With the NSW Farmer of the Year awards cancelled for 2020, The Land and The Farmer look back at the past decade of inspiring winners to see how they've adapted to current times, as well as what the competition has meant to them.
AFTER winning the NSW Farmer of the Year competition in 2013, Matthew and Cherie Coddington of Roseville Park Merinos have grown their networks, developed their knowledge and set out on a journey to expand their business.
Operating across 3200 hectares near Dubbo, the Coddingtons are predominantly a sheep enterprise, includng a Merino stud, and run up to 10,000 sheep.
"When we have got a lot of grass we also run a cattle trading enterprise," Mr Coddington said.
The Coddingtons were nominated by two people for the award, and said it was because of these nominations they applied and went through the interview process.
"It made us accountable and allowed us to quantify what we were doing on-farm," Mr Coddington said.
After purchasing their farm in 2005, they put on a business coach that made them set business plans and long-term visions and goals.
"We were able to hit a lot of the visions and goals quickly which showed once you have them in place, you can hit them in shorter timelines than you think because you have a target to move towards and you set your mind to it."
In the past 30 years, the Coddingtons have become industry leaders, not only at shows and sales, but for their commitment to developing their business, their clients' and the industry.
"We have always had one of the best on-property sales and won prestigious prizes at major shows, but they are just prizes, awards and sale results," he said.
Behind the scenes the Coddingtons have always benchmarked their program using breeding values and systems on-farm.
"We try to breed low input sheep, with high output ... sheep with meat, wool and disease resistance that allow our clients to get the swings of all the different markets."
They are also focused on working with industry.
"What we are doing on-farm is to try to improve the sheep industry and sheep breeding in Australia," he said.
Focused on drought proofing the business, rather than drought proofing the farm, they believe in having a financial plan in place for the next drought or commodity crash.
Not selfish in their success, the Coddingtons try to share it with others by being involved in industry and offering an on-farm training center where they run free training events with clients and other interested parties.
"I have also been involved in mentorships and fostering people in industry," Mr Coddington said.
Looking to expand further, they have done a lot of improvements on farm and through implementing different farming techniques.
"I'm open minded and do a lot of courses and try a lot of different things like Grazing for Profit, natural sequence farming, holistic management systems," he said.
"We never stop educating ourselves and don't go holus-bolus down one line of thinking, we take pieces of courses and apply them to our management system.
"We are looking to increase production, decrease inputs and increase turn-over ratios on-farm, increase equity on-farm and are looking to expand."
The Coddingtons also collaborate with universities, Meat and Livestock Australia donor companies and NSW Department of Primary Industries.
"We do research into sheep reproduction and remote farming systems, including walkover weighing, pedigree matchmaker, and use DNA and genomic technology in sheep, and breeding systems to increase genetic gain, reproduction and meat and wool production of our sheep," he said.
With five children, Matthew and Cherie Coddington are setting up a family board and constitution, and have been structuring a succession plan since they were young.
"We've been investing on-farm and off-farm, and have set up a good long-term succession, retirement and exit strategy for us for when we want to retire," he said.
"A business coach helps us through that and we meet quarterly to develop further, and we have mentors to help us run the business.
The drought has also made the Coddingtons further diversify their business.
"We have focused on increasing our ram selling markets and because of drought we have been forced to think outside of the box and develop global markets," Mr Coddington said.
Single handedly, they have been able to open new markets to some Asian countries that have not imported sheep before.
"They are now open to sheep and goats," he said.
"Looking at last year, every cargo flight out of Australia was full of sheep, goats, dairy cattle and beef cattle - overseas countries cannot get enough of Australian produce or Australian meat and fibre at the moment.
"They are looking at their own country's long-term food security, which is something Australia hasn't done a good job of. They are looking 50 years into the future, Australia is only looking at the three year political cycle."
Despite the challenges around COVID-19 in the selling season, the Coddingtons had their best on-property ram sale and best result at the Merino National.
"We have sold out of rams the last two years," Mr Coddington said.
"Sixty per cent of our rams usually go to Victoria, so if anything, COVID has made us better communicators.
"The beauty of us doing all the work with breeding values and genomic technologies is we are able to provide information on 23 different traits, and supply individual videos and photos.
"We gave as much information as possible, and with the use of good software we could pull up and sort data any way they requested to fit their parameters."
Winning the competition allowed the Coddingtons to grow their network and experiences.
"It recognised what were doing on farm was working well, that is the different management systems, benchmarking targets, research on-farm," he said.
"(After winning) I opened the Sydney Royal Show as a key note speaker in 2014, and was invited to former Governor Dame Marie Bashir's farewell dinner.
"We were featured in the RM Williams Outback magazine, and the Sydney (Daily) Telegraph."
Mr Coddington said it allowed them to sell a good news story of farming and the lifestyle, while showcasing what they do.
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