Farmers Helping Farmers – Details, episodes & analysis

VicNoTill board member Michael Gooden visits Jim Alexander on the Cootamundra farm where he lives with his wife Em and two young daughters to talk about his switch from commercial scale broadacre agronomy on the Liverpool Plains to permaculture to regenerative agriculture.

Jim has made a major shift in the way he approaches life, as a result of his own farming experiences and through what he discovered during a Nuffield Scholarship which took him across Australia and to Asia, Europe, Israel, the US, the UK and New Zealand.

Being among like-minded people for the past several years as a VicNoTill member has also been an eye-opener for Jim in how leading broadacre farmers are managing to make significant changes to the way they farm, while remaining profitable.

He says the farmers helping farmers approach highlights how important it is that people don’t follow an ideology at their own expense.

VicNoTill members can read more about Jim's experiences and insights in the latest issue of the member magazine ⁠From The Ground Up.⁠

This is a conversation for farmers not to be missed! Allan Parker OAM was a crowd favourite at VicNoTill's conference Transition23 and captured the attention of the whole room within 10 seconds of starting his presentation.

VicNoTill board member Michael Gooden catches up with Allan in Wagga Wagga during his 2024 Regional Brain Reset Tour to talk about succession planning, improving negotiation between family members when making farm decisions, transitioning to a more regenerative farming system without compromising the profitability of the business and a whole lot more.

Allan introduces himself as an eccentric Micro-Behavioural Neuroscientist, International Negotiator, and Educator. Outside his work life he has been a professional golfer and has run 16 marathons and 11 ultra marathons (including 24 hours twice). He wrote Australia’s first degree in negotiation in 2012 and was the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal for his contribution to business and dispute resolution in 2019.

From the boardrooms of the biggest corporate organisations in the world to the kitchen tables on rural and remote farming properties, Allan Parker’s approach to negotiation is the same. The author of The Negotiator’s Toolkit, the bestseller Switch on Your Brain; and co-author of Beyond Yes – Negotiating and Networking says there is great wisdom in Charlie Arnott’s saying ‘the paddock between our ears is what we’ve got to get sorted out first’.

“Negotiation, whether informal chat on the phone or chat in hallway or something bigger and more serious, we are involved in negotiating the whole time. Everything you think inside your head turns up in your verbal conversation in some form or another," Allan says.

In this episode of Farmers Helping Farmers our host Dan Fox catches up with Phil Peterson who is passionate about rebuilding soil carbon on farms. In the many conversations Dan has had with Phil in the paddock, this passion has come through clearly, and Dan thought it was about time he captured some of these conversations in a podcast episode. Phil has been at the grassroots of agriculture for many years, asking questions about the environment and how farmers can improve both the yield and quality of the crops and pastures they grow. This has led to a role with Loam Bio, which researches how farmers can build more carbon in their soils and improve their bottom line. Phil’s advice to farmers is don’t be too proud to learn something new. Read, listen, observe. And learn and try something new every day. He says we need to think outside the paradigm as often as we can and be open minded, which all of us at VicNoTill thinks is very sound advice.

In 2016 a VicNoTill story with Ardmona irrigation farmer Fraser Pogue’s began with: ‘The pages in books might be black and white but farming certainly isn’t.’ The analogy drew on Fraser’s ever-increasing book collection on soil biology and his pursuit of a new way of farming that was outside the norm, and definitely not black and white.

Fraser and his wife Leanne are always looking outside the square and among the innovations they are pursuing are organic farming and value-adding under the name 'The Good Dirt'. In spring 2020 the Pogue farming story moved from the pages of books to the silver screen and a chance appearance on the documentary ‘2040’ from award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) opened a Pandora’s box of new questions and reignited Fraser’s inquiring mind and passion for sharing what he’s learnt to help others.

“We always talk about wanting to have healthy soils but we need to talk more about why we want healthy soils. Originally I was attracted to soil health as a means to increase yields and profits when I could see that conventional farming methods weren’t delivering. Now I understand the ‘bigger picture’ advantages of creating healthier yields, healthier food and healthier catchments.

"We’ve gone through all the different names to describe the way we farm, but our hearts have always been in the same place - to be 'good farmers'. Be good to the environment, be good to other people and be good to the bank balance of course." Don’t forget to tell your friends about our podcast and if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review. The more people who join the conversation, the more we learn from each other. Subscribe to Farmers Helping Farmers on your favourite podcast app and connect with VicNoTill by becoming a member or following us on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

LINKS

• VicNoTill: https://www.vicnotill.com.au/
• The Good Dirt: https://www.gooddirtfoods.com.au/

One of the world’s most respected leaders in soil health, carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture Dr Terry McCosker struggled terribly in primary and high school, before discovering he 'learnt by doing'. Since then he has never stopped learning or doing, and is one of the masterminds behind farmers getting paid for improved land management practices and building their soil carbon. After 20 years of lobbying for monetising soil carbon increases, Terry’s focus has now turned to farmers getting paid for their ‘natural capital’. In this episode he provides a valuable insight into the dos and don’ts of setting up a carbon project, and how the model of ‘farmers helping farmers’ is the key to a better future for our landscape and our people.

Over the past decade, Field Systems Australia founder Michael Eyres and Soil Science Australia vice president Edward Scott have stood in around 7000 soil pits around the world. They focus on soil performance in managed agricultural landscapes, and help farmers identify the most limiting factors affecting production. From that starting point they generate soil management strategies that result in profitable outcomes. In this episode they cover precision agriculture, building carbon in broadacre cropping systems and a whole lot more. One of the big take home messages for farmers is to have confidence in the changes you’re making but be patient. Sometimes it takes a few years to see the impacts of the change.

Don’t forget to tell your friends about the Farmers Helping Farmers podcast and if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review. The more people who join the conversation, the more we learn from each other.Subscribe to Farmers Helping Farmers on your favourite podcast app and connect with VicNoTill by becoming a member and following us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Internationally renowned nutritionist and farmer Graeme Sait is a wealth of information. 

After a tragic family accident, he has dedicated the past 28 years of his life to sharing all that he knows and all that he has learnt about improving plant and human health. VicNoTill is honoured to sit down with Graeme in this episode where he encourages farmers to take small steps towards change and they will reap the rewards, both financially and personally.

You can find out more about Graeme on our website – he knows so much about growing nutritious food and we’ve only crammed in a tiny portion of what he knows into this conversation! 

Don’t forget to tell your friends about the Farmers Helping Farmers podcast and if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review. The more people who join the conversation, the more we learn from each other. 

Subscribe to Farmers Helping Farmers on your favourite podcast app and connect with VicNoTill by becoming a member and following us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

When sixth generation farmer Grant Sims reintroduced stock into his no-till cropping system, he discovered a whole new world living underneath his soils. Grant’s excitement and passion for a new approach to how farmers feed the world is contagious, as podcast host Dan Fox discovers in the very first episode of Farmers Helping Farmers - soil health, soil function and grassroots agriculture.

Sixth generation mixed farmer Grant Sims is also the founder of DownUnder Covers. You can find out more about Grant at the VicNoTill website – he’s a wealth of knowledge and we’ve only just scratched the surface! 

Don’t forget to tell your friends about the Farmers Helping Farmers podcast and if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review. The more people who join the conversation, the more we learn from each other. Subscribe to Farmers Helping Farmers on your favourite podcast app and connect with VicNoTill by becoming a member and following us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

When Victorian cattle farmer Callum Lawson went to a holistic grazing course, it turned the way he approached farming on its head. He came home from the first day feeling baffled about the way he was farming.

What they were presenting about regenerative and holistic grazing concepts felt like common sense. This started him on a path of discovery, and the more research he did the more fascinated he became. Callum started growing multi-species crops in 2017 and flipped his farming system around to solve problems rather than treat symptoms.

When he started farming more regeneratively he loved watching things grow and seeing the real difference in how healthy the crops and animals became.

Callum says it’s easy to get caught up in regenerative agriculture, which can be both good and bad. He says it’s important farmers remain profitable otherwise they won’t be there to do it again next year. Feeling good is important but if it’s not making money, there’s not much point doing it.

Callum joined the VicNoTill board in 2023. After a tour around the property Callum manages at Avenal in Victoria's Highlands region, Michael Gooden sat down to chat with him about how his farming system has evolved.

Young farmer Jake Chandler has always had a deep connection with all things agricultural, and has experienced the landscape from many perspectives. The son of an Ag teacher, he worked as a jackaroo in the Northern Territory before studying environmental science at university then moved into a corporate career in the mining industry.

After falling in love with and marrying Gemma Wilkinson from Young, he left the mining industry to return to the Wilkinson's family farm. Adjusting to the farming lifestyle after intense corporate life was a challenge so he worked in retail ag where he developed a strong local network before getting his hands dirty on the farm. Jake works with Gemma's parents to run their mixed enterprise farm of sheep, cattle and cropping.

After completing a Grazing for Profit course, he was inspired to break his paradigm and show that farming environmentally can be profitable as well. Jake is passionate about making changes that maximise environmental value, keeps their business profitable and puts family first.

VicNoTill board member Michael Gooden stands in for podcast host Dan Fox to find out more from this young Australian farmer, who will leave you feeling energised about the future of agriculture.