It was still four months before the one-time shire deputy mayor and NSW Farmers vice president would be elected to replace president Fiona Simson as the state’s highest profile and most powerful farmer.

Looking back on his three years as the association’s president he believed the boycott was a key moment for Australian agriculture and farmers.

“The boycott at Barnawartha, I think, was a low light in agriculture but a highlight in what we achieved from it,” he said.

“We’d been working so hard with the ACCC on the JBS Primo takeover and we warned them there was consolidation in the red meat processing industry and this could become a major problem for meat producers. 

“We didn’t anticipate that a week after the ink had dried on the JBS Primo document that the boycott would be pulled in the very first sale at Barnawartha.

“I think a lot of positives came from that. The hall at Barnawartha was overflowing at the meeting we had. 

“It was a really good way of focusing and really homing in on what the problems were.”

It led to multiple inquiries, and triggered the creation of an agriculture commissioner within the ACCC, but Mr Schoen believed more needed to be done in the industry, such as a standard grid to bring transparency into pricing.

When the NSW Farmers hold their annual conference at Sydney’s Luna Park on July 24-26 Mr Schoen will not stand for re-election.

He said the collapse of Murray Goulburn was another major issue while some highlights included the re-emergence of farming as a viable career choice, driven in part by the uptake of technology on the land, and the sale of the organisations headquarters in St Leonards “for a quite handsome profit” and the looming relocation to a new 10-storey office with development potential.  

“The younger generation are coming back into agriculture now whereas before they were shunning it. It was the occupation of last resort now in a lot of cases it is the occupation of first resort … you have to be half a tech geek to be able to operate some of the equipment now,” the former aircraft engineer who was at the time working at the forefront of technology in that industry said.

“For agriculture this is our decade. We are just moving into that area with auto steer and GPS and yield mapping and things like that. It has really made agriculture a high-tech field.”

During his time in the role, the association has undergone a structural transformation which has rejuvenated a lot of branches and its 8000 members.

“It also frees up people’s time, people are becoming very time poor so endless meetings are not the way things operate nowadays, especially with the younger generation,” he said.

“They’ve got information at their fingertips through their phones so they don't want to go to a cold hall somewhere to hear what the latest technology is because they’ve been using it for two weeks before the meeting.”

Mr Schoen considered new native vegetation legislation, which is about to face a 12-month review period, as another success.

“That was a major undertaking, three and a half years work from our committee,” he said

“While I’m not 100 per cent happy with the outcome, it’s a lot better than what we were working with.

“We still have some major problems in relation to some of the codes and also the mapping but if we can get that sorted out I think it will be a workable piece of legislation.

“We didn’t want this to become a similar situation to Queensland where you had the pendulum affect that every time you had a change of government this legislation came up for re-negotiation. 

“We want a robust piece of legislation that will stand the test of time.”

The inland rail route has been another contentious issue for landholders which will draw plenty of attention at this month’s conference.

Mr Schoen said 300 properties would be dissected by the inland route.

It is up for debate while the company overseeing the project – Australian Rail Track Corporation – is hosting a breakfast and presenting during the event.

“Unfortunately it has put these people’s lives in limbo, they can’t sell because no-one wants to buy a place that’s going to be dissected by a railway line, or they will buy it but at a price,” he said.

“So their lives are just put on hold until it is resolved and we want it resolved now, not in two years’ time.

“We just want the ARTC to come out with documentation that confirms that their chosen route is the correct route. While that remains hidden the conspiracy theories are out there.

“Was this a knee-jerk decision to put the route there or is was it backed by the science and the evidence to say it is going to be the best route for inland rail?

“We’ve been able to demonstrate that by changing the route it wouldn’t affect so many landholders. Going along existing corridors would add marginally a total of 14 minutes to the 24-hour journey.

“But the less disruption that it would cause would be enormous.”

Some farms would be cut in two by the proposed route with infrastructure “on the wrong side of the tracks” making normal operations extremely difficult.

“If they produce the document that says that’s the best route we’ll accept that but we don’t want to be arguing when the first train goes on there that they still have got the wrong route,” Mr Schoen said.

Mr Schoen hoped to remain on the National Farmers Federation board following his term as state president but was looking forward to getting back on the farm, “Killeneen” a 1000 hectare operation north of Corowa which is now run by son Murk and his wife Kate.

He believed the farm would have suffered without the determination and passion of Murk and Kate, and when elected to the “full time” position as NSW Farmers president in July 2015 Mr Schoen said it was the ideal time to hand over the full time management.

“I’ll do all those jobs that he’s been putting off, the tedious ones, which I don’t mind now I’ve got time to do them,” Mr Schoen said.

“It’s the jobs that take a lot of time for very little reward but they are still important for the operation of the business.”

One thing he will not do, though, is seek out new roles apart from perhaps a board appointment or two.

“I won’t be standing for parliament or anything like that,” he said.

“There were some rumours that I was going to challenge (Member for Farrer) Sussan Ley, I thought that was rather interesting because that hadn’t entered my mind.”

Three people have signalled their intention to nominate for the presidency next month. Candidates have until the first day of the conference to nominate.