Jack high

The Australian winner of the 2025 Zanda McDonald Award is farmer Jack O’Connor, from Harden, NSW.

Story + Photos Ken Eastwood 

When Jack O’Connor won the esteemed Zanda McDonald Award in March this year, the judges said they were particularly taken with how genuine he was. Although perhaps not as polished or rehearsed as some of the other outstanding candidates, he came across as full of integrity and mindful of his place in the world. “They actually said I say ‘mate’ too much when I’m public speaking,” Jack laughs. “I’ve got to pull that back a little.”

A manager on his family’s sprawling 8,000ha mixed farming operation Oxton Park, between Harden and Young in NSW, Jack won the award, alongside New Zealand mussels grower Maegen Blom, for his drive to make a positive impact in agriculture and in his community – with plenty of runs on the board already at the age of 33.

“He was unexpected,” says Zanda McDonald Award board member and judge Prue Bondfield. “Jack was raw, but high integrity. We loved the fact he was there to say, ‘How am I going to take this opportunity to change someone’s life, or my own life?’ He has a depth about him that few people of that age have. He has a sensitivity to other people and sort of a quiet confidence. To us, he seemed like the innovator – the young kid who’s come home from overseas and now has come back as a mature young person and said, ‘If we’re going to make this work in the next generation, we need to do some things.’”

Another judge, Col Medway, described him as very selfless. “Enthusiasm is probably number one, and he’s really up and about, not just working with the future of his own family business, but is mindful of his role in contributing to the wider industry as well. But it’s not just industry, it’s his community and the group of people he works with. For example, he and a small group got the local rugby club back going when it had a hiatus.”

Chatting with Jack on Oxton Park, on an 8°C soggy winter’s day, with week-old lambs on the ground and the paddocks of canola, triticale and wheat a lush green interspersed with giant granite boulders and towering gums, it’s clear he is most keen to promote everyone but himself – whether some of the 20 workers in the business, family members who have come before, or others in the community who have great operations. “This isn’t my farm – I’m just a representative of four generations and the people who work here,” he says. “But what an opportunity to live here, bring up a family and grow a business. Don’t waste it! It’s really second to none to live in a place like this.”

Jack’s past includes everything from working with farmers in Uganda and playing rugby in Ireland to setting up and running an ongoing Active Farmers fitness group for the Harden community at 6am on Thursdays. He says his desire to help other people comes from seeking out “perspective”, and it was directly instilled in him by his family and during his high school years at Saint Ignatius College Riverview, where a school value is ‘A man for others’. “It comes from my parents, and that probably comes from their parents,” he says. “In these small communities you can’t just sit around and wait for someone else to do it.”