Richard Beggs' family has farmed Nareeb Nareeb for more than 100 years, and he is confident Australian agriculture has a bright future. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer It meant that the value of the property's wool clip was about $100,000 more than it would have been had prices not moved. The jump in earnings translated into significant investment in the farm for the Beggs family, who have owned and farmed Nareeb Nareeb for almost 110 years, as well as extra spending at local businesses and the purchase of a new four-wheel-drive. "We probably sold from this shearing around 50,000 kilos of wool, so it would be worth an extra $100,000 to us, from that build-up over the month," says the co-owner of Nareeb Nareeb, Richard Beggs. "That's enabled us to go and buy a couple of new bits of machinery, and upgrade a couple of vehicles and that's good for local business," he says.

Western District cattle producers Max Gubbins and his father Mark Gubbins in one of their paddocks with Jock the cattle dog. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer Sitting in an office featuring scores of ribbons won by prize-winning Nareeb Nareeb merinos over the decades, Mr Beggs is very grateful for that rain and what it meant. "Having missed the spring last year and having had such a dry autumn, it was just like a godsend for us. Because, a) we were getting the rain which was so valuable and, secondly, the wool price kept going up as we were delayed," he says. While not all woolgrowers have benefited from the higher prices due to the timing of when their flock is shorn, Mr Beggs says the price surge has flushed out wool shorn long ago.

"This rise is dragging wools out of brokers' sheds and people's woolsheds that's been sitting there for a long time. People have been producing wool from everywhere. That itself shows that there's been good demand," he says. Unexpectedly, the surge in wool prices – the industry benchmark hit a four-year high when it climbed to 1373 cents a kilogram on June 4 – is being matched by price increases in other areas of Australian agriculture. This comes despite the fact that Queensland and northern New South Wales farmers are struggling with severe drought. Cattle prices hit a record on Tuesday, when the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator reached 530.25 cents a kilogram, a staggering 57.9 per cent higher than at the same time a year ago. The boom means cattle producers are getting hundreds of dollars more for an animal than they would have got 12 months ago.

Lamb prices are also strong, while Australian cotton growers have just grown their highest yielding crop (per hectare) ever, at a time when prices are strong. And returns for broadacre crops like wheat, barley and canola delivered to Geelong are all higher than they were 12 months ago. Brent Finlay, president of the National Farmers' Federation, says Australian agriculture has an exciting future. "We're at the cusp of another great age for Australian agriculture. There are many things that we have to do to realise that, [but] the markets are there, the potential is there, a number of commodities are already seeing it with the increased demand from Asia, particularly in the red meat sector. This will flow across our other commodities," he says. "ABARES [the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences] are predicting that we'll produce $54 billion farmgate [net value] next year. In the NFF we firmly believe that over the next 15 years we will go to a $100 billion ag sector a year," he says.

The recent free trade agreements signed with China, South Korea and Japan will be a major boost to Australian agriculture, he says. The depreciating Australian dollar against the US currency will also be a significant help to local producers because it helps make our agricultural exports relatively cheaper. Australian agriculture has a crucial advantage when competing in the global market for customers – our reputation as a producer of high quality, clean, green and safe food. "That is a clear seller for us on the world stage," Mr Finlay says. Australia's reputation as a reliable producer of high quality food and agriculture's export potential are likely to feature prominently in the Federal Government's Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, expected to be released within days. Back on Nareeb Nareeb, about 50 kilometres east of Hamilton in Victoria's Western District, 47-year-old Mr Beggs also believes Australian agriculture has a bright future. Which is perhaps why a number of young people are returning to family farms, or taking up agriculture-related jobs off farms with agronomy companies, seed companies and food manufacturing businesses.

"It's exciting to see some of the younger generation return. And there are quite a lot in this area, in their mid-20s, coming back," he says. "I think they're realising that people can make money in agriculture again. "It's only really over the last five or six years that we have seen, all of a sudden, younger people coming back and getting involved," he says. Over the two decades prior to that, when things "in agriculture have been pretty tight", it was much harder for multiple generations of a family to work and make a living off the same family farm, he says. Asked if strong prices would help bring even more people back to the land, he says: "For sure. If people can make good money and live in the countryside, there are a lot of people who would prefer to live in the countryside."