COLIN Odewahn has fond memories of holidaying at Bermagui as a kid.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
So much so, that over 50-years later, Mr Odewahn has decided to retire and move to the south coast town.
The Culcairn farmer has sold his “Bernley” property after having been in the Odewahn family for well over a century.
Mr Odewahn is a fifth generation farmer after the family originally purchased the majority of the 953 acre property in 1905.
The sixty-four-year-old said he didn’t hesitate in selling after receiving an offer too good to refuse from Bonnie Doon Wagyu.
Bonnie Doon Wagyu also recently purchased the neighbouring property to Mr Odewahn.
“I got an offer that was too good to refuse,” Mr Odewahn said.
“I’m turning 65 this year but hadn’t really contemplated retiring until I got this offer.
“The first time he introduced himself to me he asked me ‘are you going to sell me a few paddocks?’
“I said to him that I won’t be selling a paddock, I sell the farm or nothing.
“He came back 12 months later with an offer and all the terms I wanted, so I said ‘sold’.
“I always used to go to Bermagui for holidays when I was a kid and I thought before I fall off the perch I wouldn’t mind living there for a while.”
READ ALSO:
Mr Odewahn retires after having spent a lifetime on the property.
The settlement date is May 14 and marks the 45th anniversary of his father’s death.
“My father (Bernie) passed away in 1974 when I was 19 and I have been managing the farm ever since,” he said.
It was a tough initiation to farming for Mr Odewahn who had to overcome death duties tax which has since been abolished in Australia in 1981.
“The toughest time really and thank god that’s over because there wouldn’t be a family farm left – was when my father died and I got caught up in the death duties,” he said.
“I got hit hard with that – it was 40 per cent of the value of the farm that was over the threshold.
“It broke a lot of farmers at the time but luckily I wasn’t one of them but it was the hardest part of my life to get through.
“Financially I reckon it set me back around 10-years.”
Mr Odewahn feels fortunate to have spent the majority of his life on the land and rated his gamble to buy Merryville blood sheep in the early 1980s as a game changer.
He took the punt and invested heavily, buying 4000 sheep with half the stock grazing on a separate Culcairn property which he leased “Claverton South”.
“Looking back now, that was the best decision I ever made,” he said.
“A huge problem with sheep at the time I decided to switch to Merryville was fly strike which can be lethal.
“So I switched to Merryville sheep who don’t get fly strike because they are white wool sheep.
“I also prefer sheep over crops because droughts and floods can ruin your crops but with sheep you always get that wool cheque every year.”
While Mr Odewahn was able to overcome fly strike, he cited the footrot epidemic the plagued local farmers at the turn of the century as one of his most difficult times on the land.
“Trying to manage bloody footrot was easily the worst time that I had on the land,” he said.
“It took the best part of two years to get rid of it but thankfully I haven’t had any since.”
Mr Odewahn admitted another reason behind his decision to retire was the new technology evolving on farms.
“Some of the things that I can’t keep up with now is the latest technology,” he said.
“For instance one of the neighbours, Cameron Schultz, has got a new baler and I got him to make a few bales for me.
“You only have to steer the tractor, the baler tells the tractor when to stop so it can tie the bale and then tells the tractor when its finished – it’s amazing really.”
READ ALSO:
Mr Odewahn is an avid bowler for Culcairn and said having a social outlet is important for local farmers who can have a lonely life on the land.
“It can be a lonely life working 10 hours by yourself, every day of the week,” he said.
“To be able to call into the pub or the club and have a beer and talk to someone is essential to your mental health in my opinion.”
Mr Odewahn has three children and five grandchildren and warned animal activists were the biggest threat to farmers in the future.
“The biggest problem I can see arising in the future is the animal activists,” he said.
“I think farmers as an organisation have to be very wary of them because they can get in under your guard and get governments to change laws and make it impossible to farm.
“Some of the idiotic decisions made in Canberra by politicians are mind-boggling.
“That’s the biggest worry I have in farming over the next decade.”
