Introducing Joe Liebenberg

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Hannaford welcomes Joe Liebenberg as the new seed treatment specialist in the Central Midlands region. 

With a family steeped in farming history and strong experience from working in a range of farm businesses, Joe is looking forward to supporting growers throughout the region. And he should look good! His wife, Dominique, owns a hairdressing business at Wongan Hills, where they are based. 

Hannaford welcomes Joe Liebenberg as the new seed treatment specialist in the Central Midlands region. 

With a family steeped in farming history and strong experience from working in a range of farm businesses, Joe is looking forward to supporting growers throughout the region. And he should look good! His wife, Dominique, owns a hairdressing business at Wongan Hills, where they are based. 

Joe is the son of a ninth generation farmer still farming today in the Western Cape of South Africa, after their family arrived and settled their originally via the Dutch East India Company. He said the region was similar to the WA wheatbelt in terms of rainfall and with plenty of gum trees. 

Joe completed a plant science university qualification and the eventual move to WA was inspired by our State’s own ‘No-Till Bill’, Bill Crabtree, when he was on a visit to South Africa, but not before Joe and Dominique, who were school sweethearts since they were 17, enjoyed some life experience. 

They spent three years in England, where Joe said it was too cold to work on farms, but he had to remain connected and so joined Young Farmers of UK, which he is still in contact with today. 

They returned to South Africa, but with farm working conditions in the country changing, Joe soon found himself working on a dairy farm with an inner rotary dairy on New Zealand’s North Island. 

They arrived in the Wongan-Ballidu Shire in WA in 2006, where Joe started on a pig farm, has since worked on grain farms and more recently managed a meticulously run grain and sheep property prior to its sale to a corporate buyer. 

Joe and Dominique gained Australian citizenship in 2008 and have two children, Zoe (6) and Owen (3). 

Joe said he would still do seasonal work on farms and enjoy that perspective, but he was now looking forward to taking over the local Hannaford business previously run by Darren and Caroline Rudley. 

“I’m attracted to running my own business and I’m a little bit particular with how I do things, so it should be good. My brother, who I also keep bees with as a hobby, calls it micro managing,’’ Joe said. 

He said the training support from Hannaford had been very thorough – “like going back to ‘uni’ and also completing on-farm chemical handling courses’’ – with all the theory, machine and product training. 

“The knowledge is very strong and a lot of people have been with Hannaford for 10-20 years, so the technical and mechanical support is excellent.’’ 

Joe has a head start, already having worked for and maintaining relationships with some farmer customers, and is now keen to expand his relationships across the region. 

He expected the tight finish to the season could prompt more “bin grading” by farmers this harvest to assist their grain sample quality, while he also encouraged them to take the opportunity of a free seed germination test with Hannaford. 

“This could be important with the dry finish to the season. It’s always good to do. If your germination is 80%, technically you could be missing 20% of your preferred seeding rate,’’ Joe said.