Fourth-generation farmer Sam Beven is already forging the path for the next generation \u2014 his lively young brood of kids who are growing up on the property where he ran amok as a boy.<\/p>\n
Last year, his father, Randal Beven, handed over the reins to Sturt’s Meadows Station, a 186,000-acre property \u2014 “a little bit bigger than Singapore” \u2014 about 70 kilometres north of Broken Hill.<\/p>\n
In an age when fewer farms are being passed down through the family, the Bevens’ succession plan could be a model for other farming families.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sam and Erin Beven with their sons Duncan, Harvey and Walter. (Supplied: Beven family)<\/p>\n
Although his parents still live on the station, which mostly runs sheep, including dorpers and merinos, with some cattle, at 33 years of age, Sam is in charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sam’s mum, nurse Jo Beven, said the whole family was “very proud of him”.<\/p>\n
“The family farm thing is becoming a bit less common these days, so let’s hope we can hang on to it for this generation and he can protect it for the next.”<\/p>\n
Cementing his place as a strong member of the farming community, Sam was elected president of the Pastoralists’ Association of West Darling this year, making him one of the youngest people to serve in the role in the organisation’s 118-year history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up on the family farm<\/p>\n
The father-of-three, who will soon welcome his fourth child with his wife Erin, said he knew from a young age he would eventually take over Sturt’s Meadows Station, despite being the middle child of three boys.<\/p>\n
This resolve was further strengthened during his school years, when Sam and his brothers lived with their mother in Broken Hill, where they attended school, before returning to the station and their father on weekends and holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brothers Jack, Stuart and Sam Beven as boys growing up at Sturt’s Meadows Station. (Supplied: Beven family)<\/p>\n
“Dad did his best to get into town as much as he could one or two nights a week [to see us],” Sam said.<\/p>\n
“[Dad] was always doing a lot of work on the station, but there was always time for us on the weekends \u2026 teaching with motorbikes and sheep work and various sorts of things.”<\/p>\n
Randal said most of his memories of Sam involved his middle son falling off things and hurting himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sam Beven suffered life-threatening injuries when he crashed his motorbike into this gate in 2017.\u00a0 (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)<\/p>\n
However, his most serious injury occurred in 2017 when he was an adult.<\/p>\n
Then in his mid-20s, Sam crashed his motorbike through a metal gate on the family station.<\/p>\n
He credits his survival to the quick thinking of his paramedic brother, Stuart, and an emergency doctor who insisted he be transported to Adelaide for treatment.<\/p>\n
Handing over the reins<\/p>\n
Sam officially took over management of Sturt’s Meadows about 12 months ago, when his father retired at 60.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Randal and Jo Beven on Sturt’s Meadows Station, 70km north of Broken Hill, in far west NSW.\u00a0 (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)<\/p>\n
But, Randal said, the transition had been underway for several years following the selling of dorper sheep to Sam.<\/p>\n
At the time, it had been obvious to the older grazier that his son had new ideas about how to make things more profitable for the station.<\/p>\n
“I had sold all of the dorpers to Sam so that he had a means of making an income and a toehold into the property itself, which left me only with merinos,” Randal said.<\/p>\n
Sturt’s Meadows Station runs both dorper and merino sheep.\u00a0 (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)<\/p>\n
Overpriced sheep stations<\/p>\n
Randal says the price of sheep stations is wildly overpriced at about $70 to $75 per acre, which affects the profitability for the next generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If you borrow money on that, you can’t make enough to pay the interest. So it makes it very hard for the next generations to get started,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sturt’s Meadows Station is the size of Singapore.\u00a0 (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)<\/p>\n
When Randal took over from his own father, Peter, he paid him a certain amount of money and then an ongoing lease figure. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When it came time to do it with Sam, we did it slightly differently. He paid me a certain amount of money, which was more, but then with no lease,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So I’ve got enough money to live on, but he doesn’t have to pay me lease payments anymore.<\/p>\n
“But he did have to take over the ongoing lease payments to my parents because it’s a generational thing.”<\/p>\n
Randal said he wanted to hand over the running of the station to Sam so the young father had the means to employ a governess.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Six-year-old Harvey Beven with governess Matilda Raphael, who moved to the station at the start of the year.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“We hired our first governess this year and she’s been a godsend,” Sam said.<\/p>\n
“We built a house for a governess to live in [and] we built a school room, so our oldest, Harvey, and … second-born Duncan … can spend the whole day there.”<\/p>\n
Advocating for family farms\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former president of the Pastoralists’ Association of West Darling Terry Smith said it was important for the next generation of graziers and farmers to be business savvy.<\/p>\n
He said Sam, who has replaced him at the helm of the association, was “doing a really good job”.<\/p>\n
“He’s certainly got a grip on the issues,” Terry said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a reasonable responsibility and a lot of people in the industry come to the Pastoralists’ Association of West Darling with their issues, and that feeds back to someone like Sam and the council to come up with a solution for it.”<\/p>\n
The agri-political lobby organisation represents about 100 members in the far west of NSW.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Terry Smith says Sam Beven is doing a great job in the president’s role. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fourth-generation farmer Sam Beven is already forging the path for the next generation \u2014 his lively young brood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,44932,13330,9087,87229,87234,87233,87232,87230,87231,37420],"class_list":["post-124183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-desert","tag-farming","tag-outback","tag-pastoralist","tag-pastoralists-association-of-west-darling","tag-randal-beven","tag-sam-beven","tag-sheep-station","tag-sturts-meadows-station","tag-succession-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}