GROWING up on his mother's stories of running cattle, sheep and wheat on her parents' farm, Bruce Arkins yearned for a life on the land.
But the city boy could only imagine wrangling livestock and harvesting grain, as his mother, who grew up at Narrabri in northern NSW, had relocated to Sydney.
A debilitating drought and then a vicious fire devastated the farm when his mother was still young, effectively forcing the family from the land.
Bruce yearned to return to his roots, to work the soil and raise cattle - the country was in his blood. It beckoned him, and would eventually lead him back.
He grew up and married Penny in 1973. In 1977, at age 22, he used his savings to purchase his first small crops and grazing farm on the Sunshine Coast.
Although cattle and produce were his livelihood, it was really his young family who were raised on the farm and who grew close together.
Over the years, Bruce and Penny's children worked on the farm, completing the tasks and responsibilities associated with growing up on the land.
Jonny, Bruce's youngest son, loved the challenge and reward of working the land, and chose to join his father in running their family operations.
In 1998, after years of saving, Bruce purchased land at Greenmount, on the Southern Downs, with the intent of producing fat cattle for the domestic market.
The years brought ups and downs, as they do, but Bruce and Jonny felt that things were trending in a positive direction for them.
They felt very optimistic. In fact, in 2010 they determined that they would take their accumulated annual successes and invest in a high-marbling and trait leader for feed-efficiency bull.
This, they believed, would be a game changer and lead them on to bigger and better things.
They looked at Breedplan and DNA testing, and purchased the best bull their money could buy.
They transported the bull to their Greenmount farm and placed it in a quarantine paddock for two months.
Their plan was to let the bull acclimatise to its new surroundings before being introduced to the females in the last week of December 2010.
However, as the year's end drew nearer, the weather turned wet - very wet.
Most of the grain growing on the farm was unrecoverable. To make matters worse, the cattle weren't coping well.
Over a three-day stretch, Bruce and Jonny were alarmed when they found a few of their cattle had died.
Bruce began checking on the cattle daily to ensure their health, but notwithstanding their best efforts and to their great dread, one morning after a particularly heavy rainfall, they found their prized bull dead.
It had gone down during the night, and with it went their hopes of success.
Over the next several months, Bruce and Jonny repaired the fences, rebuilt the contours, and reclaimed some of the soil that the heavy rain and flooding had damaged and washed away.
With their livelihood greatly diminished, Bruce and Jonny began cutting and hauling firewood as a way to supplement their income.
It was during a day of firewood cutting that Jonny pronounced: "Dad, I have an idea".
Jonny had been contemplating their loss and realised that others were likely experiencing similar losses.
However, through the use of genetic tools and technology, such as IVF, embryo transfer and fixed-time AI, they wouldn't need a prized bull in their pens - only its genetics. Jonny proposed the idea of creating a system, platform or interchange where studs wanting to sell genetics and cattle ranchers wishing to buy genetics could come together and find all the tools and resources necessary to complete the process.
Bruce recognised the value in Jonny's idea and together they set to work to make their idea a reality.
It has been a few years since that day, and their venture has evolved into an organisation called Genomix.
It has become a strong proponent of Australian beef genetic development, and the advancement of the image and reputation of the Australian industry through improvements in the quality of its beef genetics.
Genomix offers the services and structure first proposed by Jonny.
It is also stepping up to the task of creating Australia's first beef genetics interchange through a genetics auction at Beef 2015, which will service both a live and online bidding audience simultaneously.
This will be the first of many genetics auctions to come.
