SA local hero George recognised for sharing skills worldwide

He was recognised after a life spent sharing his farming skills globally, while still calling SA home.

“Universally, food is provided by agriculturalists and I am pleased it has been brought to the fore,” he said. “Australia is such a vast country that its agriculture here is similar to somewhere else in the world.”

George’s career in agriculture has taken some unusual steps, including dairyfarming at Whyalla, boosting dairy production in the Himalayas and making the desert bloom in the Middle East.

George said his initial training in agriculture came through farming with his father and brothers at Whyalla, operating a dairy.

“Expansion in Whyalla increased water requirements and surplus water was directed to establishing a dairy to provide milk for the growing population,” he said. 

“We were the first dairy to feedlot with zero grazing – the family bought another farm north of Port Germein where we irrigated fodder. 

“I was fortunate enough to have a most experienced tutor, who I called dad.”

George got involved with exporting dairy cattle to Indonesia.

“We found many of the dairy men in Indonesia had plenty of theory but not practice,” he said.

Through the Indonesian dairy authority, he established a pilot farm at Bogor, in the tropical mountains south of Jakarta. After two years, he returned to Australia, but did not stay in Adelaide long before he was invited to Saudi Arabia to set up a farm near the Yemeni border, establishing fodder crops.

“Very little agriculture had been introduced to the south of the country and it was mainly wheat crops in the north,” he said. “We were the first to bale hay in southern Saudi Arabia and set up centre pivot irrigation.”

He then moved to Jordan, to introduce a ley rotation farming system and seed multiplication. This was followed by a short stint in Bahrain, teaching animal husbandry to a Sheikh who had Australian Dorset sheep and Illawarra dairy cattle.

In the mid 1990s, he was in Bhutan, in the Himalayas, establishing a co-operative for small-scale dairyfarmers.

“The farmers had between two or eight cows, but as Buddhists, they might be carrying half unproductive cows, and their only feed was roadside pastures,” he said.

George created a scheme that meant they could swap 3-4 non-producing cows for 1-2 cows with improved breeding. From the Himalayas he went to the “real desert” of Oman, for a three-month project that evolved into 13 years.

“In the entire 13 years we had about six days of recorded rainfall,” he said. “During oil drilling exploration a sustainable aquifer was found and we were able to cut Rhodes grass nine times a year, creating a reliable source of fodder hay to supply local Bedouin for their sheep, goats and camels.”

George said his experiences had introduced him to vastly different people and cultures. “Since I won the (SA Local Hero) award I’ve received congratulations from Geneva, Amsterdam, Dubai and Ethiopia,” he said.

George also coined a common phrase when acting as a stockman, flying dairy cattle from SA to India.

“I had thought it was quite something but there were two seats for me and vet Dick Wilson from Clare at the back of the plane,” he said. 

“To get refreshments, we had to climb across 150 head of livestock. 

“People asked how the trip was and I said the Friesians were in cattle class and we were worse than that. It seems to have stuck.”