Imagine you’re known as the best maker of horse-drawn carts in town; that is, until the day one of your competitors pulls up in a motor car. That’s one way of imagining the technology deficit that agricultural spraying equipment manufacturer Goldacres has overcome.

That was back in the late 1990s, when the family-owned business had spent two decades developing a sought-after range of trailable sprayers manufactured at its small factory in St Arnaud in central Victoria.

“We could see a massive trend shift as self-propelled sprayers started coming from Europe and America,” recalls Stephen Richards, who with brother Roger now runs the business founded by their father, John Richards.

As these tractor-like machines gained, well, traction with Aussie farmers, it would certainly have been easier for Goldacres to import such a highly complex product. But that’s not what it did.

“Our philosophy is, if it doesn’t look that hard, we’ll do it ourselves,” explains Stephen, with classic regional Australian understatement.

And so Roger – a newly graduated mechanical engineer – began sketching a design for a bespoke chassis, to which he added a Cummins engine, Allison transmission, CLAAS cabin and a customised Goldacres sprayer.

In around two years, the company assembled its own self-propelled sprayer – an achievement akin to building a car from scratch. “That was Roger’s first project, and it was a pretty mean feat,” Stephen recalls.

Goldacres even improved on the industry-standard design, choosing a mechanical drive over the hydrostatic one favoured by most international brands. “We thought that suited our conditions better, and that’s the foundation for what we use today,” says Stephen, who is also Goldacres’ marketing manager.

Solving one problem precipitated another, as Goldacres needed extra space to assemble its new product range. Once again, the best answer wasn’t the easy one. The company shifted its entire manufacturing base to Ballarat, 130 kilometres away – a move that not only boosted manufacturing capacity but also employment prospects and material supply.

“Where we’ve succeeded is being able to react fairly quickly and give the market what they want,” Stephen says. “We just focus on sprayers. We make three models of self-propelled and 11 versions of trailing sprayers. We make them to suit Australian conditions, and I guess that’s paid off.”

While the company’s manufacturing base is now firmly rooted in Ballarat on a 13-acre site – “We’d double it if we could,” Stephen says – Goldacres still has a presence in St Arnaud, its former factory and sales centre converted into a dedicated Goldacres dealership. “In hindsight, it’s probably been the best thing for that dealership we’ve ever done,” Stephen says. “They’ve got something like 400 customers.”

Another key factor has been NAB’s support. “NAB are probably a step above everyone else,” Stephen says. “They just understand the ag businesses a bit better than other banks. They’re local and they’re just easy to get along with.”

That respect runs both ways, says Nicole Hoogland, the Ballarat-based Senior Agribusiness Manager who has worked with Goldacres since 2023. “They’re innovative and smart, and their growth is sustainable,” she says. “They’re a cream of the crop customer.”