Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My hut Upper Hunter.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I feel very blessed, being really lucky to have those
who have come before me to show me that no
anything's possible. You can't just be in the kitchen making
scones like the world's euroyster in farming and don't let
anyone tell you different.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Hello, I'm Garren Katrupi on this episode. A remarkable young
Upper Hunter woman recognize for her forward thinking and care
for the community. Rolanda Cloud Collins packs a lot into
her day. While many of us are still sleeping, she's
up and about on her family's property at car Springs,
tending to the animals. Once that's all done, it's off
(00:40):
to work in Scone as an accountant, helping many of
the region's farmers manage their finances. Then it's back home
to feed the cattle and sheep, before heading off to
a meeting or two for the local branch of the
New South Wales Farmers Association, where she's the chairperson. It's
not just dollarson sents, though, that Rolanda deals with While
(01:00):
managing the books for local primary producers, she often finds
herself as a compassionate ear for those who are trying
to cope with the emotional toll of life on the land,
and over time, Orlando has become more and more engaged
in helping those struggling with more than their finances. Her
dedication prompted the National Farmers Federation to sign Rolander up
(01:22):
for its Future Leaders program, and we'll hear more on
that soon. But I start our chat with this question.
Has farming always been in the blood? Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Sign fifth generation family farm at car Springs. So yes,
It's just always been in my background, something I've always
been passionate about. So lucky to have two generations of
women farmers before me too, to have that role model
to show me that it's possible to be a woman
in farming.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Have you ever questioned it or thought of other careers like,
I don't know, fashion model, photographer, something different from farming.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, I think I've probably got what you'd call a face, food,
a radio, So modeling was probably never in my future.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And I'm not offended by that at all.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
But no, I will admit I do work off farm
during the week as an accountant in Scone. But see,
I think that's a benefit because I can bring those
accounting skills to my business. I'm on the family farm.
But I can also help our clients who are also
heavily in the farming industry with having some boots on
the ground knowledge that I can apply to their own
businesses as well.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
What do you actually farm that car springs.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
As for mainly beef cattle and some sheep.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Do you have like massive numbers or.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well not in comparison to some people, But I think
we do okay. So we've got just under trudged head
of cattle and one hundred and fifty head of sheep.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That would keep you busy. So I imagine you don't
just get up in the morning, have a leisurely coffee
and go off to the office in Scone.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Then no, I have practically a work day before I
get to the office by time you feed up. But
currently we're very lucky. It's a good season, so we're
not hand feeding.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Do you doing this all by yourself or do you
have other family members or a partner helping it? No?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So I've still got my mum and dad who are
on the farm as well, so it's their business. By
help out where I can, and well, I mean in
a day, it's my future, so why wouldn't I give
a hand, whilst I.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Can being a woman. You mentioned you you have other
women in the family that have done this come before you.
Does that inspire you to sort of want to, you know,
want it, not just not just be a farmer. But
you know, I suppose learn from all their experience. I imagine
having mum there on the farm is invaluable and for
(03:39):
or daddy's as well, but you know, just from mom's perspective.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yes, I find really infatable because, like through this program
and other things I've been involved with, I've met lots
of young female farmers who just they haven't had those
role models. So I feel very blessed, being really lucky
to have that in my background and those who've come
before me to show me that no, anything's possible. You
can't just be in the kitchen making scones like the
(04:05):
world's your royster. In farming and don't let anyone tell
you different.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Farming is so almost like a yo yo, isn't it?
Like you must have been through some tough times. I mean,
I know the big drought there about around twenty nineteen
that would have been extremely hard.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It was, and then the mental stress it causes people
is extraordinary. Even in train for In the beginning of
twenty four we had what we would call a flash drought.
It came on so quick you couldn't have predicted it,
and that was a tough twelve months.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I remember speaking to you at that time and you
were hand feeding and it was getting fairly desperate. Is
it a case of sure it just worked out with
the rains coming at the right time. I know there
was not a great deal of action from governments with
support for a long time as well.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yes, we were lucky that we got some good rain
probably in March of this year, and that really helped
us turn that corner.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So how it conditions now.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It's a beautiful season. We've been really lucky, and through
it was starting to dry out. But we're lucky enough
to get about forty two mills of rain yesterday, so
that just topped off, topped it off a bit.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Not too much damage from the storm, or was it
just rain in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
We were quite lucky, Like I could hear the winds,
but we're very lucky without any damage.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You must almost I suppose. I feel like you've got
multiple personalities in a sense, not only doing the farming stuff,
but when you go to scone in the morning and
do the accountancy for your fellow farmers. I imagine there's
a bit of I suppose counselors sort of building too
that role unintentionally as well.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, And that's why I find really helpful coming from
that farming background that I can understand and relate to
my clients going look, I know to see is tough.
How are you feeling? Do you need help? And that's
something I feel pretty passionate about, and it's part of
the policy product of the BELOT for the NFF National
Agriculture Leadership Program. My policy for that looks at introducing
(06:15):
not mandatory but suggested training and mental health for accountants,
just as they can recognize when they have clients who
might need that extra step to refer them to a
mental health professional. Because, as we know, mental health it's
a hard topic to talk about, but we shouldn't be
ashamed of it. There's help out there, so why not
(06:36):
help people find it?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
And I imagine that the accountant is probably if you
are really struggling and feeling isolated, the last thing you
tend to do is talk to many people, but they
have to talk to their accountant so you might be
the one of the very few people they do talk
to and share their issues.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yes, I know, I've seen it. People come in, you
start going over figures in that spin it. It's like
a damn breaks. They feel they can talk to you
because they have that trusted relationship, whereas a mtem of
other people in the community, or they might feel ashamed.
Whereas sorry to say, when you're an accountant, nothing's off
the table. We know quite a.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Lot still to come. On this episode, Orlando talks frankly
about how farmers in the Upper Hunter are being let
down in the area of mental health support. Also what
does she think makes a good leader in agriculture.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I heart ap Hunter, I heart aper Hunter.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Welcome back. I'm Darren Ktrube and I'm talking with Orlanda
Clark Collins, a can't Spring farmer and accountant and the
chair of the local branch of the New South Wales
Farmers Association. Her dedication to working with farm families and
primary producers in the Upper Hunter caught the attention of
National Farmers Federation, who could see she had the goods
(08:03):
as a future leader. So Orlanda is now a proud
graduate of the prestigious National Agriculture Leadership program.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So I've been quite involved with New Southast Farmers, so
I'm my local branch's chair. I also sit on their
Young Farmers' Council and I'm also an advisory committee for Business,
Economics and Trade, so I'm quite involved from the South
Ast Farmers in that aspect and as one of the
member organizations of NFF, they were able to put up
a nominee for this National Farmers Federation course and I
(08:36):
applied thinking it'd be such a great up change to
meet only people in my industry, but peel from all
across Australia and seeing what they face in their specific industries.
So I put nominating myself when into the process and
I was lucky enough to be accepted and sponsored by
New Southast Farmers to enroll in the program.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Tell us about what's been happening over the past few days.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So this week it's the culmination of five months. We
start off with a retreat to Canberra. We've got to
meet how fellow participants, meet some people in the Hill
in Canberra, meet other industry leaders and meet people from NFF,
where we talked about what effective policy is and how
we can help make it sit in. Over the following
(09:20):
four months, we've looked at different leadership skills, what we
can do to become the best advocates we can for
ourselves as well as our industry. And we've also developed
a policy project which I've said my policy is mental
health training for accountants, but not as other girls working
in horticulture, looking at some of the red tape and
how we can help reduce that as well as succession
(09:42):
planning and numerous other issues.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Is it a case of there's a commonality between you
all in the leadership group and the issues that you're
all experiencing across the country that it almost helps create
a bond between you all because at the end of
the day, you're all in pretty much a similar boat.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yes, And that's what I've really enjoyed because from the
start we might have looked like we had commonality. I mean,
we've got girls in Western Australia, we've got girls in Queensland,
New South Wales, all in various aspects of the agricultural industry,
so we might have had much uncommon on paper, but
once you get talking, you learn that there's those common
theme stresses mental health stress, about the weather prices, and
(10:29):
you learned and you get to know cool. This is
what we do in the cal industry. But I'll wait.
In the mango industry, they do this. This is how
they help with those issues. So it's just learning and
making connections.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Did the mango growers bring any boxes of mangoes for
you to take home?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I think we were kind of out of the mango
season in August and Canberra, but might have a contact
there in the future.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I suspect yeah, I might talk to you about that,
just quietly off air. So the idea about the mental
health training, what happens with that idea?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Now?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Will the National Farmers' Federation take that forward?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So from my policy proposal it goes to their committees,
so they have advisory committees, but they'll look at the
idea and see if has any merit and they might
pursue it. But it gets the idea out there and
in their radar.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
You're pretty busy if you're getting up with the crack
of dawn looking after all the animals. You're getting to
work in its scone and you know cars brings to scone,
isn't you know a five minute you know? Hop skip
and a jump. You're there all day and then you're
coming home and doing more stuff on the farm. When
do you get time to sort of think that, hey,
(11:40):
I'd like to sort of get involved on the policy
side of things.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well, I think I was brought off the idea, well,
if you want to make a change, there's no point
sitting around complaining. You have to be part of the change.
So if you want to make a difference, you have
to be part of the process. And well, I want
to make a difference, so there's no point sitting around
doing complain when I could be involved.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Obviously, as the chair of the local branch of the
New South Wales Farmers Association, you would have a pretty
good understanding of the various issues and things that need
to sort of change, not just from your own perspective
from your farm, but from all your fellow members within
(12:22):
the district.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yes, and that's what's this kind of organization is. It's
very member driven at the grassroots.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So what does the future hold for you? Do we
expect to I don't know. So you maybe as the
mayor of Upper Hunter Ship or the member for Upper
Hunter or maybe even replace Barnaby as the member for
New England one day.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Unfortunately, I don't think politics is really in my future.
I'm accounting, after all. Numbers are my game, not words.
But I'd like to stay in this kind of advisory
and community involvement to just help out where i can.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Right Land of Cloud Collins impressive on so many levels,
and a young woman with the peripheral vision to see
a strong farming community starts with looking after the people
in it. Time to close the farm gate on this
episode of iHeart Upper Hunter hardly supported by the new
South Wales government. I'm Darren katrupiin I'll catch You next time.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
iHeart Upper Hunter