5 minute read
Future focused
BY RENEE CLUFF
A Tablelands farm succession plan is ensuring the operation remains in steady hands for the next generation.
Thomas, Jess and David Howe are passionate about agriculture. “Farming is in our blood,” eldest brother Tom explained. “It’s a good lifestyle and we enjoy the work, which is challenging and varied.”
The siblings’ futures as fourth generation farmers are secure thanks to a complex but clear succession plan created by their parents.
Peter and Chelley Howe operate Rock Ridge Farming in the Tableland district, where they grow sugarcane alongside bananas and avocados.
Their children, who are all aged in their 20s, are Operations Managers in the business.
They each returned to the farm after completing tertiary education. Tom gained certification as an autoelectrician, Jess obtained a business degree and David completed an apprenticeship as a diesel fitter.
Father Peter said his children are an integral part of the operation, particularly as it continues to grow and evolve. “Going forward, Thomas, Jess and David will be vital in the operation of Rock Ridge Farming,” he said.
“The coming years will present challenges that this generation of farmers will be best equipped to take advantage of.”
Developing a fair and equitable succession plan is an intricate and ongoing endeavour, which Peter said is aided by the business structure he and Chelley established.
“We’ve got multiple farms and they’re all owned under different company names, so it’s possible for each child to get his or her own company,” he explained.
“We did that on purpose. When we buy a new property, the name of the company that property is purchased by directly relates to the child that’s probably going to end up with that property. In our wills, the children will get equal parcels of property.
“There are some properties that they will have to share, such as our packing shed, so they will still need to work together and sort out any differences.
“There are also the monetary values and the water allocations we can use to even up the three parcels. We’re trying to keep everything fair.
“We talk to the kids, and they know what properties they’re probably going to be getting.
“But it’s always changing.”
It has to be flexible because the business is growing
It’s a transparent approach which his children recognise as being beneficially straightforward and unequivocal. “Us kids really appreciate that Mum and Dad have made everything so clearcut,” David said.
“Ultimately, the stress of splitting up the farms is the last thing we want to be worrying about if the worst happens,” added Jess.
Peter said his own experience as a third-generation farmer was very different. His story goes back a century, when his grandfather migrated to Far North Queensland from Italy and began cutting sugarcane at Pine Creek, south-east of Cairns, before buying his own farm.
Peter’s grandmother and his mother, who was born in Italy, joined his grandfather in Australia in 1929.
As an adult, his mother travelled to Sydney, where she met Peter’s father and married.
“Mum and Dad heard all the stories about the money you could make farming up here (in Far North Queensland), so they planned to come up only for a few years to make their fortune and move back down to Sydney, but Mum was still here 80 years later,” he joked.
Peter’s parents had eight children and together they grew a mixture of crops, including tobacco, watermelon and pumpkins. When his father died in his late 60s, the children and their mother kept the operation going.
“We did it tough for years,” Peter recalls. “It was only due to Mum’s stubbornness that the banks didn’t sell us up. She was a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.
“Mum also worked hard in the field, while cooking for all the men. It didn’t do her much harm; she only died a couple of years ago aged almost 99. She was fit. I think all the girls worked harder than us out in the field and then also had to work when they came back to the house.”
The property Peter’s parents purchased at Walkamin remains in the family today, operated by Howe Farming, which is owned by some of Peter’s siblings.
“With such a large family, that’s where you learnt the importance of succession planning,” Peter explained.
In 2011, he and his wife Chelley went out on their own and started Rock Ridge Farming, which today employs around 200 people and includes a state-of-the-art packing shed at Tolga.
Their farms encompass about 800 hectares and are spread across all corners of the Tablelands at Dimbulah, Mareeba, Tolga, Kairi and Yungaburra.
“We’ve put in some hard yards and hopefully it pays off,” Peter said.
It’s a legacy his children are sure to build upon as the years progress.
