FIFTH-generation Branxholme farmer Jim Gough has received a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Australia Day Honours list in recognition for his significant contributions to the livestock industry.

Mr Gough’s OAM is in recognition of pioneering selective breeding techniques in Australia for both Corriedale sheep and Hereford cattle.

He said he was honoured to receive this recognition and was not at all expecting it but was delighted all the same.

“It’s very exciting,” he said.

“I guess I am being recognised for the development of selective breeding techniques.

Mr Gough is a life member of the Australian Corriedale Association and Hereford Society.

"I was a founding member of the Corriedale Performance Group, in fact I think I was the inaugural president,” he said.

Mr Gough went to Melbourne to get his agricultural science degree then came home to the farm.

After marrying, he was given a small part of the farm and after his last year at university his father bought him some Corriedale stud ewes as a 21st birthday present.

“That was the start of it all,” he said.

“I wanted to change things and so started the Corriedale Performance Group."

"The breed societies in those days assumed that all animals were the same, but I didn't want to just reproduce other people's genetics, I wanted to improve them," he said.

Mr Gough has also made a significant contribution to his community having received a life membership in the Volunteer Fire Brigades association of Victoria.

Now retired, but still living on the farm, Mr Gough is looking forward to the presentation ceremony where he will be invested with his award, along with other recipients, by the Governor General at an official ceremony at Government House, Melbourne, later this year.