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OUR STORY: SWAN | 31
H Y D R O S M A R T

Swan Family

LOCATION: Meningie
FARMING SINCE: 2005
OPERATION: Fertiliser spreading, Angus cattle, earthmoving and real estate

BY CATHERINE MILLER local to the area.
“Dad used to say this country wouldn’t grow
HEN Archie Swan boarded a ship in anything until you put on six bags an acre (of
Glasgow, Scotland in 1922, bound for the super) which is plenty,” he said.
Wother side of the world - one of nearly 1400 It was hard work but there was also plenty of
lads from the United Kingdom apprenticed to ingenuity from the father and son in those early
farms in SA under the Barwell Boys scheme - he years, including converting an ex-World War II
took a huge leap of faith. army tank into a spreader to overcome the many
A century on from when the 16-year-old landed punctures their tyres were getting from stumps left
at Port Adelaide and met his sponsor, Meningie after clearing.
landholder Walter Williams, the Swan name is well They grew a client base from the Mallee to the
known in the area. Upper South East with most of their work within a
Archie’s grandson Craig and his wife Kerry 100 kilometre radius of Meningie.
operate a successful fertiliser supply and Today Craig is proud they are still spreading
spreading business with five spreader trucks, for second and even third generations of some
as well as having farming, earthmoving and real farming families.
estate interests. In 1964, Archie’s life was cut short, suffering
The Swan Group, which encompasses four a massive heart attack at 56 years of age while
businesses, is one of the town’s major employers spreading on a farm at Karoonda.
with about 40 staff. It also sponsors many “He started having chest pains so he went to
sporting and community groups, including the find the owner and told him, then he drove himself
newly-formed Coorong Cats Football and Netball to the hospital but a couple of days later he died,”
Club. Craig said.
The family has come a long way from the mid With Archie’s passing, David went into business
1950s when it was just Archie and Craig’s father with his brother Neil and so Swan Brothers was
David lugging 85 kilogram bags into a blue gum born.
spreader pulled by a tractor, applying fertiliser to David and Neil formed a great partnership that
newly-cleared land. lasted some 50 years.
Each generation of the Swan family has taken Some of the hardest times were in the 1970s
opportunities that have come their way including when the lucerne aphid wiped out many lucerne
Archie, who after a few years farm labouring, stands but they bounced back and soon applied
found his interests lay in road building. high analysis fertilisers, urea and - more recently -
With wife Ruby and their five children, they set liquid fertilisers.
up home wherever Archie’s work took them - Craig says the logistics have improved out of
from Meningie to Salt Creek to Coomandook. sight from the days when the fertiliser, which was
David - the eldest child - followed in his father’s all made from raw rock at port, was dumped at
footsteps, joining one of the road crews at 13 rail sidings along the Adelaide to Melbourne rail
years of age. line in bulk carriages.
Craig recalls his father’s first job was to blast “The railways and the unions had a lot of control
rock near The Pines at Tailem Bend but, after so you would order (the fertiliser) and it would
a month of drilling and plugging the rock with arrive six to eight weeks later,” he said.
explosives, when they came to detonate it nothing “You were told it would be at a certain location,
happened. maybe Cookes Plains, and then you had three
“They realised how tough the rock was around days to get it off or you would be told it was going
Tailem Bend,” he said. somewhere else.”
A couple of years later, David bought a tip truck As a child, Craig remembers helping his Dad
to contract to the roads authority but it was not empty out the carriages but he says B-double
long before Archie and David saw an opening to trucks have been a game changer for carting
spread fertiliser. fertiliser direct from Port Adelaide, Portland, Vic, or
At the time Craig says there was a bounty Geelong, Vic, direct to their depot.
scheme with the state government paying They also use their trucks to cart grain, hay and
much of farmers’ fertiliser bill to encourage ag road base.
development in the area. Craig, who joined the family business in 1992,
This included trace elements that research had says there have also been some tremendous
shown was lacking in many of the sandy soils advances in the accuracy of spreaders and