Hi, my name is Patrick Morgan, a 20 year old university student/farmer from Colbinabbin, in Northern Victoria. Our first family farm “Wanella” is 8 kms out of town. It is a mixed farming enterprise of cereal and oilseed cropping for grain and fodder production & merino sheep for wool and prime lambs.

Wanella includes the original Morgan family farm of Nerada, where our family settled 5 generations ago.

Harvesting in the late 1990’s

Harvesting in 2013

At this present day there are 3 generations that are farming in our family, my grandfather, my father with  my 5 brothers and me lending a helping hand .

Marking lambs with the family in 2005

I am currently studying at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga but at any chance I can grasp, I jump straight in my ute to head home; to sow, spray, cut, bale and harvest our crops or to crutch, shear and sell our home grown wool.

At times we use light planes to spread nitrogen on our crops

Good soil and moisture and carefully fertilised crops make great hay 

Its always good to have plenty of hay on hand when pasture is in short supply

Along with a little help from my right hand man Jed (my kelpie pup) in the shearing shed, I am a professional Woolclasser by trade.

Classing the wool

Pressing the wool

Branding the Wool

When the wool comes of the sheep’s back I test it for various characteristics, press it into a bale of over 100kg and then I place my wool classers stamp on the bale to then be sold at an auction.

My grandparents, my twin brothers and me with the Elders representative at the Wool Auctions in Lara. The wool on display beside me contains samples of our wool to be auctioned

Jed is 6 months old now and has become the typical ‘man’s best friend’ of mine. Jed will sit on the back of the motorbike, ride in our speed boat and work a very decent day in the sheep yards without hesitation and always wagging that tail of his.

My dog Jed

Most of our family’s wool and lamb production comes from my grandparent’s property which is just out of Heathcote, Victoria. We are running approximately 3000 head of Merino Ewes and Weathers and Prime Lambs.

I have had roughly 15 students in my year level throughout my primary and secondary schooling, in Rushworth Victoria. Even though these communities that I have grown up in are so small, I find it quite interesting that we are only 2 hours by car to the heart of Melbourne. I have loved growing up in our rural community and I will be forever grateful for the place I will always call home.

At the moment I am concentrating on my completing my Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management degree.  It is a wonderful opportunity through my degree to have access to diverse array of experts in Agriculture/Agribusiness. To say that I am thoroughly enjoying this course and the University here at Charles Sturt would be an understatement, and I can’t wait to put all of it into practice in the near future, as a professional in the field myself.

Ever since I was a young boy I had become fond of Lee Kernaghan and his music. To this day a particular verse still sticks with me, a perfect metaphor for my thoughts on farming, what I love.

“It’s planting seed and praying for rain, its Red dust running through your veins, where there’s a corrugated iron shed and work boots on the back doorstep, it’s when my wheels hit the gravel road and it feels like home, it’s a way of life, it’s the life I live, and its right where I want to be, it’s the way it is.” – Lee Kernaghan.

It shows me that we as farmers, have a great underlying passion for what we do for a living, and if the rest of the farming community is anything like me, they take a great deal of satisfaction of succeeding in this occupation.

Can you just imagine what it is like harvesting wheat with a backdrop like this

For me a career in agriculture is the ultimate grow

To plant a seed and watch it grow and be harvested to feed many

To nurture a new born lamb and gather its wool to clothe others  

To have the opportunity to share my story and showcase how good OUR agriculture sector is, I believe a career and a goal second to none.