By March of 2021 the prospects for agriculture still looked bright, which was why property sales and developments became hot topics for readers.
Appearing on the cover, Alison and Scott Todd produced a story of interest when they opened up about the decision in the summer of 2017 to fully enclose their 36,420ha of country in the Bollon district.
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The couple moved to Brigalow Downs 90km south of Bollon in 2014 and walked into one of the biggest droughts on record.
At that stage they were an all-cattle operation with rangeland goats running freely on the property, and with a good reserve of mulga and cattle selling very cheaply in the Barcaldine and Blackall districts, they began building cattle numbers.
As the drought went on, their mulga didn't regenerate as well as expected, and with cattle agistment bills mounting, they decided to diversify.
Despite the financial outlay, they put 4050ha behind electric fencing in order to safely invest in sheep.
They now have 150km of exclusion fencing enclosing both their 30,350ha Brigalow Downs-Coomburrah aggregation and the 6500ha Bindebango block north of Bollon, some constructed as part of cluster schemes.
They estimated they'd spent at least half a million dollars on vermin-proof fencing in the past three years but said they'd already recouped that money in stock improvements, regardless of rain.
While some producers were building up their properties, Gina Rinehart was selling almost two million hectares of her holdings.
Seven big stations in Western Australia and the Northern Territory covering some 1.876 million hectares were on the market in what was believed the biggest single agricultural portfolio ever to be offered up in Australia.
Analysts said the sale simply made her empire, still spanning eight million hectares (after the sale), more manageable.
Ms Rinehart became one of this country's biggest beef producers in 2016 when Hancock Prospecting acquired the S Kidman and Company cattle properties for $386.5 million in a joint venture with Chinese partner Shanghai CRED.
The stations were being sold walk-in walk-out with 108,500 of cattle.
Meanwhile, the Blackall property renowned as the incubator of one of Australia's successful strains of buffel grass sold for a district record of $993/ha or almost $400 an acre.
The sale of Boorara and Castleroi, 55km north of Blackall, meant that James and Sarah Pearson had been a party to the creation of two record property sales in the district.
On the cropping front, a Brisbane-based startup creating tampons using Australian cotton was providing a potential new market for a Goondiwindi-based farming family.
Down Under Cotton, the brainchild of Kim Coskun, sourced cotton from the Newell family's Korolea Farming as part of the journey to bring the product to the market.
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Geoff Teys and Brad Teys said that after a collective 90 years of experience they would step down from their respective roles as executive director of livestock and chief executive officer.
The company's general manager of commercial, Andrew MacPherson, was set to take up position in the CEO's chair, while Geoff remained on the Teys board as director and Brad as executive chairman.
On the photo front, snaps from the Roma Picnic Races and Roma Picnic Ball were a fan favourite.
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