Posted by on
08/07/2025
Gerrit and Pam Kurstjen with Beefwood manager, Glenn Coughlan, centre.
The 2024 northwest NSW cereal cropping season was stellar – a rare holy grail of timely in-crop rain aligned with a dry harvest that produced record-breaking yields and quality.
It also marked Gerrit Kurstjen's 71st harvest, and the glint in his eye remains as bright as ever.
From his first harvest on his father’s farm as a nine-year-old in his native Netherlands harvesting five hectares a day, to the six headers, chaser bins, and trucks that recently waltzed in step across the 12,500 hectare winter crop on his “Beefwood” operation north of Moree, Gerrit has lived global agriculture’s immense progression.
In fact, he’s largely driven it, with this visionary innovator helping pave the way for some of the industry’s most significant developments.
And now, as agriculture sits on the precipice of AI technology, geomapping and robotics, this 80-year-old remains as energised as ever.
Gerrit on his family farm in the Netherlands in 1958. Last year was the first year he left the harvest to the next generation, after 70 years driving headers.
An unintentional Aussie farmer
Having developed and sold a machinery business in The Netherlands, Gerrit and wife Pam, both world record gliders, had their future set – a semi-retirement exploring the globe pursuing their gliding passion.
Victoria’s Tocumwal and the NSW central west became firm favourite gliding destinations, and Gerrit laughs that their visits to Australia soon became increasingly longer.
Investing in the local agricultural industry was the last thing on their minds – particularly during the wool slump and challenging seasons of the 1980s.
However, Pam explains that upon befriending a local farmer in the Tullamore district who kindly invited them to visit his harvest, the seed was sown.
Gerrit Kurstjen at “Beefwood”, Tulloona
“Gerrit was asking about land prices, yield and rent per hectare, and I knew the figures were ticking over in his mind – and that our semi-retirement plan was thwarted!” she laughs.
The couple spent several months driving across NSW, looking at land, talking to local farmers, agronomists, and agents, investigating soil types and rain patterns trying to work out where the best land was and where prices met expectations.
The Tullamore farmer put a proposal to them that if they bought a nearby property, he would lease it, and this became their basic model for investing in Australia.
“We recognised potential in NSW’s northwest, people were transitioning out of sheep and beginning to grow good crops, and we knew the future of no-till, control traffic farming, stubble retention and water conservation farming, then in its infancy, would make it possible.”
After exhaustive research, in the year 2000 the couple purchased the Tullamore property, followed promptly by Gunyanna in the Tulloona district north of Moree a month later.
The addition of ‘Beefwood’, and a number of other properties in the Tulloona district followed, and Gerrit concedes that good timing helped underscore their success.
“People said ‘ahh, silly Dutchman, it’s impossible to grow wheat and barley west of the Newell Highway’, however we’d seen the same soil in The Netherlands, and with no-till farming and the invent of GPS, we were confident.”
Eight decades of progression
As creative as he is curious, Gerrit has forged his career developing agricultural solutions.
“Leave nothing to chance, never stop looking for opportunities, and never stop looking forward,” is how Gerrit describes his philosophy.
The machinery company he grew and sold in The Netherlands imported farm machinery from the USA, which he in turn modified and patented to improve European farmers' efficiencies.
It’s the same principle he applies to his Australian farming pursuits, with the vast paddocks of “Beefwood” providing an experimental playground for global research and development.
While the majority of Gerrit and Pam’s land remains managed through lease arrangements, Beefwood is Gerrit’s personal passion project, affording him a platform to push boundaries and experiment.
Beefwood’s long-term manager Glenn Coughlan and his wife Margot are integral to the operation, and for decades the property has attracted industry stakeholders from across the world – the property’s humble bush airstrip a portal to the future.
Margot and Glenn Coughlan are integral to the Beefwood operation.
From no-till and controlled traffic farming – two of the first significant contributors to grain growing’s efficiencies of the past 50 years, Gerrit helped spearhead these systems.
He also introduced on-farm storage to the region, importing silos from the USA to mitigate truck waiting times during harvest.
In more recent years it’s the possibilities of robotics in agriculture that has captured his attention.
“About eight years ago I started talking to a friend in The Netherlands who made autonomic mowers for golf courses,” he explains. “I thought, I could do this for a tractor.”
While his friend thought he was joking, Gerrit wasted no time modifying and applying the technology on own tractor.
“The first year it was working, but not 100 percent reliable, it would stop a lot – even for a lone sorghum stalk – so it took a bit of perfecting.”
Gerrit with Beefwood manager, Glenn Coughlan, Pam and Rabobank NSW Marketing Manager, Eileen van Dulm in Beefwood’s 24/25 early summer sorghum crop.
Over the next four years, Gerrit improved the technology, adding the system to two of his existing tractors for tramline renovations and spot spraying up to 1,000 hectares automatically, working 24/7.
He collaborated with his Dutch friend on years of research and development, before his friend’s company unexpectedly sold the technology.
He laments that this technology has currently been withdrawn from development, with even his own systems removed, however he believes the innovation will inevitably reappear in the coming years.
“Whether it’s government regulations, safety issues – or simply the idea of having 20 tonne autonomous tractors running around – there’s no place this technology is better placed than out here in our wide, open Australian landscapes,” Pam believes.
“We would have field days here on farm, and visitors would step out in front of the tractor to take a photo and it would stop instantly, the technology was so precise.”
In Germany and The Netherlands, Pam explained that autonomous systems with geofencing are still in development, “everyone wants them, and there are ways of making them work safely.”
With farmers globally looking to increase efficiencies, and struggling for labour, they are disappointed the systems have been removed, and believe now is the perfect time for Australia to leverage the technology.
Undeterred, purpose-built robotic machines are Gerrit’s new frontier, with their development and adoption already widespread in the horticultural industry.
Beefwood is currently trialling an autonomic, purpose-built spot sprayer and tram-line renovator from The Netherlands, its futuristic Mad Max-like form potentially the future aesthetic of farm machinery.
Pam, Gerrit and Glenn with an autonomic, purpose-built spot sprayer and tram-line renovator.
“It hasn’t been as successful as we’d hoped, we need something bigger for the Australian landscape, but you learn from that, and every year there is something different, so this is an exciting development,” Gerrit smiles.
Increasing efficiencies, and agricultural sustainability
Their soil is Gerrit and Pam’s greatest asset, and they go to great lengths to look after it well.
The greatest advancement made in recent years, they believe, is the reduction of chemical use in cropping.
“We bought our first spot sprayer from Hayes in Goondiwindi, manufactured locally, 18 years ago, purpose-built,” Gerrit explains.
Camera technology enables precision weed detection, with ‘green on brown spraying’ ensuring any green spot in the paddock gets sprayed – rather than the traditional practice of the whole paddock being sprayed.
“Today we use about 10 percent of chemicals compared to what we would have, which is an enormous saving straight away,” Pam explains.
“It’s an obvious win, you save so much in chemical-usage, and in that cost buying a new spray rig with that technology is a no-brainer on large farms.”
Pam and Gerrit at ‘Beefwood’.
Proud of Gerrit’s impact on the industry, she reveals that he is currently helping develop the next generation of systems using AI.
“Gerrit has put a lot of effort into helping develop a spray rig capable of distinguishing between different plants – ‘green on green’ technology, which is where AI will be a valuable tool to help tighten spraying parametres.”
In terms of machinery efficiency – whether it’s moisture and protein measuring from the header cab, or the automatic adjustment of quality sampling as it comes in, Gerrit is buoyed by the possibilities of AI.
Teams of people access ‘Beefwood’ annually, largely from Europe, testing and supporting the development of these systems and creating the algorithms used globally.
For Glenn, managing “Beefwood” and working with Gerrit has, he smiles, “been a very exciting ride”.
A long-term partnership for success, Gerrit and Glenn.
“We’ve tried so many things over the years, some we continue with, some we put aside.”
Glenn has managed Beefwood for the past 18 years, and reflects that it’s been enormously rewarding working with such an open-minded, progressive landholder such as Gerrit.
A glimpse inside Gerrit’s futuristic machinery shed.
A few research trips to Europe over the years prove an added bonus.
As Pam predicted, their semi-retirement travelling the globe gliding was cast aside for their farming adventures, and an initial plan to spend half the year in Europe and half in Australia also didn’t stick.
Today, Gerrit and Pam are Australian citizens, and still find time to indulge in their love of gliding, both remain involved and capable gliders.
Gerrit’s daughter is increasingly involved in the operation, helping underpin the future of the operation
Their Rabobank manager, Bruce Alcorn, out of the Toowoomba branch, has also been a long-term part of their planning,
Rabobank a constant through decades of change
Having banked with Rabobank for his lifetime in The Netherlands, and now in Australia, Gerrit is possibly one of the world’s longest-served Rabobank clients.
As a schoolboy, Gerrit recalls putting his pocket money on his savings book at the Boerenleenbank – translated to the ‘farmers-bank’ in the days prior to its Rabobank name change.
Briefly switching banks in Australia, Pam admits they were relieved to return to Rabobank, and have enjoyed working with Bruce for the past 18 years.
Margot, Pam and Gerrit at a RaboTruck event in Moree.
“The beauty of working with Rabobank, is that it does seem to have a different approach to banking - It’s just so transparent and straightforward – they don’t try to get in the way of us doing business.”
“We have a great relationship with Bruce, he’s been our bank manager for such a long time and is genuinely interested. He knows us, trusts us and helps us when we ask – and sometimes at very short notice!” Pam laughs.
Gerrit harvesting with his father in 1956.