Ducks on the Pond

What happens when a rural community decides to stop waiting for someone else to solve its biggest problem? For the people of Mudgee in central-west New South Wales, it meant creating their own solution to the growing shortage of GPs. The result is Doctors 4 Mudgee , a community-led initiative that set an ambitious goal of attracting 10 new doctors in three years. Just 11 months in, they're al...

It can be hard to attract and retain professionals in the regions and vets are no exception. Entering the eighth year of a regional vet shortage, our guest Dr Rebecca Faris wants to curb it.  Having worked as a vet in South West Victoria for many years, Rebecca transitioned to focus on helping students move into the workforce and then eventually vet wellbeing at the Australia Veterinary Associatio...

Losing a loved one is a worst fear for most, and something that Sarah Guthrie and Georgia Lillie have in common.  Sarah’s son Ford died 10 years ago from an accident when he was only 17.  Georgia’s husband James died of an aggressive cancer seven years ago, leaving her and her two young boys behind.  While they both lived close by in Western Victoria, neither women met until they were encouraged t...

How much do you know about your soil microbiology? Dr Aurelie Quade makes a very good argument for why we should know more about it… including improving farm productivity and lowering inputs. Originally from a forestry community in France, Aurelie fell in love with the desolate landscape of Australia when she arrived here 20 years ago.  Initially doing her PhD in plant pathology, she said she beca...

Unrealistic body standards are inescapable for young women. Between diet culture, food rules at home, and stick- thin models all over our screens, it’s hard to feel in touch with what our body needs.  Nurse, midwife and systems-thinking expert Bronwyn Fletcher spent her childhood fixated on understanding what was and wasn’t healthy - she later found she wasn’t always given the right information. T...

What should you do when your ideas at work are always getting shot down? Or you’re being micromanaged by your boss? Or letting perfectionism stand in your way?  Workplace expert Lynne Cazaly has the answers for you. She is a consultant, future work expert, international speaker and award winning author (just to name a few of her hats!).  But despite all those qualifications, she also makes time fo...

Climate change can be one of those topics that people either avoid, argue about, or feel completely overwhelmed by. Meanwhile, climate policy is often a political football. So how do we have better conversations about it,  especially in rural and regional Australia, where the impacts are often felt first and hardest? And why is it still considered by some to be a ‘leftie inner city issue?” We’re j...

This is a big, honest, and deeply human conversation. In this episode, Kirsten sits down with Warrnambool mother, Amanda Gaudion, who shares the story of her former husband Troy — a devoted dad, police officer, and someone who experienced a severe mental illness that ultimately led to his death by suicide. It’s a conversation about love, confusion, systems, stigma and what it’s actually like to li...

When was the last time you had a difficult conversation? Maybe it was with a family member, at work or even within your community. While it can be easy for us to shy away from hard chats, our next guest considers her ability to have “crunchy” conversations a superpower.  From a young age Liz Brennan had these conversations role modelled within her family. So by the time she found herself in Papua...

Ducks on the Pond is back with Season 8! Hear what's coming up on this powerful 10 episode season and meet Bronwyn Fletcher, founder of Weighting for Happiness .... and Ducks Season 8  sponsor. Bronwyn is working to change the conversation around women and weight through a systems-thinking approach to health and wellbeing. She unpacks why rural women often face different barriers to support a...

“If farmers don’t have a voice, they’ll be dealt a poorer hand.” That’s the simple mantra that motivates Rebecca Reardon to be involved in advocacy with NSW Farmers. Rebecca is a mixed farmer from Moree in NSW, an agricultural economist, board director and Vice President of NSW Farmers. Her path into agricultural leadership wasn’t linear. After 20 years working post–farm gate in the grains industr...

What if the difference between a struggling farm and a thriving one isn’t the cows, the land or the milk price… but the systems? When Jana Hocken and her husband returned to their 1,000-head dairy farm in New Zealand, they were facing two seasons of low milk prices, a $500,000 overdraft and long, exhausting workdays. Something had to change. In this practical and eye-opening live recording from th...

What happens when you don’t make time for your wellness? For wellbeing researcher and speaker Carli Phillips , the answer was confronting: double pneumonia, a heart infection and total burnout in her late thirties... all while juggling two jobs, a masters degree, young children, farm life and caring responsibilities. In this powerful live recording from the Australian Dairy Conference , Carli, the...

 Where did the anti-farming sentiment begin, not just in Australia, but around the world? And most importantly, what can we do about it? Claire Taylor brings a genuinely global perspective to this conversation. Originally from Scotland, she travelled across multiple countries as part of her Nuffield Scholarship, exploring how farming is portrayed, discussed and defended in different cultural conte...

Farmers are often portrayed as being lone operators, but we know that working in agriculture, or any rural business, is a team sport. No matter what specific industry you’re in, you’re not going to get far without the ability to get people working together towards a shared goal.         None of this is possible without effective leadership, and that’s the topic we’re going to be tackling in this e...

Nikki Davey is well known in the rural women's community as an entrepreneur, flower farmer, speaker and absolute go-getter. She founded Grown Not Flown, an app connecting customers with local flower growers. This startup business had a great cause in directly challenging the lack of sustainability in the flower industry, where many flowers are flown to Australia from countries in South Americ...

It can feel very murky when diving into measuring things like nature, biodiversity, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.  Essentially, how do you know what you’re doing is working? And while the tools are still improving there are many reasons why it’s worth giving it a crack.  In part 3 of our collaboration series with Farmers for Climate Action, we dive into ways to help you account for all the...

“Climate smart farming” has become somewhat of a buzz word (or buzz phrase, rather!). But what does that even mean? Instead of becoming caught up in definitions, we hear from two women who are each running farming operations in two very different landscapes...but are both proudly, climate smart farmers.  At its essence, climate smart farming is about lowering inputs where you can, making decisions...

Behind every good Ag business, is a good woman. Well, a smart and caring one. There are many women doing innovative things on farm and in the broader agriculture industry. From cracking a value added business, to finding more sustainable ways of producing food. In this episode, you’ll meet two women who think strategically about their own farming businesses, as well as broader issues around soil s...

How do you create systemic change, especially when it involves changing the culture and attitudes of not just a workplace, but an entire society?  There is no specific playbook for systemic change. But there are a number of tools you can try. In this final episode of our three part series with Rural Women Lead, we explore this adaptive process by looking at space of women’s health and wellbeing -...

Storytelling is so important for connection and information retention (there are several studies that prove this!) But have you ever stopped to think how important knowing YOUR OWN story is? Hear from Sherry Johnstone, a Keerray Woorong woman, based in Warrnambool who didn’t feel confident in embracing her indigenous heritage, because she was so tired of people questioning it. But when she finally...

If you haven’t heard about ‘bio-hacking’ - it’s all about using our neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin and hormones to maximise our wellbeing. And you can do really simple things for a big pay off. This is the beginning of a 3-part mini series on leadership: focusing on self, story and change. In this episode, focusing on ‘self’ speak to Jessica Fishburn , a women’s health physiothe...

Farm life can sometimes be romanticized, with the wide open spaces, animals and the freedom to do what you want. You might love the bush and your community…but are you actually happy? There are many factors that influence our wellbeing. This includes how well the business is running financially, farm succession (including whether it has been worked out or not) and your experiences of drought and n...

There’s a perception that rural healthcare means second-best or second-rate. Whereas the opposite is actually true. Rural medical students often out-perform their city-based counterparts on standardised tests. Most rural patients are better off being treated closer to home in their rural location (unless they have a very rare condition). And rural medical practices can often be better at adopting...

Regional Australia has always been at the frontline for energy innovation and delivery. Sure, it's the politicians in the cities that talk about a transition, but it's in our backyard that these projects actually happen. Some renewables, such as wind, seem to be particularly controversial in a few parts of the country right now. This episode is not diving into that. Instead, it’s looking...