'They keep the dream alive': The business helping farmers when they need it most

When Judy Hocking stumbled across an article about “Tinder for Farming”, she had never even heard of the popular dating site. However, she quickly realised that she might have found the lifeline that her family urgently needed.

Judy and her husband Charlie run a 1500-hectare farm north of Bendigo. Judy has lived on the farm for 54 years and Charlie is a fourth-generation farmer. As their three adult children will not be taking over the farm, the couple have been keenly aware that a succession plan was necessary.

When the farm employee that they had in mind for the role opted to take a job elsewhere, they were left feeling desperate. “For the first time ever, my husband said, ‘We may as well sell the place’. We really didn’t want to do that because he still wants to keep farming, but we’re both in our mid-seventies,” Hocking says.

The article she spotted was about Cultivate Farms, a social enterprise that aims to rejuvenate regional Australia by making farming an attractive and viable career option again. Run by co-founders Sam Marwood and Tegan and Tim Hicks, Cultivate Farms acts as a matchmaker between aspiring farmers and retiring farmers or interested investors.

The Hockings’ farm was profiled on the social enterprise’s website and the promotion was spotted by Jeremy Collins, a farmer the couple had worked with previously. “We’d known and respected this guy for a long time. He’s a young chap and an honest hardworking man,” Hocking says.

Despite having worked as a shearer on the farm, Collins had no idea that the Hockings were looking for a farmer. The meeting that followed was attended by members of both families, and was facilitated by Cultivate Farms.

“We connected them and explained that it was all about ownership,” Marwood says. “We gave them transition options to ensure that both parties were comfortable. Judy and Charlie have found someone they know and trust and are excited to be handing on ownership. They feel like their farm is in good hands.”

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From an early age, Marwood understood the difficulties of owning a farm. He grew up on a dairy farm in central Victoria and still remembers his father’s amusement when he asked about being given his family’s farm.

“I guess that’s where this concept has come from,” he says. “I knew at age eight that I would never be a farmer and would never own a farm. And that’s the same story for thousands of people across Australia.”

The lightbulb moment happened when Marwood and co-founder Tim Hicks were discussing how hard it was to access farm ownership. “I just went back to being eight years old and thought, ‘Imagine if there was a business that could help me own a farm’. We’ve spent the last three years trying to figure out what that is,” says Marwood.

The model is centred on the fact that aspiring farmers need to be connected with retiring farmers or investors, but there is much that farmers can do to improve their odds of a successful match.

Cultivate Farms recommends aspiring farmers upskill through online, TAFE or university courses or through employment as farm employees or managers. “Get out there and get a job, lease some land, show that you are absolutely keen for this. Once you’ve got that, it’s going to be simpler to put you in front of retiring farmers and investors,” he says.

And it is clear that the key to this farm ownership pathway is developing relationships. “Farms are expensive and they’re always going to be expensive but how you get onto them is through relationships,” says Marwood.

The arrangements facilitated by Cultivate Farms don’t always involve a retiring farmer. Claire and Marc Coates were running a free-range pig farm on a leased property when Cultivate Farms put a callout across Australia.

The callout invited farmers to pitch to an investor.

“We pitched our business model which included current and future farming operations along with a suitable farm we found for sale,” Claire Coates says. “That pitch was presented to an investor along with other pitches, and the investor chose to meet with us.”

The match has so far proven successful. The Coates are running their business, Freeland Pork, on the property which the investor purchased in June this year. The arrangement will allow the Coates to be 50-50 owners of the land and the business in three years’ time.

And Cultivate Farms continues to support the partnership by sitting on the board, chairing monthly meetings and providing a communication link between all involved.

“Cultivate Farms has exposed us to other industry professionals and experts who, as part of the bigger picture, have come onboard to provide their services,” Coates says.

The enterprise helps develop transition or ownership arrangements that will be different for each match. For Judy Hocking, it has been nothing short of a godsend as their arrangement will allow her husband to keep farming for as long as he is able.

“There are plenty of people in our situation, older people, who don’t want to leave the land but can no longer do it themselves,” she says. “It’s the young guys that keep the farm going. They keep the dream alive.”