Cream of
the country
He still prefers horseback to boardrooms, but Bryce Camm
is no traditional cattleman
Cream
of the
country
He still prefers horseback to boardrooms, but Bryce Camm
is no traditional cattleman
Bryce Camm sits deep in the saddle, a well-worn felt hat shielding him from the Queensland sun. His favourite mare, Beanie, responds to the slightest pressure of his spurs or a tug on the reins. Man, horse and cattle move as one, kicking up dust as they cross the country.
He could have ridden straight from the pages of the Australian cattleman’s handbook, but Bryce is anything but traditional. The fourth-generation cattleman is contemplating dairy.
The Camm Agricultural Group board has commissioned a detailed feasibility study, including costings and market analysis, to investigate whether dairy could become the next chapter for the $350 million agribusiness.
They are down to brass tacks. And diesel tax.
Queensland imports about 290 million litres of milk each year.
The Sunshine State’s growing population and reliance on milk produced interstate are part of the opportunity. So too is the infrastructure already embedded in the Camm operation.
The group has irrigation technology, feed manufacturing capacity and decades of experience in cattle nutrition and management. They would need a fully automated dairy, a new or retrained workforce and a herd. It’s not chickenfeed. Or in this case, cow chow.
“It’s a $30 million investment,” Bryce says.
“We know how to drive nutrition and feed cattle; we don't know anything about how to milk.”
Queensland imports about 290 million litres of milk each year.
The Sunshine State’s growing population and reliance on milk produced interstate are part of the opportunity.
So too is the infrastructure already embedded in the Camm operation. The group has irrigation technology, feed manufacturing capacity and decades of experience in cattle nutrition and management.
They would need a fully automated dairy, a new or retrained workforce and a herd. It’s not chickenfeed. Or in this case, cow chow.
“It’s a $30 million investment,” Bryce says.
“We know how to drive nutrition and feed cattle; we don't know anything about how to milk.”
But the investment is about more than simply expanding the herd. The group has bought plug-in hybrid electric utes – still an unusual sight on a major cattle operation – and is in the process of converting its milling operations from diesel to woodchip, sourced from Camm properties.
The shift is expected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while reducing the operation’s reliance on fossil fuels.
But the investment is about more than simply expanding the herd. The group has bought plug-in hybrid electric utes – still an unusual sight on a major cattle operation – and is in the process of converting its milling operations from diesel to woodchip, sourced from Camm properties.
The shift is expected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while reducing the operation’s reliance on fossil fuels.
For Bryce, it is another example of the balancing act: finding ways to make the business more sustainable without compromising its commercial future.
For generations, Australia's beef and dairy industries have kept to their own paddocks. Bryce thinks there is plenty they could learn from each other.
For Bryce, it is another example of the balancing act: finding ways to make the business more sustainable without compromising its commercial future.
“They’re all cattle, right?” he says.
He has spent years advocating for greater collaboration between the two industries, particularly in research and development. Eventually, he decided there might be a better way to test the idea.
“I've tried it at an industry level and I've kind of gone, ‘shelve that’. Let's just go and kind of do it ourselves in Camm Ag world.”
The opportunity isn't simply about producing milk. It is about bringing the knowledge, technology and efficiencies of two cattle industries together.
The very nature of dairy production ensures farmers are hands-on with their cattle twice a day. They can map changes in genetics, nutrition and management in real time. New approaches can be tested and can produce relatively rapid results.
Beef is a longer game.
The concept is revolutionary precisely because it is so obvious. Bryce believes the knowledge gained from dairy around genetics, cow management and efficiency could ultimately feed back into the group's beef operations.
“We're really keen to explore that crossover,” he says.
The dairy idea makes more sense when you understand what Camm Agricultural Group has become.
The group now spans about 450,000 hectares, with around 90,000 cattle, including 30,000 breeding cows. There is a 25,000-head feedlot, about 30,000 acres of cropping, cotton production and operations stretching across six major hubs. Three years ago, the group sold about 12,000 head of cattle a year. In 2026 it expects to sell more than 100,000.
The group is three years into a 10-year strategic plan designed to build what he describes as the “engine room” of the business.
Land holdings have expanded. Irrigation has been developed. Feedlot capacity has increased. Cropping and assisted backgrounding have become increasingly important.
For generations, Australia's beef and dairy industries have kept to their own paddocks. Bryce thinks there is plenty they could learn from each other.
“They’re all cattle, right?” he says.
He has spent years advocating for greater collaboration between the two industries, particularly in research and development. Eventually, he decided there might be a better way to test the idea.
“I've tried it at an industry level and I've kind of gone, ‘shelve that’. Let's just go and kind of do it ourselves in Camm Ag world.”
The opportunity isn't simply about producing milk. It is about bringing the knowledge, technology and efficiencies of two cattle industries together.
The very nature of dairy production ensures farmers are hands-on with their cattle twice a day. They can map changes in genetics, nutrition and management in real time. New approaches can be tested and can produce relatively rapid results.
Beef is a longer game.
The concept is revolutionary precisely because it is so obvious. Bryce believes the knowledge gained from dairy around genetics, cow management and efficiency could ultimately feed back into the group's beef operations.
“We're really keen to explore that crossover,” he says.
The dairy idea makes more sense when you understand what Camm Agricultural Group has become. The group now spans about 450,000 hectares, with around 90,000 cattle, including 30,000 breeding cows. There is a 25,000-head feedlot, about 30,000 acres of cropping, cotton production and operations stretching across six major hubs.
Three years ago, the group sold about 12,000 head of cattle a year. In 2026 it expects to sell more than 100,000.
The group is three years into a 10-year strategic plan designed to build what he describes as the “engine room” of the business.
Land holdings have expanded. Irrigation has been developed. Feedlot capacity has increased. Cropping and assisted backgrounding have become increasingly important.
The business has become more sophisticated about managing its cash flow and working capital.
Cattle offtake, once considered seasonally, is now managed week by week.
The objective is greater predictability in an industry where weather, markets and commodity prices can change quickly.
For all the strategic plans, board meetings and capital decisions, Bryce still knows exactly where he would rather be.
“100 percent, my happiest day is on a horse or drafting a mob of cattle.”
The irony is that those days are becoming harder to come by.
The business has become more sophisticated about managing its cash flow and working capital.
Cattle offtake, once considered seasonally, is now managed week by week.
The objective is greater predictability in an industry where weather, markets and commodity prices can change quickly.
For all the strategic plans, board meetings and capital decisions, Bryce still knows exactly where he would rather be.
“100 percent, my happiest day is on a horse or drafting a mob of cattle.”
The irony is that those days are becoming harder to come by. The man in the photograph may look like the archetypal Australian cattleman, but the job has become something very different. Bryce rotates between six properties on a weekly basis. He spends time with executives, staff, industry bodies and government. There are boardrooms and committees. There are conversations about working capital, supply chains, investment and risk.
The man in the photograph may look like the archetypal Australian cattleman, but the job has become something very different.
Bryce rotates between six properties on a weekly basis. He spends time with executives, staff, industry bodies and government. There are boardrooms and committees. There are conversations about working capital, supply chains, investment and risk.
And, yes, there is a jet.
The day we arrived at the Wonga Plains feedlot, 17km from Bowenville on the Darling Downs, Bryce had flown in from the group’s Charters Towers cattle station. He jetted off that afternoon to attend an industry event.
Time up in the clouds is unavoidable, but the job still happens down in the dirt.
“One of the big tricks to ag is you can have all of the money in the world or capital access in the world, but if you can't run or don't have a good connection to what's going on in the ground, it'll go pear-shaped pretty quickly.”
So, he clocks his kilometres in the combine harvester. He keeps riding. Keeps drafting cattle. Keeps getting his boots dirty.
And, yes, there is a jet.
The day we arrived at the Wonga Plains feedlot, 17km from Bowenville on the Darling Downs, Bryce had flown in from the group’s Charters Towers cattle station. He jetted off that afternoon to attend an industry event.
Time up in the clouds is unavoidable, but the job still happens down in the dirt.
“One of the big tricks to ag is you can have all of the money in the world or capital access in the world, but if you can't run or don't have a good connection to what's going on in the ground, it'll go pear-shaped pretty quickly.”
So, he clocks his kilometres in the combine harvester. He keeps riding. Keeps drafting cattle. Keeps getting his boots dirty.
At the entrance to the Camm Agricultural Group headquarters sits a rusted-out tractor that once belonged to Bryce's grandfather, Les Camm. The relic from another era of Australian agriculture is more than just retro lawn dressing, it’s a reminder that the land may endure, but agriculture never stands still.
Les started out as a cane farmer at Bloomsbury, in the Whitsunday region of Queensland.
Bryce was almost an investment banker. He swapped the red earth and scrub of his childhood home in Charters Towers for the sandstone and pine of Bond University and became the first member of his family to graduate from university, with a Bachelor of Communication (Business) and a Bachelor of Business Administration.
His original plan was not to return immediately to the family cattle business. Then his mother Judy suffered a serious horse-riding accident.
Bryce returned to Charters Towers, initially thinking he would stay for about six months before returning for his graduation ceremony. His father David had other plans.
“He told me to pack a few work clothes, and I could help out at the feedlot,” Bryce recalls.
“I think it was part of his cunning plan to get me to move to the feedlot and start running that part of the business.”
The six months became a career.
When David passed away three years ago, Bryce became chief executive and the sole family member working full-time in the business. It was a defining moment.
The family enterprise his grandfather had helped build was now entering another stage of its evolution.
The business needed to become less dependent on individual family members and more reliant on people, systems and structure. That meant building an executive team. It meant delegating. It meant making decisions based not just on what had always worked, but on what would work at a much larger scale.
At the entrance to the Camm Agricultural Group headquarters sits a rusted-out tractor that once belonged to Bryce's grandfather, Les Camm.
The relic from another era of Australian agriculture is more than just retro lawn dressing, it’s a reminder that the land may endure, but agriculture never stands still.
Les started out as a cane farmer at Bloomsbury, in the Whitsunday region of Queensland.
Bryce was almost an investment banker.
He swapped the red earth and scrub of his childhood home in Charters Towers for the sandstone and pine of Bond University and became the first member of his family to graduate from university, with a Bachelor of Communication (Business) and a Bachelor of Business Administration.
His original plan was not to return immediately to the family cattle business.
Then his mother Judy suffered a serious horse-riding accident.
Bryce returned to Charters Towers, initially thinking he would stay for about six months before returning for his graduation ceremony.
His father David had other plans.
“He told me to pack a few work clothes, and I could help out at the feedlot,” Bryce recalls.
“I think it was part of his cunning plan to get me to move to the feedlot and start running that part of the business.”
The six months became a career.
When David passed away three years ago, Bryce became chief executive and the sole family member working full-time in the business.
It was a defining moment.
The family enterprise his grandfather had helped build was now entering another stage of its evolution.
The business needed to become less dependent on individual family members and more reliant on people, systems and structure.
That meant building an executive team. It meant delegating. It meant making decisions based not just on what had always worked, but on what would work at a much larger scale.
The result is a business that today looks very different from the one Bryce returned to after university.
But there is still a thread connecting the two.
Bryce’s office at the feedlot is only a few hundred metres from the processing yards. When a five-year cash-flow trajectory becomes too complicated, he jokes, drafting cattle can be a good way to clear his head. From there, the scale of the operation is impossible to ignore.
Trucks and tractors are constantly on the move. Semi-trailers queue outside the front gate, waiting to make their way onto the property, across the weighbridge and into the operation before heading out again with another load.
The weighbridge is in almost constant use.
It is nothing like the farm life you might imagine from the outside. This is a vast, highly organised logistics operation, with cattle, feed, machinery and people moving in a carefully choreographed flow. And Bryce is at the centre of it.
For all the cattle, capital and machinery, Bryce still draws regularly on his communication degree.
“Business is business,” he says.
“But I think some of those learnings around interpersonal comms and dealing with people and some of the harder conversations, the crucial conversations you've got to have in a business sense, they're probably some of the biggest pieces.”
His leadership extends well beyond the family business. Bryce spent 12 years on the board of the Australian Lot Feeders' Association, including three as chair, and now serves on the board of Cattle Australia.
He has contributed to industry advocacy, policy and decisions around research and development funding.
He has also chaired Beef Australia, the triennial Rockhampton event that attracts about 120,000 people and generates an estimated $120 million economic impact for Queensland.
In 2026, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the beef cattle industry, to horse sports, and to the community. He had been tipped off a few days prior but aside from feeling incredibly humbled and grateful for the recognition, he expected to pass the King’s Birthday like any other day on the farm.
June 8 dawned cold and clear at Wonga Plains. The mercury barely nudged 5C when the rooster crowed. As the sun rose, it revealed a perfect winter day – and brought with it a wave of support he never saw coming, and a headache he could have done without.
“I didn’t really expect to hear from anyone,” he says.
“It was funny because the generator broke and I really needed to get it fixed, and the phone kept ringing.
“It was just all these people who were genuinely thrilled for me and wanted to let me know, and their words were lovely, but they weren’t getting the bloody generator fixed.”
For Bryce, however, leadership in agriculture is ultimately about more than cattle. It is about people.
“We've always been big believers that if you want a better community, it takes everyone to chip in and make that happen,” he says.
That philosophy is embedded in the Camm Group's approach to regional communities and its workforce.
Grain they can’t grow for the feedlot is sourced from neighbouring farms. Cattle they don’t breed are bought from local producers.
In 2026, Bryce bought the local pub in Bowenville. As we enjoyed a prime rib fillet straight off the Wonga Plains production line, the place slowly filled with familiar faces wearing Camm Agricultural Group work shirts and trucker caps.
Recently, the inaugural Wonga Plains Cup campdraft was held at the newly constructed arena on the property. It is a nod to Bryce’s passion for campdrafting. But, like all his decisions, it was strategic.
Megan McDonald started with the group in 2015 as a general farmhand, rising through the ranks to become livestock manager. Then Bryce had another idea.
Over the years, bikes and buggies had taken over from horses on the massive cattle stations in the north. Bryce wanted to return to the old ways of skilled stockmen on horseback, working cattle with well-trained dogs.
A campdraft is the perfect way to identify new riders. And he can back his ideals up with figures. A good horse will work for 15 years in harmony with cattle and, unlike a bike, has instincts of its own.
Megan was appointed Head of Horses. Her job was to build a team of stock horses for work and some for play too.
Beanie was one of the first. In 2025, she and Bryce won a campdraft at Dalby. Now her bloodline is being carried into the next generation, with her embryos transferred to surrogate mares while Beanie remains free to do what she loves best: work cattle with her master.
Bryce is particularly optimistic about the future of country Australia. Too often, he says, agriculture and regional towns are described as being in decline. He sees something different.
“It's exciting to see regions grow because families are investing or doing good business.”
And there is another reason for optimism.
“Country is cool at the moment.”
Country music is booming. Pubs from Byron to Beechmont to Bowenville are packed on line-dancing nights. Western fashion has gone mainstream. The huge success of the hit series Yellowstone has made ranch life aspirational for millions of people who have never been within cooee of a cattle station.
Bryce sees that as more than a passing trend. Popular culture can introduce agriculture to young people who have no family connection to it. That visibility can create curiosity, and curiosity can become a career.
“Some of the best members of our team are kids or adults that had never experienced life on the land before they joined us,” he says.
“They've discovered a passion for it, and they bring new ideas to it.”
The Camm Agricultural Group's Future Roots program is designed to turn that curiosity into opportunity.
In 2026, more than 100 people applied for 16 positions in the 12-month program, which takes participants through six month-long rotations across the business before allowing them to spend the second half of the year specialising in an area of interest. It is an investment in the next generation of agricultural workers. But it is also a reflection of Bryce's broader view of the industry.
Unlike Yellowstone patriarch John Dutton, who won the governorship of Montana on the slogan “I am the opposite of progress, I am the wall it bashes against,” Bryce is always looking ahead. The world’s population is growing. Demand for high-quality, nutrient-dense food is increasing.
In the United States and Brazil, cattle country is being swallowed by urban sprawl and high-value crops. Australia has something increasingly valuable: the land, expertise and scale to help feed the world. But only if agriculture can continue to evolve.
The challenge is to produce more efficiently, use resources intelligently and attract the capital, technology and people needed to keep Australian agriculture competitive. That means respecting what has worked before without becoming trapped by it.
The next frontier may be dairy. It may be a branded product that carries the Camm name all the way to the consumer. It may be new crops, new technology, or even new ways of investing in agriculture — perhaps one day allowing investors to buy a stake in an individual cow. Or it may be a new generation of people discovering that a career in agriculture can take them almost anywhere.
Bryce may still be happiest on horseback. But he is always looking over the next fence.
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