Profitable Farmer

What if the best investment you could make on your farm costs nothing extra to feed, never needs a day off, and compounds in value every single year?  That's the case Dr Mark Ferguson has been making for 30 years. And the numbers back him up.  Mark is a sheep geneticist turned ag tech founder who grew up on a family farm in the Victorian Mallee. After completing his PhD in Merino genetics, he foun...

Some friendships change your life. This one changed Australia.  When Tracy Bevan met Jane McGrath at an airport café in 1996, they were simply two British women far from home, trying to find their place in a new country while their husbands travelled the world playing cricket.  What neither of them knew was that a friendship forged over cups of tea, loneliness, laughter and life's challenges would...

There’s an old saying that uncertainty creates opportunity.  But if you're a grain grower right now, uncertainty can also create confusion, hesitation, and some pretty costly decisions.  Over the past few years, we've seen massive swings in commodity prices, input costs, weather patterns, and global politics. For many farm businesses, it feels like the rules keep changing. One minute we're talking...

In Part 1, John Fargher took us back to the beginning, exploring the early days of  AgriWebb  and the farming families who backed a young ag tech company long before the rest of the industry could see what it would become. If you haven't listened to that one yet, we recommend starting there.  In Part 2, the story gets bigger.  Because beneath the global partnerships and the rapid growth, this epis...

John Fargher grew up on a remote family station in the Northern Flinders Ranges, where distance, drought, hard work and innovation were simply part of life.  He saw first-hand how quickly farming can change. A station that once needed 40 people could later run with four or five. Horses gave way to motorbikes. Water runs that once took days could be done in hours by plane. Each shift changed what w...

A good season can hide a lot. So can a strong balance sheet. But performing well on the surface does not always mean the business is built on the right foundation.  Risk builds quietly. Options narrow over time. And by the time most farm owners recognise it, they have less room to move than they thought.  In this episode, Jeremy sits down with Andy Fenton, Managing Director of Fenton Financial, wh...

Are you concerned by the uncertainty surrounding increased fuel prices?     Is the current global turmoil challenging your view on how to best navigate this season?    The biggest risk right now is not fuel, fertiliser, interest rates, or global instability. It's panic.   Uncertainty has a way of hijacking clear thinking. It pulls people into worst-case scenarios and pushes reactive decisions befo...

This week, Sam Johnsson hijacks the podcast while I’m off on a skiing holiday in Austria and he takes on a topic that might not sound flashy, but can quietly change everything in a farm business: building a strong financial system.    Because for a lot of farm owners, the numbers are still something that sit in the background until they become a problem.    And that’s a hard way to lead.    When t...

Selling the family farm can feel like the ultimate failure. For a lot of farming families, it can carry guilt, grief, and the sense that something precious has been lost.     But Mike Stephens challenges that story head-on.    Mike is the founder of  Meridian Agriculture , one of Australia’s oldest and most  experienced agricultural consulting firms, and the author of Life After Farming. For decad...

As we step into 2026, there’s a lot of noise out there.    Geopolitical tension. AI hype. Market highs. Media drama.    And if you’re a farm owner trying to make steady, strategic decisions in the middle of a tight season… it can feel like one more thing to carry.    In this episode, I sit down with my good mate Terry Tran, founder of Freedom Trader, to cut through the headlines and look at what t...

What if the real constraint in your business isn’t effort, seasons, or skill, but the role you’re still stuck playing?    For Ben and Kate, this question didn’t arrive neatly. It crept in over time.    Their journey took them far from the farm first, through university, into investment banking in London, and straight into the pressure cooker of the GFC. Long hours. High stakes. A world where struc...

There comes a moment in every farm business where the question isn’t how much more can we do, it’s what do we actually want to build?    For Simon and Naomi Goode, that moment came after years of doing everything: cropping, hay, livestock, all while raising four kids and managing 3,200 hectares in Victoria’s eastern Wimmera. They weren’t in crisis. In fact, from the outside, they were flying. But...

There comes a point when the late nights, the mental load, and the constant pressure make you wonder... how much longer can we keep doing this?    Lachlan and Anna Sutton hit that point. Burnt out. Leasing land. Bucketing grain by hand while raising three young kids.    Then something shifted.    In this episode, their FOA Accountability Coach, Hayley Grosser speaks with Lachie and Anna, a couple...

What if the hardest seasons in your business turned out to be the ones that set you free?  In this deeply honest episode, Marina Gregor, one of our senior business coaches sits down with Andrew Graham, a cattle producer from southwest Victoria, to explore a powerful story of resilience, family, and business transformation.  Andrew was previously burnt out, juggling operations management for a larg...

As we reach the business end of the season for many, this episode offers a quiet reflection on some of the deeper and important challenges showing up for farming families and their business teams right across the country.    There’s no guest this time. Instead, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my learnings and observations over the year through coaching calls, leadership workshops, and t...

Sam Whitelock knows pressure. He’s captained the All Blacks through some of rugby’s most intense moments. He’s made high-stakes decisions with the weight of a nation on his shoulders. And now, he’s turned that same grit and composure to life on the farm.  But here’s what Sam’s learned. Real leadership isn’t about powering through at all costs. It’s knowing when to push and when to pause. When to s...

“You’re doing better than you think.” It’s the simple, powerful reminder that Tim and Cheryl Freak leave behind after every farm visit.   In this episode, I sit down with two of our long-time FOA members and coaches, Tim and Cheryl, who have spent the past three years deeply embedded in our community, supporting hundreds of farm businesses across Australia. This year alone, they’ve completed more...

Australia’s wool sector is still feeling the pinch. There’s no doubt the last couple of years have been challenging, with recent decile two and three prices making it hard for many businesses to stay afloat. But despite these obstacles, the Swales of Woodlands set an example of resilience. They’re carrying 150 years of family heritage into the future, proving that even in the face of adversity, th...

After more than 15 years of focused breeding, data collection, and persistence, Tom Bull and his team at LAMBPRO have achieved what many thought was impossible: the creation of KS7, a Marble Score 7 lamb, developed in partnership with Meat & Livestock Australia, Endeavour Meats, and chef Matt Moran.    This high-marbling lamb delivers the same eating quality, juiciness, and tenderness that con...

Australian cattle and lamb markets are at a tipping point. Prices have surged to record highs, but according to leading analyst Simon Quilty, we’re about to hit what he calls “unsustainable pricing.”    Bringing over 30 years of hard-won market insight to the table, Simon Quilty has worked with top firms including Louis Dreyfus, ConAgra, DR Johnston, and FC Stone. Today, he helps large financial i...

At just two years old, Terry Tran fled Vietnam by boat with his parents, was rescued after days lost at sea, and spent months on a Malaysian refugee island. It was there, on Christmas Eve, that a storm claimed his father’s life, leaving his 21-year-old mother widowed with a toddler to raise.    From those humble beginnings, Terry has built a life of financial freedom, not through shortcuts but thr...

In recent years grain growers nationally have enjoyed an extended period of strong prices and favourable market conditions.  According to grain industry authority, Brett Stevenson, Managing Director of Market Check, this may well be all about to change.  Of the back of last month’s Australian Grains Industry Conference (AGIC), I invite Brett to once again join me to give us his expert insights to...

From growing up on a dairy farm in western Victoria with 12 siblings to the frontlines of one of the toughest fights in medical research, Sam McGuane’s story is one of resilience, service, and hope. As the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of The Brain Cancer Centre, and a key leader behind Carrie’s Beanies for Brain Cancer, Sam is on a mission to transform the future of brain cancer research.  In...

When you wear as many hats as our farming families do, time is one thing you never have enough of.    From the kitchen table to the paddock, we’re constantly making decisions, solving problems, and figuring out how to do more with less. What if there was a way to take some of that pressure off, without handing over the reins?    In this episode, I sit down with Dimity Smith, agri-business innovato...

I really values the constructs that: ‘you cannot solve the problem you have created in the environment in which you created it’… and ‘many minds make for smarter work’. What could you see more clearly if you took time with key decision-makers away from your farm? How many more options and insights might you access if you more actively called on the collective wisdom of other high-performing farm o...