Thurla Farmes, Mildura, Victoria
Colin Beasley was born in Mildura, Victoria, in 1955. His parents Roy & Vern were farmers at Merinee South where Col was bought up; where in the 50’s their property had no electricity or other conveniences.
Col started schooling at Merbein South Primary School which was 55km bus ride leaving at 7.30am in the morning and returning at 5pm at night. In 1965 Col’s family moved closer to the town of Koorlong, 15 km outside of Mildura, where Col completed a professional agriculture course through his technical High School.
At the end of 1970 Col left school to work on the farm, working on his parents farm initially, and at the same time share-farming another property, then in 1974 he bought shares in this property. In March 1977 Col and Karyn were married and in august 1978 had their first child Travis.
In 1980 Col purchased and moved to the property at Thurla, and in the same year their second son Brad was born and in 1983 their daughter Rebecca was born.
Col continued to improve this property and subsequently purchased 5 other properties surrounding the original property.
In 1995 Col then took a major step introducing horticulture into Thurla Farms, which incorporated overseas travel for marketing purposes to 8-9 different countries. The farm has now expanded to in excess of 3000 acres of irrigated crops.
In the early 2000’s Col looked at introducing fish farming into the enterprises using their existing water storage dams. Col, together with his sons developed a method of growing fish in what was essentially a lot-feed underwater for fish, later patenting the system to build the industry.
In the early 1980’s Colin Beasley took up a hobby of driving racecars at the speedway, initially in sedans then moving into sprintcars, and for 25 yrs continued this sport amassing hundreds of trophies around Australia with 9 State Titles. Col also has been involved in a top fuel drag car business where he became Crew Chief for Darren Morgan Racing for the past 3 years.
Col enjoys working with his family and entertaining his grandchildren on the farm.
