With the original intention of using social media to recruit employees, Narrain Pastoral Company’s online following has grown into something it never could have imagined
Sixth-generation family-run grain farm Narrain Pastoral Company, or Narrain Grain as it’s more commonly known on social media, has over 30,000 followers on its social media pages across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Posting general on-farm videos and photos of its operation, its pages have become popular with not just other farmers but also with other businesses – opening the doors for new partnerships.
Based in Oaklands, in the New South Wales Riverina, but with three other properties close by towards Savernake and Berrigan, social media is still relatively a new part of the business.
Having only started Narrain Grain’s online pages in the last five years, the original idea behind it was to recruit new employees to help the operation that grows wheat, canola, barley and corn.
“I’ve always been comfortable with social media, so I decided to create our accounts to look for employees,” managing director and social media representative Andrew Nixon says.
“I didn’t really think it would work initially, but it did, and it’s now grown into something much more than that.”
Opening doors
Now highly active on all forms of social media, ironically, Andrew originally hated the idea of TikTok.
As the social media application gained increasingly more prevalence, he decided to post Narrain Grain’s first video, which amassed more than 20,000 views.
Nixon remembers thinking ‘this isn’t so bad’ and started uploading more consistently. This was the turning point that helped Narrain Grain’s social media pages take off.
One of the biggest successes of Narrain Grain’s socials has been the way it has opened the doors to new relationships.
“A lot of people who didn’t know us before, know us now because of our social media – not just other farmers, but also other businesses,” he says.
“We managed to get onto another company that helped us manage our input costs, such as fertiliser and chemicals, a lot more effectively than what we were doing.
“Through this relationship, we’ve been able to save tens of thousands of dollars over the years.”
With 16,000 followers on Facebook, 11,000 on TikTok, and more than 6,000 on Instagram, Narrain Grain’s content focuses on videos of machinery, farming practices and interesting photos.
Andrew attributes Narrain Grain’s popularity to a lack of Australian farming content.
“There’s not a lot of channels that are actively putting out content on all the different social media platforms,” he says.
“I like seeing farm content and people showcasing what they do, and I think others do too.”
Merchandise
Since Narrain Grain has taken off, it has also established its own merchandise that has proved popular with its followers, however, the main catalyst for the merchandise was its employees.
In a similar way to how a uniform creates a sense of togetherness, Andrew says employees wanted something to wear on-farm – forming the idea of Narrain Grain’s merchandise.
With all the usual merchandise, from hoodies and truckie cups to beanies and stubbie holders, he says that everyone loves it and most of it is given back to customers as a token of appreciation.
“We’re all one big family at the company and the kids love the merchandise as well,” he says.
Family business
Apart from Andrew, at the helm of the family company also stands his father, Richard, and brother, James.
Also contributing to the business is Andrew’s wife Samantha, who is head of marketing and merchandise for the social media enterprise Narrain Grain, as well as James’ wife Tamara, who is the office manager for Narrain Pastoral Company.
Growing up on the very same farm at Oaklands, Andrew recalls learning everything from riding motorbikes and driving utes to operating tractors from a very young age.
“I harvested my first crop when I was about 10,” he says.
“I would have been about 13 when I did my first solo job with a with a tractor and harrows.”
Although he had been living on the farm full-time up until that point, it wasn’t always set in stone that Andrew wanted to continue working there.
For a long time, he thought about becoming a pilot, and eventually started working on agricultural aircraft, loading them with chemicals in Queensland.
After moving to Finley, NSW, only 60km west of the Oaklands farm, Andrew was asked to come back to help with harvest, and didn’t hesitate to support his family.
That was 14 years ago, and Andrew has stayed at Narrain Pastoral Company ever since, thanks in large part to his brother James.
“He’s nine years older than me so he’s seen many more seasons than I have,” Andrew says.
“I’ve leant on his expertise quite a lot and still do.”
Half truckie
Growing wheat, canola, barley and corn, Narrain Pastoral Company stores nearly all its harvested grain on-farm, with Andrew saying it has 25,000 tonnes worth of silo storage.
It also has a fleet of four on-road trucks and one on-farm truck that transport the grain all over NSW and Victoria, including as far as Geelong.
With two employed truck drivers, Andrew takes on the mantle as the third, driving to different locations as needed.
“I probably have a million kilometres under my belt in the truck now, and my other drivers have probably got double that,” he says.
“I like to say I’m a 50 per cent farmer and a 50 per cent truckie.”
In terms of its farm machinery fleet, the business has everything you can imagine, including three harvesters, two seeders and numerous other machines.
“The bigger the machine, the less labour we need, so we’ve worked on that strategy forever,” Andrew says.
These machines, as well as the company’s truck fleet, can be seen in action on Narrain Grain’s social media pages.
From time-to-time Andrew will also post tips to help new farmers using different machinery.
“I recently posted a video to help people get their header set up, which was well received, and I may move that way with my content to extend my reach” he says.
“At the end of the day, I’d like to help people as much as possible. A lot of the experienced farmers already have this knowledge, so I want to help the newbies out as much as I can.”
You can follow Narrain Grain on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok @narrain_grain
For more information on Narrain Pastoral Company, visit narraingrain.myshopify.com