DESPITE only being 23 years of age, Western Australian GenAngus Future Leaders Program participant Mostyn Golding has taken the leap to not only have a hands-on role within the family farm, but extend his interest in the business side of things to ensure the future looks bright.
Based in Dardanup, WA, Mr Golding and his family own and operate the Little Meadows Angus stud on their 647 hectare property Little Meadows, where they run 350 breeders.
Since completing a Bachelor of Business with a double major in accounting and finance last year through Edith Cowan University, Mr Golding has returned to the family farm to take on a number of roles.
I applied to ... equip myself with a set of skills that are going to give me the ability to make educated decisions in our own farming enterprise.
- 2019 GenAngus Future Leaders program participant Mostyn Golding, Dardanup, Western Australia.
"My two major roles include running the financial component of the business, running the accounts and doing the budgeting," he said. "The other is the marketing in conjunction with my sister Trinity, along with having a major role in the day-to-day running of the farm alongside my parents Tony and Karen."
With a five year goal in mind to continue to grow the seedstock division of their business, while looking for new opportunities to open up new income streams into the future, Mr Golding said the aim is to ultimately build a complete enterprise that is self-sufficient.
"We want to build a complete enterprise so that each component of the business is self-sufficient in an economic sense," he said. "This will, in the long-term, create sustainability for the generations to come after me."
This want to ensure business growth while maintaining sustainability led him to apply for the GenAngus program, sponsored by Angus Australia and Achmea Australia, held in Sydney from February 20 to 22.
"I applied to further educate myself about the agricultural industry, and to equip myself with a set of skills that are going to give me the ability to make educated decisions in our own farming enterprise," Mr Golding said.
During the program, he said the biggest thing learnt was all the aspect that go into driving a sustainable busines and ways to keep it current, "such as different aspects of marketing and how that has grown and changed over the years".
"I learnt how to plan for the future and how to make sure the business is safeguarded against certain problems or situations that may evolve, such as agricultural insurance and the ability to plan for the next generation through succession planning," he said.
Mr Golding said he will be looking at effectively applying what he learnt through the program in planning for the future.
"I will break it up into two month increments," he said.
"In the first two months I complete a financial review, the next I will do a review of our marketing plan, and in the third I will do a review of insurance."
