SHAREFARMING took Ron Greentree from modest beginnings as a lawnmowing contractor to become Australia's biggest graingrower, but now he's giving it up.
"I've had enough of sharefarming. I'll just be farming my own country now," said the North West NSW farmer, grain exporter and former GrainCorp chairman.
After 25 years of sharefarming based on a partnership with the Harris family west of Moree, Greentree Farming will this year prune its cropping area back to about 90,000 hectares - about 20,000ha less than last year.
Up to $2 million in surplus gear from the long-running Rowena district operation will be auctioned next month, including 10 tracked and four-wheel-drive tractors, two Case IH headers, and sundry prime movers, trucks, seeding units, spray gear and grain augers.
Cropping activities at "Oreel" in partnership with local cattle, grain and cotton producer Bruce Harris laid the foundations for Mr Greentree's rapid expansion as a graingrower and leading figure in the grain industry.
His farming business now stretches from Mungindi on the NSW-Queensland border to Moree, Bellata and Coonamble where cropping shares space with a feedlot expanding to carry 5000 head.
In early 2008, Mr Greentree in partnership with Mr Harris' son Ken purchased the 47,800ha "Boolcarrol-Milton Downs" dryland farming aggregation from Twynam Pastoral for what was estimated at the time to be a sale price of $75m.
"Milton Downs" is the venue for the clearing sale that will signal the end to the Greentree-Harris sharefarming era on March 7.
"I've had a great run, but Ken wants to take over the farming side of things himself - and it was always on the cards we'd finish up some day," said Mr Greentree.
"We're not ending up with any misgivings or bad feels about the arrangement, but I'm finished with sharefarming."
His farming career started in Central West NSW mowing lawns at Canowindra, then on a leased 48ha from where he began a contract hay baling and ploughing business.
He moved north to a short introductory period of sharefarming with Harry Harris in the Coonamble district, taking a percentage of the harvest returns, then teamed up with Mr Harris' brother at Merrywinebone and later buying his first 480ha at Garah in 1985.
His business now includes a fleet of 18 harvesters, a grain marketing division and selling lotfed cattle to the 100-day grainfed Japox market from his Coonamble property "Muttama".
Machinery selling agency director Richard Skellern, at DMS Davlan, said much of the headline big gear going under the hammer next month was less than five years old.
"This is the biggest guy to have put machinery on the market for a long while. It's a big sale," Mr Skellern said.
He was handling up to 30 inquiries daily about the auction, which includes a further $1.5m worth of machinery being offered by other clients.
"There's a lot of very useful gear to be sold."