Beyond the Farm Gate

Catherine Velisha is a third-generation farmer with a passion for business and creating opportunities. Her first-hand experience on the farm shapes her newest venture, the Velisha Education Group (VEG), as she works to promote pathways into horticulture, and safety on the farm. In this episode, Catherine shares the story of how her family started in horticulture, and how the farm ended up in her c...

Kirsten Diprose is a communications specialist and content creator. Along with her husband and two boys, Kirsten lives on a mixed grazing and cropping farm in southwest Victoria, where their latest adventure is incorporating dairy into their farming business. In this episode, Kirsten shares how her experience in farming, combined with her expertise in broadcasting, resulted in co-founding the Duck...

Original publish date: 30 Mar 2021. Neil Seaman is a fifth-generation wool grower on his family's 2,000-acre property, Rosemont, located near Crookwell in NSW. Alongside his father, Neil runs 4,000 Merino ewes, producing fine micron wool. In this episode, you'll hear how proud and optimistic Neil is about the future of Australia's wool industry, why he believes rural Australia is the place to live...

Jock Lawrence is an entrepreneur and founder of Mobble (or Chief Mobbler!), a digital app that allows farmers to track and manage their livestock. Mobble is a simple, easy to use platform that enables farmers to take charge of their own farm management. In this episode, Jock’s shares how he was inspired to come up with Mobble upon returning to the family farm. He also takes us through his pe...

Jim Pratley is a Professor of Agriculture at Charles Sturt University (previously Wagga Wagga Ag College) and has been for almost 50 years. Over that time, he taught courses in agronomy and related areas and has published widely on the topics of conservation farming, weed management, herbicide resistance and allelopathy. He was also the Foundation Dean of Science and Agriculture at CSU from 1990 u...

Simone Kain is co-owner of creative agency Hello Friday and co-founder and author of the award-winning educational brand, George the Farmer. Simone and her husband Justin are also raising three young boys on their family property near Penola, South Australia, which specialises in beef-cattle trading and sheep for meat and wool. In this episode, Simone shares the story of how George the Farmer bega...

Claudia Kirby is an Agricultural Analyst with ProFarmer, where she works with various data sources to help farmers make decisions and inform the industry about the latest trends. In this episode, Claudia shares how she grew up in the grain industry and how it has taken her from the Western Australian Wheatbelt to Kansas in the US, over to Victoria and across the ditch to New Zealand. She also disc...

John Droppert is what you might call a dairy junkie. Having grown up on his parent's dairy farm in Victoria, working weekends and school holidays, he was encouraged to leave the industry and not come back… Yet he’s now the Industry Insights and Analysis Manager at Dairy Australia. In this episode, John shares how his interest in both social media and content has turned him into both t...

David and Natalie Egerton-Warburton are the husband and wife team behind Agrimaster, a company that specialises in delivering financial, compliance and growth solutions to farm businesses via software, training and consultative support. Natalie has an extensive background in banking and finance, with an amazing gift for numbers and an entrepreneurial spirit. She heads up the finance, HR and operat...

Oli Le Lievre is the Founder of Humans of Agriculture, a modern media company that aims to strengthen the connection between the food and fibre system, as well as the broader community, by making agriculture more relatable. In this episode, Oli shares his journey, from growing up in Sydney, to jackarooing, before completing his studies at Marcus Oldham College. He shares his interest in the future...

Jack Cresswell is the creator and host of Farms Advice podcast, a show which aims to share farming best-practice, innovation in agriculture, and create transparency within the industry. With each episode, Jack asks “How can this conversation improve farm outlook?” by interviewing industry leaders and leading farmers. Jack’s passion for agriculture is in his blood. He grew up on t...

Growing up on a farm, Andi White has always had agriculture in her blood. And while Andi and her husband Hayden have been living and working on the same farm in NSW’s Tocumwal for the past 16 years, they’ve always dreamed of owning their own farm. That opportunity came in 2020 when the property they’d been managing for the past 10 years went up for sale — and Andi and Hayde...

Dr Kate Burke founded Think Agri after identifying a need for corporate and institutional investors to have access to astute experience-based advice when considering key agri-investment decisions. In this episode, Kate shares how her family has been farming in Elmore, Victoria, since the 1860s, and how this background (combined with her 26 years of experience) ensures that she knows the critical q...

Original publish date: 27 Apr 2021. Kelly Barnes is the Founder of Mates Dog School and the Co-president of the newly revived Dunkeld CWA — both in Dunkeld, Victoria. Kelly originally studied agriculture before a chronic pain condition forced her to give up farmwork. In this episode, Kelly shares how her experience inspired her to come up with Mates Dog School — a place where farmers,...

Original publish date: 19 Jan 2021. Sarah Nolet grew up in Silicon Valley, California, in the home of tech companies and the world of entrepreneurship. Although her dad had a hobby farm, the agriculture industry was not something she ever imagined working in. But after living and working on farms in South Africa for a year, she fell into the agriculture rabbit hole. Now in Australia, Sarah has com...

Original publish date: 22 Dec 2020. Social media can sometimes be seen as the creator of social problems, especially when it comes to mental health. But farmer Ben Brooksby decided to use it in a positive … yet unconventional way. As a result of a cheeky photoshoot with a friend, he started The Naked Farmer — an Instagram page that has over 100,000 followers. Ben believes using social...

Sam Johnston, like most rural kids, was shipped off to a Sydney boarding school which is where he first became aware of the disconnect between the product and consumer. In this episode, Sam shares how these experiences inspired him and his mate to start #thankafarmerforyournextmeal, a social media campaign-turned-movement with the goal to showcase the Australian ag industry while educating folks o...

Shanna Whan is the CEO of Sober in the Country, a national advocacy program for social change in the bush. In this episode, Shanna shares her (very) personal journey, from growing up in her local rural scene to her battle with alcohol — which led her to start 'Sober in the Country'. She’s determined to spread the message that ‘It’s ok to say no to a beer’ throughout A...

Amelia (Milly) Nolan is the Event Coordinator for The Livestock Collective, an organisation with a vision to increase connection to, and understanding of, agriculture in the wider community. While that’s her official role, her knowledge and passion sit firmly within agriculture. In this episode, Milly shares her first-hand connection to agriculture, why she believes advocacy is so important,...

Morgan Dahl is a hardworking, fifth-generation farmer from Queensland (amongst several other occupations!). When Morgan was younger, he embraced his entrepreneurial side intending to save enough money to buy his first farm. He now has a holding of 2,200 acres and continues to work off-farm while still helping on the family beef cattle farm in Miriam Vale. From running an importing business to work...

Rachael Treasure is a regenerative agriculturalist at Ripple Farms Partners, as well as a best-selling author. Her first novel — Jillaroo — forged a new genre, kick-starting a boom in rural women’s fiction. In this episode, Rachael shares her journey from agriculture, through journalism, and back to agriculture. She also shares her personal experience of the gender divide in the...

Tom Andrews is the Co-founder and CEO of Connected Farms, a business formed to specifically provide connectivity solutions to the agriculture sector. In this episode, Tom shares his journey from growing up in a small Scottish farming village to falling in love with rural Australia. We also discuss Connected Farms' vision to improve 'over paddock connectivity' and some exciting developments in the...

Kelly Barnes is the Founder of Mates Dog School and the Co-president of the newly revived Dunkeld CWA — both in Dunkeld, Victoria. Kelly originally studied agriculture before a chronic pain condition forced her to give up farmwork. In this episode, Kelly shares how her experience inspired her to come up with Mates Dog School — a place where farmers, together with their dogs, learn low-...

Neil Seaman is a fifth-generation wool grower on his family's 2,000-acre property, Rosemont, located near Crookwell in NSW. Alongside his father, Neil runs 4,000 Merino ewes, producing fine micron wool. In this episode, you'll hear how proud and optimistic Neil is about the future of Australia's wool industry, why he believes rural Australia is the place to live, and how his time on the reality TV...

James Walker is a fifth-generation farmer from Longreach in Queensland. In between farming James is an accomplished entrepreneur with a focus on improving profitability in the livestock industry. In this episode, you'll hear how innovation has future-proofed James' family farm, how he's diversified his income stream through AgriTourism and AgTech, and how he's creating farming efficiencies that ar...