Farmers helping Farmers

Guest host Joel Williams talks to Michael Gooden and Dan Fox about the evolution of this grassroots farming group over the past 24 years, and the announcement of its new name - Farmers helping Farmers.

NEW NAME | SAME PRINCIPLES | SAME SUPPORT| SAME FARMERS HELPING FARMERS

In 2002 a group of innovative broadacre cropping farmers formed the Victorian No Till Farmers Association as an independent, practical, grassroots group of ‘...

In this episode, Michael Gooden catches up with board member Carol Fitzpatrick and her husband Brian to delve deeper into their on-farm brewing set-up which is providing nutrition to their family's combined 6000-hectares of broadacre crops in one of Australia's harshest farming environments - the Mallee.

Carol attended her first VicNoTill conference in 2022, just one year into being full-time on the farm. Although she felt like a fi...

"I didn't get to Dad's until 12:30am Friday. I’ll never forget coming over the hill I’ve been coming over my whole life to home and seeing the area glowing. The whole horizon wasred. It was like an apocalypse."

VicNoTill board member Callum Lawson and his partner, large-animal veterinarian Lyndall Barwick, were on the frontline of the Longwood bushfire in Victoria that started on January 7, 2026. This fire burnt over 140...

We are re-releasing our very first Farmers Helping Farmers podcast episode with former VicNoTill president and sixth generation Lockington farmer Grant Sims. This conversationwith Dan Fox was recorded way back in 2022 is our most highly listened to episode of all time.

Grant joined the VicNoTill board in 2015 and was president until 2020. Landline Australia featured Grant and the benefits of regenerative farming system on its May 10...

Farmers Helping Farmers, The Podcast is dropping into your ears with a paddock chat between VicNoTill president Michael Gooden and board member James Manning around how they're managing budgets, future plans and other farm activities during the current fuel and fertiliser shortage.

James manages 'Northwood Park' at Seymour for one of three farms in a 10,000 acre thoroughbred stud owned by Sheik Mohammed of Dubai. James, his wife Li...

April 2026: Life is full of challenges, especially in farming, and the global situation can be a heavy weight. It feels like the perfect time to re-release this encore conversation with UK farmer Tim Parton. If you want to be inspired, Tim is your man. We’re wanting to remind everyone that Farmers are Heroes, nobody else can do what we do.

Since this episode was recorded in 2023, Tim has faced even more personal challenges du...

In 2017, a Sydney TedX crowd went wild when farmer turned agronomist Guy Webb stood on stage to pitch his idea for using fungus to capture carbon in the atmosphere and plant it back into the ground to combat the lack of carbon in Australian soils.

The applause was thunderous and what followed has been almost a decade of intensive research into developing a technology that provides a return on investment to farmers through their eff...

VicNoTill is proud to re-release what was our second episode of Farmers Helping Farmers The Podcast for those who may have missed it!

Dan Fox sat down with Graeme Sait during VicNoTill's 2022 annual conference Carbon Power to record what continues to be one of our most popular episodes On Why Nutrition Rules.

Graeme knows so much about growing nutritious food and we’ve only crammed in a tiny portion of what he knows into this...

VicNoTill president Michael Gooden describes stepping intothe paddocks of broadacre cropping farmer Brendan 'Patto' Pattison at Marrar NSW, as like stepping 10-15 years into the future and seeing what broadacre cropping systems have the potential to become.

Michael sits in the tractor, ute and walks through Patto's paddocks for this Farmers Helping Farmers episode that brings real farm life to your ears, learning more about croppin...

Back in 2023, third generation Victorian farmer Tom Briggs candidly shared the things that went right, and wrong, when he returned home to his family farm with a head full of new ideas of how to shift into a more regenerative farming system. Since that time a large number of farmers have contacted VicNoTill to say how much they appreciated and learnt from this episode.

Tom joined the VicNoTill board in 2018 and filled the role of V...

In this podcast episode, Angus Ingram catches up with Don Piper. Don is a mixed farmer from Violet Town in Victoria who is typical of farmers who want to create a more resilient system that builds up their soils for future success, in that he believed he was the exception and could change everything all at once. He learnt pretty quickly he needed to build his 'on ramp and off ramp' that we covered with John Kempf in a recent Farmer...

In this ENCORE episode you'll get an insight into what you can expect at the VicNoTill annual conference on September 2 and 3 at Moama, NSW when you meet our dinner guest speaker Will Bignell.

VicNoTill board members met Will last year at the Grounded Festival in Tasmania, and couldn't wait to get him over to the mainland to share his story. Limited tickets to the conference are still available. Visit VicNoTill's website to purchase...

NSW broadacre cropping farmer Dan Fox has a fascination for understanding the intricacies of how plants and soils function, and his conversation with Omnia research and development manager Andrew Doecke takes him into some deep rabbit holes on nutrition, chemistry and science.

Dan is in his element in this sponsor episode in piecing together how bio-stimulants fit into broadacre cropping systems.

This indepth discussion covers huma...

“If you have a decline in yield as a result of a transition to regenerative ag, it is not a result of regenerative ag, it is the result of poor agronomic management. Accepting a yield loss is a choice. Don’t say it’s a result of regenerative ag because it’s not, and I will die on this hill.”

It is a strong start to this Farmers Helping Farmers special episode with John Kempf – a true visionary in...

Applications are open for the Integrity Soils CREATE program with Nicole Masters which is being run in Australia for the first time. The on-farm intensive for CREATE Australia will be on the Victorian regenerative farm of VicNoTill board member Callum Lawson in September 2025. In this re-released podcast episode from 2024, Callum shares how his farming journey has evolved since discovering holistic and regenerative agriculture.

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Nicole, a global agro-ecologist, educator and systems thinker, has been working with VicNoTill to share knowledge about regenerative ag for more than a decade.

In this episode, current president Michael Gooden talks to Nicole about how regenerative ag is a system, not an input and how people's awareness has exploded about the critical role healthy soils play in our lives.

For Nicole, regenerative ag is an approach which enhances nat...

Agricultural investment manager and VicNoTill board member Angus Ingram steps in as guest host for this fast-paced, action-packed interview with Tasmanian farmer and ag scientist Will Bignell. Angus pulled Will aside after hearing him speak at the Matthew Evans Grounded Festival in southern Tasmania in December 2024.

Will is a 7th generation farmer and father of three boys from Bothwell in Tasmania and it's remarkable what he's mana...

When farmers speak about diversity being one of the hallmarks of a resilient farming system, Stacey Curcio asks them to consider the diversity within their diets and the way they move to keep their body’s cells and microbes thriving.

Stacey is a Naturopath at Cultivating Wellness with a Masters of Human Nutrition and was guest speaker at VicNoTill's Food for Thought conference in 2024. She links human health and soil health, ...

Fifth generation broadacre farmer and agronomist Keiran Knight grew up on an irrigation, cotton, sheep, cattle and cereal farm between Walgett and Narrabri in NSW. She married her next door neighbour John and they still farm the land their previous generations settled in 1891.

While working as an agronomist and with a young family, Keiran became increasingly concerned about the amount of fertiliser conventional agriculture was aski...