WA Country Hour Interview

Welcome to the Cultivate farms podcast. Sam Marwood here. And thank you for taking the time to listen to our podcast. We're thinking of as many ways to get you onto your farm or help you to step back and we really hope you find all of this information useful and inspiring. Let's get you farming!

 

 

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Speaker:

Well Sam Marwood runs a company that tries to match up retiring farmers who are struggling to exit the industry with aspiring farmers people who desperately want to own their own farm. You might remember hearing about this in a special episode of The Country Hour last year and it featured some Western Australians who were either trying to get in or out of the industry even though there aren't many details to today's pre-election commitment from the Coalition. Sam Marwood thinks such a low interest loan would give his clients another bargaining chip to convince retiring farmers to give them a go.

 

Sam Marwood:

“I think anything to help young farmers find a pathway to farm ownership is a great thing in our books and I guess our main question would be is a repository required for getting access to this loan. I think the answer would be yes and then there's still the outstanding question for most young farmers is how do you get that deposit to access that loan

 

Host:

Is that the biggest hurdle to overcome?

 

Sam Marwood:

It’s the number one that's what we're finding all over Australia and the world is. How do you get a half a million or a million dollars in your back pocket to convince someone to get you onto a farm

 

Speaker:

But a loan of up to two million dollars isn't to be sneezed at is it.

 

Sam Marwood:

It's an amazing. What amazing tool for young farmers having a back pocket. That's what we're trying to inspire young farmers to do is think about all the opportunities available to you and leverage them like an entrepreneur would. So if those loans are available what I'll be doing is setting up as many people as I know and building my networks of people who could back me onto a farm who have money whether that's locals or family or high net worth individuals and say to them I'm the best farmer going around I know how to make money. Here's a farm opportunity and I have access to relatively low interest loans so why not why not back me or even committing a retiring farmer in that same sort of fashion. Someone who doesn't want to step back from or sell their farm and happy to step back and share ownership. They didn't look up at access to this low interest loan. How that would work out a deal.

 

Speaker:

You deal with a lot of aspiring farmers people who would like to get into farming. Do you think a commitment like this in the lead up to an election might be enough to convince them to keep their vote or to sway their vote towards the Coalition?

 

Sam Marwood:

 

You’ll never know. You never know why they will vote. I think I think in general from our point of view anything that is getting people thinking about farm ownership and they get it giving people the inspiration that farm ownership is possible and there are people out there trying to help you to make that happen I think is a great thing. We think this farm ownership issue and the eligibility for young people to get capital is the biggest reason why young people are leaving regional communities and not staying on farms. And if we can eliminate that barrier we can we can see a brain drain back to the country.

 

Speaker:

How long has your organisation been operating now?

 

Sam Marwood:

Four years

 

Speaker:

And are you having some success trying to allow people who want to get out of farming and retire and then allowing people who would like to get into farming so that they can live their dream.

 

Sam Marwood:

Absolutely, having conversations like this every day with retiring farmers who don't want to sell and just walk away and we've got hundreds of aspiring farmers who want to own a farm and finding pathways to get into ownership we've made a number of matters now we've got plenty on their website to be able to have a look at now. There are farmers out there who want to transition ownership and happy to share their ownership in their farm with the kids aren’t their own. And there are thousands of top quality next gen young farmers who would love to own a farm. Just capital is their biggest barrier. But we're ready to match them with whoever is ready.

 

Speaker:

Sam Marwood he's the Managing Director of Cultivate farms. Talking to Richard Hudson about today's pre-election commitment from the coalition to provide low interest loans of up to two million dollars for aspiring farmers.        “

                                                                                              

 

 

Thanks for your attention. We know there are thousands of other things you could be doing or other podcasts you could be listening to but you've chosen to listen to us. We appreciate your time so much. Please reach out as we're happy to work through your farm ownership pathway with you. Let's get you farming.