Farm family embrace change

Embracing social media, changing their production system and saving tens of thousands of dollars are some of the benefits Amelup's Marcus and Shannon Sounness have seen after taking part in the first ever Meat and Livestock Australia Challenge.

The MLA Challenge was launched last year and the Sounness family came third overall.

As part of the challenge, six farming families from across the country participated in a 12-month program with the aim of improving their business through the use of mentoring, setting benchmarks and using research outcomes.

Kojonup farmer and 2010 Nuffield Scholar Rob Warburton mentored the family as part of the program.

"I firmly believe a mentor program should be rolled out wider in the industry, young farmers should pursue it and the industry should facilitate it," Mr Sounness said.

From the benefits the Sounnesses have had, they hope the challenge continues to provide the benefits for other young farmers.

"We decided to turn off our lambs as 35-40kg shippers instead of 50kg prime merinos," Mr Sounness said.

"We calculated we could save as much as $40,000 per year in feed costs for our ewes. We changed our focus to production per hectare rather than chasing a high dollar-per-head market."

Participants also delved into the digital world though blogging about their experiences.

Mrs Sounness topped the charts with the most popular blog on the challenge.

"I had no idea how important social media could be … it's a real easy way to improve the image of agriculture and farmers like learning things from other farmers," she said.