The ultimatum was both simple and dramatic: Walk off the land and shut the door on a family farming dynasty or hatch a plan and wrestle back control of his own destiny.

He chose the latter, and Bonah was born.

An organic meat business, Bonah – or Beaut Organic Nice and Healthy – has recently been launched in Griffith and is already distributing throughout country Victoria and NSW.

Not only does Nathan, 32, have to manage hundreds of pigs, cattle and lambs on the family’s Myall Park property, but he has become one of the new breed of young farming entrepreneurs, looking after marketing, distribution, packaging and a myriad of other aspects of the business.

It means 16-hour days, seven days a week – but there are rewards. For starters, dodging the mercenary buying

“This is a way of taking back control … farmers are one of the few professions that have no control of the price of what we produce,” Nathan said.

“If I hadn’t done this, I probably wouldn’t be farming anymore. I would never go back to conventional farming now.”

Bonah is an order-based business, with customers placing an order by phone, fax or internet and picking it up from one of 12 distributors across three states.

The ultimate dream is to take the business Australia-wide. “We’re still small but we’re growing very quickly,” he said.

“Demand has tripled since we started in February, so it’s taking off even better than we’d hoped.”

What’s more, Nathan claims by

sending meat straight from the farm to the plate, Bonah is able to sell at a fraction of normal organic meat prices.

All the meat is slaughtered at an

abattoir in Young and boned and packed at Codemo Meats locally.

Organic farming is a tradition for the Billings, with Nathan’s parents, Richard and Maureen, considered trailblazers in the industry.