$100M in machinery but Farm World's real value is in the conversations

There’s two things you notice when arriving at Lardner Park’s Farm World: the sheer size of the field and the number of different coloured tractors on display. Open for its 57th year, farmers, locals, and manufactures set up shop over the three-day event to sell product, chat about the weather, and connect farmer-to-farmer.

“It will be a guesstimate at best because I don’t have statistics to prove it, but there is about 65 to 70 million dollars’ worth of gear sitting on the site,” Lardner Park chief operating officer Craig Debnam told the Gippsland Monitor.

Debnam estimates that somewhere between $50 million and $100 million worth of sales is produced at the event over the surrounding sales cycle, but it’s not the only thing Farm World is about. The agricultural farmer’s event is filled with exhibitors, family activities and demonstrations. 

One of those exhibitors is TTMI dealer principal Jason Henry, who runs a site filled with Case, Kuhn and Badnar farming machinery products. 

“The main concern is to get clients that you may not know, to actually know who we are and show off new products,” said Henry. 

Henry sees TTMI's role as providing products to help farmers produce bigger crops, more efficient pastures and maintain those pastures. 

At Farm World, Henry has traditionally seen more lifestyle sales on-site for people who may only need a 20-horsepower tractor on a five or ten-acre property, as major farming purchases are usually done off-site.

The company’s “best” client is Winnindoo dairy farmer Colin Snell, who booked a few jobs with Henry.

On day two of Farm World, Vin Rowe Farm Machinery sales consultant Kelly Matthews noticed that the turnout this year seemed to be down on last year. 

“When you look at the economics of the world at the moment, it is probably a bit of a tough market at the moment, but people are still happy,” she told the Gippsland Monitor. 

“Some people want to get a very, very good deal, that is why they come to Farm World. 

“Some look, some people are customers, some just say hello and maybe want to add to their collection of gear, but you do meet many new people and new customers.” 

One of those people looking to add to their collection of gear was Jeffery Agricultural Contracting’s Paul Jeffery, a second-generation farm contractor from Phillip Island. 

The Gippsland Monitor met Jeffery at the Vin Rowe stand, pricing up a power harrow.

“It's a good day to go and look at everything in one place, walk around from stand to stand and compare apples and apples,” said Jeffery.

“It gives you that chance to look at everything and get a true comparison of things and it is fresh in your head because you are a few minutes away from each stand.” 

Jeffery went on to dive into the one conversation any farmer would have with anyone who would listen: the weather, commenting on how dry and hungry Phillip Island is. Conversations like this make up much of the Farm World chatter – not just sales and machinery but an event for agricultural farming opportunity to discuss the last 12 months, the good times, and the bad.

Farm World COO Debnam highlighted that many farmers come to Farm World to engage with people and be less isolated. 

“We are putting on events for farmers to make sure that they actually get off the isolation of the farm and have conversations with other people about some of the challenges they are facing,” he said.  

“Because a lot of the time, they talk to their cows, they talk to their dogs, but they are not actually having human contact. 

“The agricultural field days are a great opportunity for farmers to catch up with each other, for farming families to catch up with each other and for agriculture dealers and industry groups to catch up with their customers and network.”