Drawing by a 9 year old boy

Today, I sat and thought about my son, prompted by a beautiful drawing he did and entered into the local show. Some people might look at it and simply see a picture drawn by a boy who loves the farm. But the reality is so much deeper if you look closely at the drawing by this little boy who has just turned nine and what he dreams about.

My son has farming in his DNA. He somehow understands so much about this land and how it all works. He thinks, talks, and dreams of nothing else but farming—his spirit is connected to this farm in a way that feels beyond his control.

I am both proud and worried for him because life on the farm is so uncertain, yet it’s also a life filled with purpose and meaning. Natural disasters don’t scare me for him—he understands nature instinctively. What I fear are people and their lack of understanding, especially as the world disconnects from the reality of what goes into producing their food.

This little boy wakes up in the morning, eager to work on the farm with his dad all day long. He has the work ethic of someone far beyond his years—he works harder than most 25-year-old men could handle—and yet, we have to drag him away kicking and screaming. After school, he comes home wanting to dive straight into farm work. It breaks my heart that all he knows is work, and all he wants is to work. When I finally bring him home from the paddocks, he heads straight to his bedroom to tend to the farm he's set up in there.

Everything about farming seems instinctual to him—he has this innate stock sense that can’t be taught. He tinkers with machines, fixes things, and seems to just know how it all works. Being a farmer is not something he’s chosen to do; he was born to do it. And as his mother, I worry. I don’t want him to feel the weight of that pressure. I want him to explore other options in life because the uncertainty of life on the farm is so overwhelming. Farmers wear so many hats now—from working the land to managing staff, handling bookkeeping, and dealing with corporate pressures. And then there's that dreaded word: 'Succession.'

Working the land and being with animals—that’s what farmers do best. It’s what’s in their blood, what they are born to do. They’re resilient, and yet, if I hear one more government or organisation tell farmers they need to be more resilient, I fear I may snap. What farmers need is for people to understand them, to see what they truly do, and to appreciate them.

My son doesn’t know what’s ahead for him, and neither do I. I can’t protect him from the future or from the greed of others—those who want to control the land for wind turbines, power lines, or mines. I can’t shield him from people who don’t understand the deep love he has for the farm and the animals, who can’t see that, from the day he was born, he dedicated himself to providing the world with food.

So, when you look at this picture drawn by my nine-year-old son, what do you see?