Episoder

  • Tim McGrath is Senior Agribusiness Development Officer with Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. He has over 25 years of Agri-business development experience working across all major agricultural industries in Northern Australia. Tim has developed a passion for understanding profitable agricultural productions systems and an in-depth, field-based knowledge of the north’s resources, supply chains, opportunities and constraints. He is also recognized as an expert in livestock handling and behavior and is one of the founding members of the livestock handling movement called Low Stress Stockhandling.

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  • Allan Parker OAM is a Micro Behavioural Scientist and Negotiator.

    Allan usually introduces himself as an eccentric Micro-Behavioural Neuroscientist, International Negotiator, and Educator.

    He works as a negotiator/facilitator of large-scale multi-party negotiations and disputes. Within government and private organisations, he trains in negotiation, dispute prevention and healthy considered conversations.

    Allan has presented, facilitated, and moderated in over 60 different countries around the world and has had participants from 192 countries in his audience at one time at the United Nations-World Investment Forum.

    He was a writer and a professor on the Masters Program of Dispute Resolution at the School of Law and Business, University of Western Sydney, where he was appointed Adjunct Professor for his contribution to the field.

    In 2012, Allan wrote Australia's first degree in negotiation.

    In 2020, Allan was a recipient for the Order of Australia Medal for his contribution to business and dispute resolution.

    He is the author of The Negotiator’s Toolkit, the best seller Switch on Your Brain; and co-author of Beyond Yes – Negotiating and Networking.

    In addition to his professional achievements, Allan has been a scratch golfer and has run 16 marathons and 11 ultra marathons (including 24 hours twice).

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  • John McKillop has held numerous senior agribusiness roles over the past 25 years including CEO of Hassad Australia, Managing Director of Clyde Agriculture and his current role as CEO of S.Kidman & Co and Hancock Agriculture.

    In addition to executive roles, John is currently the Independent Chair of the Red Meat Advisory Council and Black Box Company. Previous non-executive roles include Chair of LAWD, and director of Dairy Farmers Milk Cooperative, Compass Agribusiness, Dairy Australia and Meat & Livestock Australia.

    John holds a Diploma in Farm Management, Bachelor of Business, Graduate Certificate in Agribusiness, Master of Business Administration and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

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  • Charlie Perry manages the family business, Trent Bridge Wagyu in the Northern Tablelands of NSW. Producing high performing bulls for the Full Blood and First Cross market for the last 16 years. They sell approximately 150 Wagyu bulls privately each year. Their bulls are bred with a focus on marbling, growth and structural soundness. They also supply First Cross Wagyu/Angus cattle and Fullblood animals into the feeder market. Charlie exemplifies leadership, vision and humility, which resulted in him being crowned the 2022 Zanda McDonald Award winner. After a successful career in business consulting, Charlie's passion for agriculture, drew him home. Since taking over management in 2016, he’s overseen substantial growth in their family business, despite some of the worst years of drought on record, with a focus on productivity gains, genetic indicators and sustainability. He also serves as president and chair of the Australian Wagyu Association (AWA). To apply for the Zanda McDonald award visit zandamcdonaldaward.com.au

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  • Justin McNab is the Executive Director of BluePool Energy, a private, independent advisor to investors and companies operating in the energy, renewables and infrastructure sector.

    Prior to establishing BluePool in 2017, Justin worked for a number of years as Head of Business Development in Asia for Origin Energy.

    Originally a banker, Justin spent over twenty years in various banking roles as a project financier, and was the head of the energy and infrastructure teams for major banks, including NAB and ANZ, both in Australia and Asia. During his time at ANZ he was the Bank’s Head of Utilities and Infrastructure in Asia, and lived in Hong Kong with his family for three years. He held responsibility for all energy sector client activity for the bank across fourteen Asian countries, and spent significant time travelling amongst these jurisdictions.

    He has worked on a diverse range of projects, including financing hydroelectricity projects in Laos, wind farms in the Philippines, geothermal projects in Sumatra, water treatment plants in China, solar projects in India, LNG import terminals in China, and electricity transmission projects in Vietnam, as well as numerous domestic energy and utilities transactions.

    Justin has extensive experience as a banker and advisor to the sector, and retains long term relationships with investors, governments, energy companies, regulators and bankers across the region.

    He holds Bachelor Degrees in both Commerce and Arts from Melbourne University, and a Masters Degree in finance from Macquarie University.

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  • Robert Wyld grew up on a cattle and sheep property in the Western District of Victoria. After school, Robert attended Melbourne University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours. He began his career working in the construction industry, working on the Crown Casino development before heading overseas for five years. Whilst in the UK, Robert worked on a new maintenance facility for Concord Aircraft and a new storage and research facility for the Natural History Museum.

    Returning to Melbourne, Roberts' enthusiasm for the construction industry waned and he started to tinker with software. He wrote the first iteration of what was to become KoolCollect. This was a data collection tool developed for the family farm, used to track fertility histories and treatments utilising the newly introduced NLIS tags. It quickly became apparent how powerful the data could be as an aid to making informed decisions in agriculture. This new frontier, together with the ever increasing pull from producers, is how Sapien Technology was founded.
    With new customers exploring how this technology could be adopted, as well as an industry grappling with a raft of adoption issues, problem solving became Sapien’s focus. Robert’s expertise in individual animal management combined with his practical background and genuine character have helped make Sapien Technology the “Go To” company for livestock software development.

    Clients range from corporate supply chains such as Coles Supermarkets, VLE saleyards, Whyalla Feedlot, MDH along with many other farm producers. Sapien’s cloud database was the first of its kind in Australia. Sapien are constantly innovating and adopting, while working to encourage the widespread use of individual animal management and sharing the benefits it can bring to the entire agricultural industry.

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  • Alison is a Behavioural Scientist who has lived and worked in Victoria’s rural farming community for almost two decades. Her expertise in rural/farmer mental health and suicide prevention has drawn on a range of innovative techniques including digital interventions, digital storytelling, community education programs and peer support models. Alison has led numerous farmer mental health projects and continues to build the Centre’s capacity and reach by working collaboratively with researchers, farmers and industry stakeholders across Australia and internationally. Her expertise has been recognised through research awards, numerous advisory roles, peer review publication, international research consultation, invited presentations and expert witness testimony before the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Alison is passionate about co-designing the Centre’s research, education and services in collaboration with community and industry—to ensure the Centre’s work continues to be effective, relevant and tailored to the needs of rural farming communities. Visit www.farmerhealth.org.au for more information.

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  • Jim Wade has a Rural Science degree from the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.

    Jim works as a consulting nutritionist in his own Agricultural Consulting Company (WAC), which started in August 2003. He works with a wide range of feed and premix companies, some government departments like NQ Dry Tropics, Top Stock at Mareeba and individual farms.

    His role is to provide technical support which involves product development and diet formulation, staff training days, some assistance with marketing, presenting nutrition seminars to clients showing where the products fit into their feeding program.

    WAC is responsible for formulating diets for 9 small independent feed mills throughout the east coast of Australia.

    The area of increasing demand for technical support in Qld is the beef and sheep industry. Beef producers have limited money to spend on supplements and will pay for the correct supplement which addresses the requirements of their stock where there are deficiencies. They are looking for a wholistic approach and someone to help them implement and form a plan.

    Jim was true to his word with more detail on nitrates. Click here for more information on nitrates or visit Jim's website: http://www.wadeagriculture.com.au. 

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  • Richard, Emma and Janet McFarlane run the oldest Angus beef herd in South Australia.

    Established in 1845, the 19,000 acre property is situated in the Upper South East of South Australia on the shores of Lake Alexandrina. Wellington Lodge has been owned and operated by the McFarlane family for six generations and currently runs 600 Angus breeders and approximately 800 trader cattle.

    Richard has introduced a grazing approach that has reduced their inputs to almost zero and improved returns across the board.

    The grazing program has also resulted in the prolific return of native grass and plant species, such as spear grass, wallaby grass and blackhead grass, as well as aided in keeping groundcover through the very dry years. This keeps the soil cooler, keeps the microorganisms alive in the soils, even during hot spells and reduces sand drift.

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  • No-till Producer Grant Sims is a sixth generation farmer running the family farm with his wife Naomi and 4 children in North central Victoria Australia. The farm is 8,500 acres of dryland and some irrigation. The Sims farm has been utilizing no-till farming practices since the early 80's thanks to Grant’s father and uncle. When Grant came back full time on the farm he started looking at ways to improve the life and function of the soil through biology. In 2008 he stopped using granular synthetic fertilizers and started using a biologically made liquid fertilizer. Also at that time stop using seed dressing, insecticides and fungicides, unless absolutely necessary. The Sims have a strong focus on diversity and grow many different crops. They use companion crops, cover crops and have expanded their cow calf numbers to integrate through the system. They have seen many positive changes in the health or their soils and plants. They perform on-farm trials to learn and share methods about how to solve problems, be more profitable and improve the soil for the next generation. Grant and Naomi have recently started up a multi-species seed business, Down Under Covers, where they use their own experience and consult with world leading experts to design and put together multi species blends to help improve the soils and provide live weight gains to livestock to help farmers become more profitable. In 2015 Grant was awarded the Coles Weekly Times Farmer of the Year. Grant is the former president of the Victorian No Till Farmers Association. Find out more at downundercovers.com.

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  • Jon Wright is a beef cattle seedstock producer from Woodstock NSW near Cowra. Being the 4th generation on the property, cattle have been in his blood from the start. Passionate about breeding and maximising production gains, he started the Blue - E line of cattle in 1997. Blue - E was a composite of 50% Shorthorn 50% Angus that has recently included Simmental cross composite genetics. He has developed a line of cattle that has included testing and selecting for feed conversion from its inception. Coota Park Blue - E have a fully automated feeding system (Growsafe -Vytelle) imported from Canada that records the intakes of each bull day to day.


    Jon is passionate about innovation within the beef industry and how we can better reduce our costs of production. He is also a passionate grass producer, who is trying to reduce the impact we have on our surrounding environment. Jon is very concerned about how the beef industry will fit into the future of food supply in the world and very much encourages discussion in this area.

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  • Matt has worked with the Animal Genetic and Breeding Unit (AGBU) since October 2004, in the development and improvement of genetic evaluation technologies for beef cattle breeders. Key areas of research have included the development of new traits to describe female productivity in tropically adapted beef breeds, with a focus on cow body composition and reproductive performance. He was also involved in a Trans-Tasman collaborative project to improve our understanding of factors impacting cow productivity in temperate beef breeds, with a focus on characterising and establishing the genetics of age of puberty traits.

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  • Oli Le Lievre is the Content Marketing Manager at AuctionsPlus and the Founder of Humans of Agriculture.


    His career to date has seen him working in a variety of roles ranging from farm management, to fresh produce export, corporate agribusiness advisory to agtech startups.


    Oli is passionate about increasing consumer awareness, showcasing career opportunities in agriculture to the next generation and believes that innovative people and ideas will deliver solutions for businesses and communities to thrive.
    Oli takes on these tasks in his day to day role as well as through his initiative Humans of Agriculture, which is on a journey to share 10,000 stories of people influencing our food and fibre system.


    He is currently the Vice-Chair of The Future Farmers Network and a current participant in the Australian Rural Leadership Program, the flagship program run by the ARLF. In 2021 Oli was a Zanda McDonald Award finalist and in 2018 was selected in the inaugural National Farmers Federation ‘2030 Leaders Program’


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  • Lewis Frost is chief operating officer of Ceres Tag, the world’s first direct to satellite smart ear tag and data platform for livestock.
    In other words, Lewis is a brainiac; and brings to the beef industry a background spanning animal monitoring, livestock genomics, animal health and molecular diagnostics.

    He is also an advocate of tech adoption in production animal industries. Recently appointed Queensland board member for the Australian AgriTech Association, Lewis is working to foster a world-class agritech ecosystem and help create a prosperous future for Australian agrifood innovation.

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  • Garry and Leanne Hall are cattle producers from the Macquarie Marshes in north central NSW.

    Part of their property is Ramsar (International Convention on Wetlands) listed, which creates an extra level of responsibility and connection with their landscape.

    The Halls, with their two children, are passionate about the sustainability of their production system and their role as an ecosystem service provider, managing their land to ensure they have positive environmental outcomes. They are involved in water management at all levels on a daily basis and regularly host visits from political level to government agency staff.

    The Hall family have cared for their property for four generations and their families have had landholdings in the area for seven generations.

    With a strong interest in traditional land use practices and how they can learn from the ability of a culture to survive for 50,000 years prior to European settlement.

    Garry and Leanne are passionate about building strong business relationships and never lose sight of the fact that every kg of beef they produce is destined for human consumption.

    They live and work with their livestock on a daily basis and are well over 100km from the nearest town, as such, they are believers in a strong local community and surrounding themselves with positive people.

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  • James Wagstaff is editor of The Weekly Times. Having grown up on a sheep station in the NSW Riverina he started his career as a journalist at the Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga in 1998. In 2004, he shifted to Melbourne and The Weekly Times and served in a number of roles including Deputy Editor, Chief of Staff and Business Editor. During his time at The Weekly Times he has spearheaded such successful projects as The Weekly Times Coles Farmer of the Year Awards, which has grown into Australia’s leading agricultural awards, and the multi-platform Who Owns Australia’s Farms series. He is a four-time Rural Press Club of Victoria journalism award winner.

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  • 20 years ago, Doug embarked on a journey of change. Driven by the need to survive drought, it's been the most rewarding journey of his life. Writing the Resilient Farmer was Doug’s way of saying thank you to the people and processes that drove his change.

    Doug, his wife Wendy and their family, live in Eastern Marlborough, New Zealand. Bonavaree is a 2343 ha owned and 420 ha leased dry land farm. Over the last two decades, huge changes to pasture type and use, stock type and farming systems have seen a dramatic change in the fortunes of that farm and the Avery family.

    The changes achieved at Bonavaree are now being applied on many other properties across the country.

    A large part of the change was driven by Dr Derrick Moot of Lincoln University and his Lucerne (alfalfa) based pasture system. It was taken to its ultimate development by a New Zealand Land Care Trust facilitated project, the Starborough Soil Conservation Project which was funded by the Sustainable Farming Fund. This was a six pronged science effort which systemised a package of activities to make Bonavaree the amazing property it is today.

    Doug wrote The Resilient Farmer in 2017. He writes with great insight, romance for the land and people he loves, and is a genuine and skilled storyteller. He is working on his next book, which we eagerly await.

    To find out more about Doug or to order The Resilient Farmer, click here https://www.resilientfarmer.co.nz/ Should this episode cause distress, please contact your local crisis centre or in Aust. call lifeline on 13 11 14.



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  • Colin Henke grew up in the South East of South Australia. He pursued a farming career by starting at the bottom as a jackaroo before purchasing his own land (courtesy of an initiative of the Rural Finance Corporation of Victoria targeting young farmers). By combining management of the family farm and running his own land, enabled the eventual purchase of a stand alone property in 1998 in South Western Victoria, which is being farmed by Colin and his wife Karen today.
    An initial 50 : 50 split between cattle and sheep has been transformed into a cattle only enterprise, encompassing a 1,000 cow, spring calving , Angus herd, producing feeder steers for the medium to long fed feeder steer market. Relatively high interest rates in the 1980’s and 90’s ( from 10 to 16% ) has ensured a pursuit of productivity and profitability along the way which continues to this day.

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  • The Quality Meat Scotland podcast began in April 2020. With guests including Diana Rogers, author of the Sacred Cow and topics ranging from market trends, profitability and resilience, best practice and developments in the red meat sector. In this episode, Tom Gubbins, host of the RawAg podcast and Director of Te Mania Angus Australia, chats with Mark Stephen about the Te Mania Angus programme. Data is central to what we do, in this discussion Tom highlights that we first need to identify what drives profit, the requirements of the target market and how the animal fits in to the environment. From there, we can discover, collect and utilise the data to improve the genetics and increase profitability.

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  • Professor Robert Banks has been involved in developing and managing RDE projects with very high impact nationally. This includes the establishment and growth of LAMBPLAN and MERINOSELECT, the significant increase in the rate of genetic progress in beef cattle in Australia, and the development and implementation of the Information Nucleus concept to underpin implementation of genomic technologies in sheep and beef cattle. Together, these programs have helped make rates of genetic improvement in sheep in Australia as fast as or faster than in any other country in the world, and in beef the rates are close to those of our major competitors including the US. His contributions have been recognised via several awards from professional associations and the wider community.

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