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6 | OUR STORY: OSTER

Itisaboutmutualrespectandtreating
othersasequals,asweareallresponsible
forwhatwehavecreated.

- ELDEN OSTER

Yvonne ended up with the family homestead
and about 1140 acres - just shy of 500 hectares -
while her sisters took on their own blocks, married
farmers and eventually expanded in the local area The first new header the Oster family owned. Picture supplied
and into the South East.
Yvonne found her life partner in local builder
Hughie Oster, who was ultimately given little
choice but to fall into farming with his new wife.
Elden said Yvonne’s life journey was different to
most.
She married a widower and, together with
his children and after beginning married life
at Maitland in the late 1960s, they moved the
growing family to the farm.
Hughie Oster was 48-years old when he
became a full-time farmer.
It was a mixed-farming operation and Hughie
had to learn how to farm pigs, cattle, sheep and
crops, to keep everything going. Harvest machinery continued to evolve to allow bulk handling. Picture supplied
“It was a pretty interesting era, I am not sure
if anyone made a lot of money from farming
but they slowly grew on acres to become more
profitable,” Elden said.
For newcomer Hughie, his wife Yvonne and
their sons Philip, Peter and Bevan, and eventually
Elden, they tackled farm life with enthusiasm and
shrewdness, gradually expanding the property in
the mid 1970s and early 1980s.
But it was a tough time, as drought and high
interest rates plagued the decade.
This ultimately spurred Elden and his business
partner at the time, older brother Bevan, into a
diversification plan.
“We stayed on the farm in those tough years
and continued with off-farm work, such as
shearing and fencing for diversification, to be able Machinery improvements were a continued focus to help increase cropping capacity. Picture supplied
to maintain what we were doing on the farm,”
Elden said.
While Elden enjoyed feeding pigs, looking after from the land, particularly when the machinery With sights firmly set on succession, it helped to
poddy calves and making hay, he also harboured revolution began.” pave the way for the brothers’ young families.
a passion - which was more than farming, it was From this point, the brothers backed off from Elden reflects upon this time with some difficulty
a mindset. livestock production and put loaded energy into but believes, through accessing someone else’s
“If it is your passion to be a farmer, you need to cropping and precision agriculture with improved perspective about how it could look, it was largely
understand how to negate the reality of not having efficiencies. free from complication.
what you want but making do with what you Elden farmed with his parents and brother “In the initial stages of parting ways, it was
have,” he said. Bevan until about 2010, when they decided to difficult for everyone but we used advisors and it
“But the early 1980s provided a time when part ways and take their individual visions into a was really important to do that,” he said.
we were able to change capacity and get more new direction. He said it instilled greater confidence about
going it alone without a need to ride the back of
family history.
“It was tough but it provided a good break from
what we had known for the previous 30 years,”
he said.
“I believe good relationships with professional
advisors, including our agronomist, has led to a
better outcome.”
Elden believed it was crucial to understand why
not to do the same action and expect a different
result. This provided scope to plan better, think
bigger and take a few risks.
“We needed to remind ourselves there was a
labour force of two young men coming home
that had a passion for farming and this helped to
provide confidence to know we could achieve it,”
he said.

Elden, Ellie, Jake and Charlie Oster at
harvest time. Picture supplied