Farrer, William (1845-1906), became known as the father of the Australian wheat industry because of his pioneering work in breeding new varieties of wheat.
William James Farrer was born April 3, 1845, in the village of Docker, in Westmorland, England, where his father was a tenant farmer. He won a scholarship to Cambridge University, from which he received a degree in mathematics in 1868. Farrer wanted to become a doctor, but he abandoned this goal when he discovered he had tuberculosis. In 1870, he sailed for Australia, hoping that a better climate would help ease his condition.
Farrer worked as a country surveyor until he had saved enough money to buy a farm. In 1886, he bought a sheep farm called Lambrigg, near present-day Canberra. There, he experimented in breeding different varieties of wheat that would suit the Australian climate. He called his most famous variety Federation to mark the foundation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901. Federation was a cross between Purple Straw and Yandilla, itself produced by crossing Canadian Improved Fife with an Indian variety, Etawah. The new variety of wheat resisted storm damage, drought, and the fungus disease known as rust. Its high yield extend Australia’s wheat belt into previously marginal land. The wheat proved extremely popular with Australian farmers. It was also adopted in India and in the United States. It was not until the 1920’s that a better wheat was bred to replace it. Farrer’s high-yielding wheat greatly increased Australian farmers’ incomes.
In 1898, Farrer was appointed as wheat experimentalist in the New South Wales Department of Agriculture. By the time of his death on April 16, 1906, he was an internationally famous scientist.
