“I’m just looking forward to spending more time doing the thing that I love, and that’s agriculture.”
Mr Jochinke is a third-generation grain and livestock farmer, and attributes his sense of community to his grandfather.
“Everyone does something, and my grandpa used to always say to me, you’ve got to be the person who you want your community to be,” he said.
“If you want to have an engaged community, you should be engaged as well. If you want something changed, you’ve got to go get it yourself. No one’s going to hand you things.
“If it comes easy, it’s probably not as rewarding as when you’ve actually had to go and be involved yourself. It’s so much better to help build something than just rest on your laurels.”
Mr Jochinke served the limit of 12 years on NFF’s board, his past two-year term as president.
“I’m definitely going to miss the organisation’s upper echelon, but it’s also been just a great honour to have had the opportunity to help lead Australian agriculture,” he said.
“We’ve had numerous issues that we’ve worked through.
“During my tenure as president, the live sheep export debate would be one of the real hallmark things that we fought, noting that it was more about the principle of defending a legitimate trade than the trade itself.
“We’ve had taxation issues, and we still have taxation issues around superannuation and conversations around trusts and how they should be operating and taxed within Australia; we’ve had issues with a nature repair bill and it going beyond the realms of protecting the environment and making it more simple to manage.
“We’ve had biosecurity levies, the debate in which we were able to stop more burden going on to agriculture.
“We’ve had issues around everything from last mile, first mile port access, harmonisation of vehicle regulation of Pacific Islander and general industrial relations, red tape increasing and trying to make it more manageable for farmers.
“And phase two of the Murray Basin plans, what we’re just shaping up at the moment, making sure that agriculture is not disadvantaged by the ad hoc purchases that the government’s proposing.
“As one would say, it’s a very issue-rich environment.”
Mr Jochinke said NFF dealt with complex issues, and he felt honoured to be part of a national team.
“The networks and the people you get to meet are amazing,” he said.
“I just pinch myself every day that I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of something that’s so important – I’m very grateful for that.”
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