This isn’t something I envisioned myself talking about this year, but a certain online platform has been such a talking point over the past few weeks, I couldn’t not write about it. I’m talking about OnlyFans.
Love it or hate it, OnlyFans has been a hot topic of conversation lately, and in the world of Australian agriculture, it’s been that hot thanks to Farmer Belle, after she was voted Queensland Top Young Farmer for 2025. Congratulations, by the way!
In case you’ve missed all the articles and banter, she’s a 25-year-old woman sharing farming life online and she’s been able to fund her farming dream by being an OnlyFans creator.
For some background on OnlyFans, it is an online subscription service where a creator produces content and receives payment for posting online.
There were an estimated three million registered creators and 220 million registered users as of May 2023.
Income is sourced by charging followers, or ‘fans’, who subscribe to the content.
Consistent earnings are generated through a monthly subscription fee, and for the subscription, a user gains exclusive access to photos, live streams, direct messages and can request custom content.
And to the pointed question, is it all about nudity?
Around 70 per cent of creators post adult-only content, potentially earning $100,000 a month.
That’s a considerable yearly income.
But back to Farmer Belle, while shedding light on the ag industry, she says it’s not about telling her story, it’s about encouraging others to write their own and that anyone can be a part of the farming world.
In her own words, “as long as you have the heart and the drive, this industry has a place for you”.
She highlights the ag industry is there to feed the country, that is the goal, and her achievement is in knowing she either helped one person find their way into ag or showed how food ended up on someone’s plate.
It’s ironic there’s all this whingeing out there on corporations buying properties, and the same criticism is directed against a 25-year-old when she snaps up farms using her wealth that she built from her own business.
Suddenly, what was achieved is forgotten.
On her rise to building her farming portfolio, somehow it got lost that an Aussie young gun was purchasing Aussie farmland instead of overseas buyers or corporate investors.
It’s time to remember that broadacre farms, for example, have increased in price 131pc in 10 years and the average price per hectare is sitting around $10,000/ha.
So, to buy a $2m farm, you need a 40-50 per cent deposit – that’s $800,000 to $1m – otherwise banks won’t even sniff the business plan and cashflow forecast you meticulously put together to prove you can make the purchase successful.
How are young people meant to save that kind of money?
On the pastoral award level one, a farm and livestock hand earns roughly $50,000 annually.
The average annual salary for a farm manager is $90,000 to $110,000.
After you’ve entered the industry and gained experience and you’re ready to buy your own place, somewhere in the middle of that, you were expected to save $1m?
This is how we lose our young people, and as Belle puts it, “it speaks bloody volumes that I had to go down that route of doing OnlyFans to fund my own properties.”
- Libbe Paton, a director at Future Farmers Network and a beef producer in the Mitta Valley, Victoria
