"Our industry has gone from horseback mustering to fixed-wing aerial mustering to helicopter mustering and I sense that the technology coming out of the . . . war at the moment will play a role in our industry in the next decade," he told The Australian Financial Review from his Brisbane-based office.

Farley does not have much free time since taking over as chief executive of AAco on December 1, but is an avid reader and has become enthralled with the role technology will play in the company's future.

"I'm fascinated with the tools of surveillance being used in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the California-Texas border in managing people movements," he says. "I try to figure out how we are going to use those tools of surveillance in our enterprises where we are managing millions of square kilometres of land with cattle on it. They have an application for our future."