Last year Garryowen, a Poll Hereford stud in SA’s Mid North, marked 70 years of risk taking and breeding them tough.
Story + Photos Fiona Sewell
It started with a Facebook post. August, 2023. A suck-it-and-see punt that’s taken a 70-year-old cattle stud in an unexpected new direction. It simply invited friends to fill their freezer with farmer-direct meat, bought in bulk, and the response was immediate and profitable. The McInerney family behind it has a history of entrepreneurial spirit. Each generation has taken a risk, added something to the farming enterprise.
The current gamble has got them through a couple of dry years alongside slumping cattle prices. “How do we grow our business?” says Mark McInerney, the third generation to take custodianship of Garryowen, a Poll Hereford stud outside Riverton in SA’s Mid North. “It’s hard to double my farm’s footprint, so it’s through value adding and diversification. Then we can ride the highs and lows.”
Under an opal sky, the distinctive red beasts with white chests and faces graze lazily in the shade of gnarly old gum trees under a backdrop of green-tinged hills. Ruffy the border collie looks longingly at them, champing at the bit to round them up. “He would’ve been a great working dog,” Mark says. “He thinks he’s keeping them together, but he has no idea what the end objective is.”
Mark and wife Rachael manage the running of this multifaceted cattle and cropping enterprise with just a handful of people, including their three school-aged children. “We have a monthly meeting with a business facilitator who helps us get our crazy ideas down on paper,” explains Rachael, who is the farm’s business manager and also teaches a couple of days a week at the local kindergarten. It’s a lot to juggle, with 4,000ha spread across three blocks an hour or so away from each other.
The couple has learned to see that opportunities are like buses passing by. “We don’t need to get on them all,” she says. “Everything we do has to be a business decision, not just a feeling. The big thing is the ‘why’?”
A three-year course run through the Farm Owners Academy is helping distil the why. Unsurprisingly, it has to do with family.
This story excerpt is from issue #167
Outback Magazine: June/July 2026
