From turning sausages at a Cowra Rotary barbecue to juggling phone calls from Prime Minister John Howard and Deputy PM Tim Fischer about tariffs on US lamb imports, there isn't much Ian Donges hasn't done on a local, national and international level.
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Mr Donges has been made a Officer of the Order of Australia as a part of this year's Australia Day Honours List for "distinguished service to primary industry, and to the community of rural NSW".
He said the award came as a bit of a shock.
"I wasn't expecting this... it was a fantastic honour and I'm very appreciative to all those people who did some work behind the scenes to make it happen," Mr Donges said.
A fifth generation farmer, some of Mr Donges' career highlights include stints as the President of NSW Farmers and the National Farmers Federation during the 1990s and early 2000s.
"National Farmers President is as high as you can go in terms of representing Australian farmers," he said.
"That was something that I'll always remember and something that I felt was able to achieve some reasonable outcomes and certainly made a difference at times."
One of those "reasonable outcomes" has come to fruition today - better lamb prices.
"Back in the early 1980s, the lamb industry was really struggling... that's why I got involved in NSW Farmers, to try and take my frustrations to a higher level and try and work out what we could do," he said.
"Here we are in 2020, the lamb industry is clearly the most expensive and doing really well.
"Some things you can turn around and I was only a small part of that but I still feel that I did contribute a reasonable amount to the fortunes of the lamb industry."
This involvement on a state and national level further inspired Mr Donges to continue to advocate and lobby for farmers across Australia on an international stage.
"I feel so passionate about this because farmers are very small in number in this country," he said.
"We contribute a reasonable amount to the economy... we're a very important part but we've got to have people telling the story about farming."
And how does this story get told? Mr Donges believes social media is the answer.
"So many people get their news and form their views from social media and that's a real challenge for the farming community," he said.
"How do you put your views into that broader debate and get hopefully a sensible outcome that reflects what farmers are thinking as well as the broader community, who are our customers, who have views about how we look after animals and so on. It's a big challenge now.
"We need farmers to be out there and part of their business needs to be talking about what they do and advocating what they do."
As well as an increased online presence, Mr Donges says he is "optimistic" about the future of agriculture in Australia but believes the next generation of farmers need to put their hand up to join representative organisations.
"The next five to ten years look fantastic, if I was a young person I would pretty confident about it for sure," he said.
"There's some really good, progressive farmers around here and the next generation and the one behind that are starting to come through now.
"We've got plenty of younger farmers out there who are hopefully flat out working, trying to raise families and make a business work but hopefully they are thinking about the broader picture too.
"I'm a bit frustrated we don't see younger farmers putting up their hand just to make sure that everything is ok. You can't not have farmers, they are the ones that tell the story the best and know what to say."
Mr Donges said being able to assist other farmers is a reward in itself.
"All you have to do is be yourself and be a farmer and understand what you're doing and then talk about it," he said.
"You're talking to the state government, sometimes you're talking to other government agencies... they are looking for people to talk to make sure they are on the right track.
"I got a taste for representing or being a part of the broader discussion about how we're going to improve a lot of farmers, once you get involved, you realise that it's not that hard."
Mr Donges says the skills he learnt on the bigger stage, such as lobbying governments and forming networks, have assisted him on a local level in organisations such as Rotary, Apex, Cowra Retirement Village, the Cowra Showground Trust, the Cowra Show Society, school P&Cs and the Rural Fire Service - just to name a few.
'I've always been, I think, a community minded person," he said.
"Hopefully I've never lost contact with that and I felt that I had something to offer through my other background and experiences."
He encouraged more people to get involved with community organisations in Cowra and the wider district.
"The bottom line is, you get rewards straight away," Mr Donges said.
"Cowra is not a big town in the scheme of things and the farming community around it, there's not a large amount of people so I think it's essential that we do have these community organisations just to make the whole thing work.
"There are numerous ones but they are struggling to get participation... that's probably a bit disappointing to me, I can't quite follow why that is the case.
"At the end of the day, you've got families and businesses, but you can put all those things in there, make it work and still contribute to your community. Get out there and be involved."
