After almost 70 years in the wool industry, it’s the friendships that keep David Morgan travelling to farms and towns across country Victoria.
The newly-minted Order of Australia Medalist (OAM) attended wool auctions up until COVID-19 hit and at 88 he still heads out a few days a month to class flocks and purchase rams for clients.
“With some farmers I go five generations back,” the Newtown great-grandfather said.
“It’s mainly the people but it’s also lovely to see the improvement in the flocks I’ve been involved with.”
Mr Morgan began working as a rouseabout in shearing sheds in the early ’50s before joining English-owned wool broker Australian Estates.
He spent his early years at the company as wool traveller, visiting farms and rural towns across Victoria.
He saw medium merino wool prices plummet as low as 20 cents per kilogram in the early ’70s and rise to $20 a decade later, on his way to becoming the company’s chief wool valuer and auctioneer.
“Farmers are the most resilient people I’ve ever met,” he said.
“Never knowing really what price they is going to get for their commodity.”
Mr Morgan joined Dalgety’s in 1981 and moved to Geelong in 2006, assessing hundreds of thousands of wool lots at thousands of auctions during his career.
Now a top wool advisor for Nutrien Ag Solutions, he was “very humbled and honoured” to receive an OAM.
“I was just so chuffed that somebody out there thought I was deserving of such an accolade,” he said.
“I’ve always found my job rewarding and have been lucky to do something I’m passionate about.”
