The Drought Resilience Podcast

"Having sheep off the property, that's what runs the place and has run the place forever, and you try doing a water run and there's no sheep out there...looking at empty paddocks, it's an eerie feeling. You can't see an end, it's a dark tunnel."  Luke Frahn "One of the things that drought takes away from you is the power of choice. There were times we couldn'...

"I've never seen dust storms like that before. Even older fellas than my Dad, like 80-year-old fellas were saying, I've never seen it like this before. This is the worst drought and continual year-after-year drought."  Reuben Solly In this episode, you’ll meet brother and sister team Amey and Reuben Solly from Yednalue Station, 16 kilometres east of Cradock in the far north of So...

“I’m not complaining about where I am and I’m not complaining necessarily about having dry periods, it’s just a matter of dealing with them.” Jim Kuerschner “It’s certainly been the worst period of my farming career. I found it challenging to know what the right decision to make is and the nagging doubt that anything will ever go back to normal again.” Sam Kuerschner In this episode you get differ...

You’ve got your financial bank, you’ve got your moisture bank, and then you’ve got your grass bank. If you don’t have your moisture and grass bank, there won’t be any bank…or the bank will be chasing us.” John Nicholas In this episode you’ll meet 34-year-old John Nicholas from Orroroo, who owns a 7000-hectare mixed farming operation in the upper north of South Australia. Like many farmers in the a...

“Further east of here there were Mallee trees dying. When you’ve got Mallee trees dying, you know it’s damn dry.” Paul Schutz Paul Schutz is a sheep producer from Point Pass near Eudunda in South Australia’s mid north. His family leases and owns 4000 hectares of mixed cropping country from Neales Flat to the south and Booborowie to the north. He’s one of six siblings; Paul and his three brothers h...

‘We didn’t think we’d have to face it, it’ll rain by the first of June, that’s fine, it’ll rain…but last year it didn’t. There’s no back up plan if you don’t have water.” Georgie Keynes. Meet husband and wife team Georgie Keynes and Toby Rosenzweig who manage Keyneton Station, at Keyneton in South Australia’s Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges. Georgie is the sixth generation to run this historic sheep gr...

Introducing...The Drought Resilience Podcast. This podcast gives you an insight into the lives of four sheep producers who live around Orroroo, Keyneton and Eudunda who've battled through consecutive years of drought – some say the worst in living memory. This podcast was instigated by Deb Scammell, who runs a livestock nutrition consulting business, Talking Livestock. Through dealing with the...