Nigel Kerin bio

Nigel Kerin owns and manages a cell grazing operation at Yeoval in the state’s Central West with his wife Kate, holistically managing the operations enterprises including sheep, wool, cattle trading and pasture cropping.

They also co-own Gullengamble Merino stud, where sheep are wrinkle-free so don’t require mulesing or flystrike protection, and genetics are selected for worm resistance.

Their mission statement is to produce and market high quality products in sufficient quantity to provide a good standard of living for their family.

Over the past three years, all four of the family’s properties have been subdivided into 10-12ha paddocks and watered by troughs to create 250 paddocks, which are time-control grazed.

They have moved to this system to balance environmental and profit targets.

They have achieved 100% groundcover and are now building mulch layers to achieve zero runoff from the farm.

In the past two years they have seen massive changes in the biodiversity of perennial grasses in their pastures, and are currently going through organic accreditation.

They adopted the Soft Rolling Skin (SRS) breeding principles 15 years ago to address the biggest overhead of labour, becoming the first producers in Central West NSW to adopt founder, Dr Jim Watts’, breeding principles.

Three years ago, they were the only cell graziers (holistic managers) in the district and often their management shift was seen by their peers as radical.

Nigel is a board member of the Little River Landcare Group, which was named the 2007 Champion of the Catchment Community Group and winner of the 2005 State Alcoa Landcare Award.

The family hosts two to three field days on farm each year, where Nigel actively disseminates his management experiences, such as with pasture cropping, cell grazing infrastructure and grazing management, and profitable enterprise selection.