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12/06/2025
A focus on innovation, data collection, and working with industry leaders and researchers has seen Brendon and Gabrielle Savage build a resilient business on their 5750-hectare mixed farm in the south-eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia.
This approach has seen Tolga Farm treble in size and create a competitive edge by securing a premium for its “certified sustainable, low-emissions barley”.
As the first Western Australian growers to obtain Certified Sustainable status in 2020, Brendon says it marks the culmination of years of work by the family to develop a long-term model focused on improving soil health and reducing synthetic inputs.
“The whole idea has been to build resilience regardless of what seasons we have in the future – whether it’s good, bad or ugly,” Brendon explains. “This has seen us focus on managing inputs in such a way that we maintain profitability.”
As the third generation to farm at Tolga Farm near Kulin, Brendon has bucked the district trend by increasing the livestock component of his business to 60-65 per cent, with barley and oats rounding out his mixed farming enterprise.
“Livestock, we’ve found, has been a way of improving the sustainability of our farming business,” he says. While he has also found it important in assisting with weed control.
A shift, Brendon notes, that has also helped them manage some of the climatic risks his business faces, particularly frost and dry finishes.
“We have found that livestock have maintained cashflow through the dry seasons,” he says. While the susceptibility of wheat and canola to frost has also seen the Savages grow barley and oats, which they say are “more frost tolerant”.
Brendon says their enterprise mix has seen their business profit variance, as per a recent case study by the Western Australia Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) and published by Sustainable Earth Reviews, come in “very low.” While profitability, he says, is in line or higher than industry benchmarks.
“We find we are maintaining profitability in tough seasons, which enables us to take advantage of conditions when the season breaks,” Brendon says.
Describing his approach as that of a “hybrid farmer”, a mix of conventional and biological practices based on his involvement in Australian Soil Planners (ASP) since 2004, Brendon has been adopting practices to help improve his soil health for around two decades.
An approach, he says, that has also stemmed from his own research, tertiary study at Muresk College, and hands-on experience since returning home in 1992.
“When I first came home, we introduced extra fertiliser than what had been used in the past, and we found it to be very productive. In this high input model, however, I started becoming concerned that we may need to put more on each year and the associated remediation costs associated with that. So I started doing my own research, and that gave me the confidence to challenge the status quo.”
Throughout this transition, which has taken many years, Brendon says his focus has consistently been on “soil health and maintaining long-term business profitability”
“My focus has been looking after the soil before anything,” he says. “The idea is to produce a good crop that doesn’t cost as much to grow and that leaves the soil in the best possible condition for the following pasture or crop. That has been our mandate for a very long time.”
This approach, he says, has helped improve their soil organic carbon content in the top 10 centimetres, which they hope to maintain or improve at depth in the future. Brendon says these practices have also led to improved water-holding capacity, “potentially buying us that 10 to 20 millimetres we need in September.”
Improving soil pH and remediating aluminium toxicity has “always been on our list of priorities,” Brendon explains, through the application of lime and gypsum and also a soluble calcium liquid nutrient that is banded at seeding and applied as a foliar spray. “We put soluble calcium on as an ameliorant, which we use in furrow at seeding time and as a nutrition spray on all our pastures.”
“Sustainable, long-term profitable rotations” have also been important to the Savages’ farming practices through the use of pastures as tillage radish and subterranean clover. This, he says, has helped lead to improvements in soil structure, water retention, and nutrient recycling.
As a result of all these practices, Brendon and Gabrielle have been able to reduce their emissions, and say they believe they could be among the lowest in the industry as per annual audits conducted by their consultant over the last five years.
“Interestingly, for us the trade-off of reducing synthetics and improving soil health has been a reduction in emissions,” which has seen the Savages work directly with one of Western Australia’s largest breweries, Rocky Ridge Brewing Co., as a “supplier of single-origin, certified sustainable and low-emissions barley”.
“That was the trifecta to try and hit,” Brendon says, “and we did that for them more than 18 months ago.”
Brewing the “lion’s share of their beer from our malt,” Brendon says Rocky Ridge has just done their second brew using their malt.
“In the early days, all I wanted to do was promote a nutritious product, something that’s grown with regulated use of chemicals and fertilisers and not as much reliance on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides that may potentially harm beneficials.”
Although breaking into premium markets was initially challenging, their farming model, which Brendon says has inadvertently resulted in lower emissions, is what gained recognition amongst end-users.
Brendon says he is excited about the future with Tolga Farm selected by DPIRD as a case study for one of their first commercial methane projects to investigate the efficiencies of the rumen and methane emissions on their farming model.
“I think the goal for ag is to find the model that works and produces less methane but at the same time enhances your plant health and nutrition of the rumen and your efficiencies of your pasture production,” he says.
“If the sheep are eating less to produce the same weight gain, does that translate to a reduction in emissions? That’s what we plan to study next. This is one of the most exciting things I have done in my farming life. I am so very much looking forward to that.”
Building a sustainable, intergenerational farm has always been at the forefront for the Savage family, with one of Brendon and Gabrielle’s four children now back home – a vision, Brendon says, “that wouldn’t be possible if their model wasn’t profitable”.
“For us, there is nothing sustainable about making a loss,” he says. “Our focus has always been on intergenerational profitability.”
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