Greg Thomas runs a mixed farming enterprise alongside his wife Linda and Mother-in-law Maree. They have 4000 hectares of land in Gubbata, about 87 kilometres northwest of West Wyalong, in the Central West of NSW.
Greg predominantly grows wheat and barley across 1700Ha of red sandy loam soil, in mallee country. The family also runs 6700 Merino ewes and lambs.
They decided to strategically increase their on-farm storage capacity to safeguard themselves against potential further closures of GrainCorp sites in their local area. It comes as facilities in nearby towns Ungarie, Weethalle, and Rankins Springs have all closed in recent years.
“I personally think it’s inevitable they’ll close Kikoira too, which is our main delivery site. It differs every season as to how much grain they’re willing to take and how many available workers they have. If it were to close, we’d have to cart our grain 45 to 70 kilometres away, instead of 15 to 20 kilometres,” said Greg.
The investment was a no-brainer, and one that would give them more control and flexibility of their marketing.
Greg heard about Allied Grain Systems through West Wyalong farmers Darren and Paul McCaskie, who installed several AGS flat-bottomed silos back in 2019. The brothers gave them a rundown on the setup, which Greg described as simple and effective.
“Price wise, Allied was more than competitive and they were the only company to actually get back to us. I spoke to one competitor at AgQuip who told me there was no point in chatting further as they were booked out for a year and a half. Another manufacturer never got back to me after saying they would send out a quote,” said Greg.
Allied went above and beyond to lock in a build of two 30’-14’ sealed silos in record time. They were ordered in February 2023 and initially due to be installed after harvest, however a vacancy popped up in the April schedule and the Allied team leapt into action.
“We managed to quickly organise earthworks so the concreters Muzz and Donna could complete the slab. They are bloody hard workers and had smiles on their faces the whole time. Justin and his build team rocked up two days later, on the Easter Long weekend. They started building them on Sunday, which was a public holiday. I was amazed. Everyone knew their role and knew it well. There was no discontent between the workers, they just got on with the job and had it completed within about 2 weeks. I cannot fault them at all. I was so impressed!”
Greg says the ‘23 harvest was trouble free because of the new silos.
“It was great. We were filling contracts down at Kikoira as well, so I had one truck running down there and one truck filling a silo here. It was just simple. The headers didn’t stop. It was time efficient. We didn’t have to run our machinery harder to keep up like we usually would.”
Like many farmers, Greg says he likes to be prepared for potential drought and store some product for his livestock.
“At the moment we probably have four to five hundred tonnes of barley and oats on hand, just as a reserve and as the season pans out, if it’s not required, we have the option to sell it off.”
Greg says thankfully the growing conditions have been perfect this year.
“We have had a really good start. We’ve reached our average yearly total already; we’ve had about 410 millimetres. It’s looking good.”
We asked Greg to rate Allied Grain Systems in three key categories. What did he think?
