Darribee

Along with five siblings, I spent my first 15, or so years living on a mixed-enterprise farm on the Western Darling Downs in Queensland, Australia. My parents owned the farm ‘Darribee’ from 1950 until 1976 when it was sold, firstly to my eldest brother, and later to other local farmers. Dairying was an important component of farm production, undertaken in conjunction with pig farming and cereal cropping. In 1969, the dairy was closed, due, partly at least, to the impending move by Great Britain to join the European Economic Community (EEC). At this time, Great Britain was an important customer for Australian dairy products, however, the market was threatened by the UK’s move to join the EEC and its requirements for higher standards of dairy hygiene. Due to the high costs of meeting compliance, many Australian farmers took the opportunity to move to other enterprises including beef and crop production. These 2009 images, taken during a nostalgia visit to our old farm, show the decline of farm infrastructure over a relatively short period, partly a result of enterprise change, but also because of the changing rural environment where farmers have had to ‘get bigger or get out’, to meet the challenges of 21st century farm economics. As a result, farms the size of ‘Darribee’ (300 ha) which were considered as an economic unit in their day, are subsumed into larger and more economic enterprises. The upshot of this is that farm infrastructure, once the vibrant centre of a farming family and their livelihood is now surplus to requirements and is sold, or slowly declines and eventually disappears into the earth.