‘I had to use the grain ramp’: the fight for disability inclusion in Australian agriculture

Sam Bailey and his wife Jenny on the farm at Croppa Creek. Bailey and his family were forced to work out how to make wheelchair adaptations on their own Photograph: Supplied by Sam Bailey

When Sam Bailey was a teenager, he understood farming as a job for the fit and able-bodied. It was also the only job he could see himself doing. After high school, Bailey left his family farm at Croppa Creek in north-west New South Wales to work as a jackaroo in big stations in northern Australia.

Then the vehicle he was travelling in rolled on the Barkly Highway, and “in a heartbeat my whole life was shot down another road”.