Wandel  17:22

I sold one in the southern or still kept all the rest, yeah.

Oli Le Lievre  17:27

Oh, I want to ask you a few different things, but that, I guess, the humbling from the independent chair to tell you to go down the bottom, bottom end of the table, sit there and listen how powerful was that, and did it also change the way you looked like your sons in terms of when you really were sitting back listening to them present the ideas and drive the business forward?

Neil Wandel    17:49

Yeah? No, we really. I found it quite hard initially, yeah. But you know, when I look back, it was the best thing, because there, you know, you, I think one of the reasons, initially, when I did set the board up, was that a local farmer who was 42 or 44 had committed suicide because his father had never let him do anything. He couldn't write a check out, couldn't make any decisions. And I think, you know, that might have been the only reason. And I thought, well, I don't want to do that. And the children were more better educated than I was, you know, they're all, you know, they had to go, especially Mark, and they just went to farm. And it was good to see. I'm really proud of them now, how they've developed where they go, where they're home, business is.

Oli Le Lievre  18:39

So when it came to the driver because, I guess, like, what, what really interests me in the whole succession piece is it's nearly like a fear of it can be a fear of loss, like it might be of the kid who feels like they might get something without decisions, or the land or an income. Then also for you, like, I guess you were sliding your guts out since you were 14 to build this business was like, what was the driver for for you in terms of to to really see the business succeed, and what were the goals that you were kind of running with?

Neil Wandel  19:11

Yeah, I've always had a I've always had a big belief that land is a good investment, especially early days. You know, we come from South Australia. We double the price, and it still, still is. So, yeah, I must admit, most of our capital growth has been through layer. Yeah, no, we haven't. I haven't invested much in shares or anything like that. But, and all our super money is tied up in land, which is, which is where we go, you know, I think the most rewarding part about it, we went through that issue, and there was, you know, personally, probably had a bit of pain, but now to see the children, and they've all, you know, they've all got 18 year old kids now coming on, and now they're. How they're looking at their succession? Yeah, I think they've learned from what we did, and now they're starting to really look at where they're going to go. And we didn't have a daughter, we've got an older daughter. We didn't have that involved in her, but we still, we've always had an open will policy. So every third year we get all the kids together, and we put up on the board what Mary and myself are worth, yeah. And then bang if we just got killed tomorrow in a car accident. This is how it's distributed.

Oli Le Lievre  20:34

That's pretty confronting.

Neil Wandel    20:35

Yeah. And that our last time we did that, which is four years ago. We've got a younger son. He's not farming, and he said, Grant's not giving enough share. So, so we change things around it that he did a fairly equal share. So there are and that and that, and we still gonna, we still keep that going, because, you know, capital growth changes, and things keep working. The boys, they both share farmer farm that still have more name and my wifes name, and they've got a they've been share farming for 15 years. We just get a share of the crop each year, and they know that that's going to be theirs. Yeah, then we should share some plan. So we hope I dropped in, get transferred to them, and I'll probably transfer it across to them until three years time now.

Oli Le Lievre  21:25

And so out of interest. And you can tell me if we're starting to get too nosy, but so was that something that the board set up and ran with, or was that just something that you and your wife decided, let's be let's open the books and let's just give our kids the best chance that they can have. And in order to do that, we need to just create a scenario.

Neil Wandel    21:44

We had a we got a succession planner in, someone to come in and who is actually sealed in that. And he sat down initially with Mary and myself. Had a tour Chris, where we sort of think way to go. Then he had a meeting with our own siblings, our own kids. And then he had a meeting with the in laws, you know, and he he said to him, however, kids said it was afterwards, he said to him, you know, you're gonna be the bastant in my family. You're gonna wreck his family if you decide that, if you divorce or something, go here. And he was quite hard on him initially, yeah, so, but they're all, they're all involved in our meeting from we have about the will. I can book them, the in laws and everything, yes, but yeah, that's part of a lot of people really struggle with succession. And I probably we ended up with some land, and when I got off board and national quality grain, which is my wife and myself, but you know that continued to grow and expand.

Oli Le Lievre  22:53

I've got one more question on succession. Then let's talk about Esperance quality grains. But having sat on the board of CBH and other businesses. Is there a reason that you see, and maybe not even in your own business, but is there a reason? And I think of, say, like the Kennards, but Kennards hire, Kennards family have been able to continue running as a large corporation, but a family owned business. Is there a reason why it becomes really difficult in ag, to kind of keep the NC together and have people nearly in chief executive roles or management roles like that. And...

Neil Wandel  23:30

Yeah, it's quite I think it's quite hard, you know, in theory, if we would have worked together, that we would probably be more successful where we are. But everyone individual, you know, and Scott and Mark, my two sons are a bit different, not that, you know, the won't... And as soon as you start getting your own children and you start having succession, that's when it gets really hard, because every, every, everyone's different. And you know, you got some might have boys or girls who are doing a different thing. So, yeah, it's the, you know, there's not many. I've seen some in Esperance to see, probably the Fowlers probably still going. But most other ones, you know, like the Walkey brothers were really big, but they've decided to split after about 40 years and just the next generation through and when, when the grandkids start having family, and that's when it gets really quite hard.

Oli Le Lievre  24:31

Yeah, lots of cooks in the kitchen.

Neil Wandel  24:33

Yeah, and everyone's got to have some drive and want to do something for themselves, you know, Like, you know, it's a lot of satisfaction in building something for yourself.

Oli Le Lievre  24:45

Absolutely so Esperance quality grain came from you guys, as you said at the beginning, wanting to draw your own and try and value add. So how, how much has that business? Kind of. Have grown beyond what the initial thoughts were when you guys established it, or did you always think, let's scale this thing and keep growing?

Neil Wandel  25:07

It just sort of kept growing. We had seven silos when we initially planned, or we planned it for a 3000 ton facility, we should have planned for five or 6000 ton facility, because it's a lot easier if you, if you actually plan it, they're gonna just build it and have extra spouts on the elevation stuff. It's quite easy to expand. So we've had a had a few, and we're still expanding like, you know, we used to turn over. We used to turn over two or 3 million a year. I think last year we turned over 25 million.

Neil Wandel  25:18

And you know, now we got six full time employees, and we just put in building color, sort of, now that's a $1.5 million investment, and that'll pay for itself, and quite comfortable, will pay for so and we, with our export side, we're going to develop that we got a grant initially for $100,000 to help set that up that but that's been, you know, it's a tough game exporting that we decided that we had to the difference with quality. So we never export anything unless it's clean, clean at all, and we top grade and that some been, you know, we've had some customers that just get we always negotiate price, but the end of there, and with that domestic trading, the secrets don't get too greedy. We try to have a have a margin. You gotta have, got to be fair to everyone if you get too greedy, especially when you're dealing with farmers, they hear about it. They're gone next door. You just we've had some we have had some losses, but basically, we've never had any bad debts from local farmers, and suddenly, when we deal out of the district. We've had some bad debts, yeah, okay, yeah. And we've got caught with a couple of bad trades in the into Thailand, where we've gone back to under China.

Oli Le Lievre  25:18

Wow.

Oli Le Lievre  27:10

Yeah, right.

Neil Wandel  27:11

But other than that, but it's been pretty good. It's a tough game, you know, the banks, the banks, if I wanted to buy another farm and went down and say, oh, you know, probably a bit old. Now, they might think of me and want to borrow ten million to buy a farm, I'd get checked straight away. But if I want to buy borrow $5 million to buy grain so it's always, cash flow is a bit of an issue with this business.

Oli Le Lievre  27:35

And where's your where's the grain being exported to now?

Neil Wandel  27:39

China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and we were sending some lentils to Itlay and lentils to Sri Lanka.

Oli Le Lievre  27:49

Wow. And bulk of it being pulses.

Neil Wandel  27:52

Yeah, all pulses, yeah, we can't make cereals work. So, and, you know, we, we've got to had a really good customer in Vietnam the top of Vietnam, or just, just feeding fish, yeah, right. And they love them, because we size all the Flavor Beans for them. Because, you know, we went up visit them last year. We tried to catch up on all every year. But if the small ones go through the nets in the river, yep, then they soak them, and they feed the fish for them when they soak them into a half in the water, and they swell up in on faded and the fish come along and just deep the middle out, cut out and let the shells go. And it's quite amazing.

Oli Le Lievre  28:33

What is, what have you learned about, I guess, agriculture globally, and the perspectives of what's happening in those different markets, like?

Neil Wandel  28:40

Well, my time on CBH, and yeah, I pretty tough, board when I was at CBH. The best part about it was management, and I've always been enjoying the trading side. I did some courses early on in the year about kind of trading and all that so, and I've really loved that on the customers side of it. So during that time, I travel, especially when I was Chairman, I would travel every year through China, and, you know, the end of the day, it's, it's how you deal with customers, drives. And we try to do the same culture here.

Oli Le Lievre  29:16

I was gonna ask you that, like around growing a business. So from this like, what does it actually? What does it take from a from a team and from a mindset perspective, to actually grow a business, from idea $100,000 grant to being a $25 million a year business?

Neil Wandel    29:33

Yeah, well, $25 million turnover. But, yeah, I um, yeah, we have a strategy meeting here internally with my team now decide where we going to go. You were looking at another we're looking at another big expansion. My, my issue is, I've said, Well, three, you know, my wife says. Whether you stop the issue of this business we can have. Two years ago, we dropped we we did 2000 ton for the harvest, 200,000 tons. You know, normally do 100,000 ton, but if we get wet weather or dirt, where estimates is quite round for you know, the moisture might need and come below 14% for a couple of weeks, and farmers all want to get rid of it. As soon as you get a hot day, it dries down low, and then they blend it on the farm and it's gone. Yep. So yeah, we see there's a real need for having more storage that say there's a 1500 ton silo if a grower wants to fill it, and fills it once it's in our plant. So we're looking at whether it will go ahead. We're only early days. We're looking at putting in 56-46,000 ton of fixed storage. Wow. But if we go that way, we'll probably need to get investor, yep, at the moment, which is, you know, which changed the whole ballpark figure the moment my wife, myself, just own it all you know. So if I you know, so if I just take a different amount, but if the boys work out in the farms or work here, it doesn't make it as soon I go outside, invested the whole level of thing.

Oli Le Lievre  31:16

And at 73 what are some of the, I guess the pros and cons that you're running through like because you don't want to slow down or do you?

Neil Wandel    31:24

I love work. I love working. I'm not as sharp as I woke when I was 60. I know that, unfortunately, I've worked some very good people here, very good staff, finance and managers, really good. It'd be interesting to see my son in New Zealand is shown a bit of interest to coming back. He's a surveyor and an engineer, and he's helping with a new project. What do I do with this business session? But it's big enough business to run its own, like your profits about two years ago, but let's just turn over this year. It's going to be a bit tougher, because, you know, we haven't had any much cleaning of the ergot, and the snow never came out, yep. But I've known Esperance and Esperance is going to hit 4 million ton deliver soon. It's best years done. Three and a half. Everyone's getting out of stock crop them all, you know. And they're 4 million ton, you know, people are going to keep on cropping. We have plenty of work for this business. Yeah, okay, it's any change there, but, you know, I'm still reasonably fit and still working. Just make sure I have six or eight weeks with my wife, holidays every year,

Oli Le Lievre  32:44

Visiting customers.

Neil Wandel  32:46

Bit of customers but also, yeah, yeah, family. So, yeah, stuff. And, you know, and that's, I mean, it's pretty good. I don't play for sport, but I did. I enjoy work too much. And I still rock up the cattle, around 500 cows, and doing that part on the business as well.

Oli Le Lievre  33:05

Yeah, lovely keeping busy. Couple of questions, I guess, to wrap on future. Well, no, with Esperance here. What is it that like makes it such a powerhouse region for growing, growing?

Oli Le Lievre  33:17

Or was I?

Neil Wandel    33:17

Well, it's quite a diverse rainfall. You know, you're coming from the 2016 where our rainful country to to 13 or 14 inch. We were fortunate enough when we bought our first farm. We've sort of right in the middle. You know, in the 45 years I've only had three crops. I was farming below two and a half ton per week. Now that's not a bad average over 45 years, and now Mark knows, certainly he's he's on a five ton average. Wow. We've probably dropped down a fraction this year, but over his last six years, spent a five ton average on a wheat so when you take get a five ton average in your 60 kilometers from a port. You know, it's not, you know, we're compared to if you're out in the middle of New South Wales or somewhere like that. And the season has miraculously seemed to become good. You know, we've had some disasters. And worst year we had to stop raining at first of August and then spring, and then we had seven inches during the harvest.

Neil Wandel  33:22

And now we've got a dry spell, but it's just, there's some very innovative farmers like, you know, the boats are getting out there now, fixing up their worst paddocks, you know. And they're not just doing 10 hectares and standing in the corner, you know, my son's got a farm down on the coast. So it was just beach sand, yeah, you know. And he put 700 ton of clay on, actually, in barley with 7 ton. Yeah, before wouldn't have best. It would have gone with two or three. And the new generation, like the Tom, the most sort of boats, and they're pretty. Out outward thinking too. It's quite an exciting district still, because no one is tied up with too much tradition, and we're sort of isolated, and the grower groups are very strong. And, yeah, I think there's a big they need a big, big reaction COVID. I'm the first one to bring faver beans to the district. I was the first one to find the gypsum mine, because we used to have our gypsum mine, so we used fill 20, 30,000 gypsum in every year, examine a big that flat used to end. So that sounds like a lot of the heavy country around gypsum. And now everyone's liming so that there's just been and there's still opportunities. You know, I've seen young blokes get started. One of Mark's mates sort of got started. Father was a manager, and now he's turned into a very good farmer. Just got started, and there's still plenty of plenty of lease and share farm and contract work around if you want to get started. I still think there's an opportunity. Yeah, the costs worry me a bit. But my grandson, so Mark's got two boys, definitely going to be farming. The youngest one will probably end up there as well. But they're continuing to buy that. I don't really know what the family owns today, to be honest with you, probably seven or 80,000 I guess, something. Wow, family. So just bought more. Just bought two three farms each. Now going one each. But Mark's got some land out of Kojanup up that leases out this. He's got a 21 year old, an 18 year old and a six year old. Okay, it's he had a nine year break, and then went back, and it was planned. And so his succession is gonna have to so he bought some land. Always too hard to buy land investment, but he bought some land in Kojanup and just leasing to the up stage.

Oli Le Lievre  33:29

There you go. There's no shortage of things happening.

Neil Wandel  36:57

Oh no, it's good. And Scott's gotten an older son. It'd be interesting to see, but he's just better shed up from the farm, costing 2 million bucks, if you want to see it. God. Paul Crane in that workshop, it's all cemented out. Wow. I never used to buy I never used to build sheds. I used to buy a farm with sheds on them. Yes.

Oli Le Lievre  37:23

Fair enough. I know some people who still just use the big blue shed as well.

Neil Wandel  37:26

Yeah, let the larger the forge. It was very tough in the 80s.

Oli Le Lievre  37:30

So if you're looking at AG today, what makes it maybe, what are some of the things that are similar and what's different, and what's Yeah, keeping ag such a prosperous industry.

Neil Wandel  37:41

Ah, it's a bit of a concern at the moment. Not the machinery costs big, a big, enormous, really, you know, one half million dollars for a combine harvester and feeders. All that jumped up, price of grain hasn't moved up enough. You know, people only, only making margins on it's a bit of a worry. I could be a hiccup couple of bad years in a row. I think South Australia is finding it this year. He's got a hearing that there's a few families farming businesses are not going to make it. Yeah, right. You expanded the wrong time. All that timing. Um, we always had a policy, and we there's only one year we never did it, till a partnership came up. We had a policy of I don't know, 10% of our debt back every year. I haven't instilled that in my sons. I wish, yeah, but yeah, considering that, like when it was about 40, when we're on the edge of going broke from there, that's about the age of the sun now. So like, you know, they got another 20 years of active farming ahead of them before they go. It's challenging. And you know, there's some great opportunities in some other states, but there's our other opportunities around the state here that this business is a good place.

Oli Le Lievre  39:01

Absolutely by the beaches, yeah, worst places to live.

Neil Wandel  39:04

Best beaches in the world. And we get a bit of wind, yeah.

Oli Le Lievre  39:07

So I've heard, I reckon I'm going to find out about that today.

Neil Wandel  39:10

That that cools us down, so at night, usually he set the other Friday night it was hot, which is very new, and sea grief never come in. So

Oli Le Lievre  39:18

yeah, right, definitely. I get out and get get on the water early and back in.

Neil Wandel    39:24

With this grain business here. You know, my hope would be, and my son, you know, I'm going to take it on. He's got the bit of Lee. He's good with people. He's good with finance to run it. But he married a girl from saint mark here, and she's not all that keen to come to Esperance she might change her mind.

Oli Le Lievre  39:45

We'll see. Watch and see.

Neil Wandel  39:47

I keep showing him the profit. And the kids have all the other kids have said, well, if he wants to come home, they're happy enough for him to have the business.

Oli Le Lievre  39:55

Yeah. Right'o, I'll be good to have them back together.

Neil Wandel    39:57

So we'll see. Other words, I'll sell it. Yep, turns what the government does. We got the real issue with their all their supers tied up on the farm. And you know, that's the trouble of the government, that we lost capital gain. Gonna be awkward.

Oli Le Lievre  40:22

Yeah. Well, Neil, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down. It's a hell of a ride. You had it since the age of 14, now 73 and not slowing down. Still. A lot more to happen. Yeah? Yeah. Thank you for having a chat.

Oli Le Lievre  40:37

Now we hope you're loving these GRDC in conversation episodes as we continue to roll on, the conversation right around the country, we'd love for you to get in touch with anyone that you think's got a story worth sharing, interesting projects that are happening on their farm. Please reach out to the GRDC across any of your social panels. Get in touch with one of their team, because the grain sector in Australia is an absolute powerhouse. There is no shortage of people doing incredible things. So let's talk about it. See ya.