Profitable Farmer

Uncertainty Is the Only Certainty: Building Resilience with Psychologist Maria Ruberto

Two hundred episodes in, and the thread running through nearly all of them is this: the numbers matter, but what's going on in our heads and hearts is what determines whether we thrive or just survive.

So for this milestone, I wanted to talk human emotions properly, starting with the one none of us can avoid.

Uncertainty is almost the only certa...

AI is moving fast — incredibly fast — and whether we like it or not, the game has changed. 

In this week’s episode, I sit down with Sam Johnsson, CEO of Farm Owners Academy. Sam, along with Michaela, Greg, and the broader FOA team, has been doing outstanding work in this space, not just exploring what AI can do, but figuring out how we can use it practically to build better businesses and better out...

There is a question every farming family should be able to answer with confidence:

How well is our farm business actually performing — and what is it truly capable of?

Not just whether there’s cash in the bank. Not whether we’ve had a good season. And not whether we’re doing things a bit better than they’ve always been done.

I mean really understanding the strength of the business model underneath it a...

Pat Barrett has spent nearly twenty years at Walsh & Blair, and before that he was playing regional rugby for the Wagga Waratahs, learning lessons about mateship, discipline, and common goals that he still leans on today when he sits across the table from farming families trying to navigate succession.

In this episode, I sit down with Pat, director at Walsh & Blair and one of the most respected rural lawyers in the Riverina...

If a plan only lives in your head, no one else can help you make it happen. 

That's the line that sits at the heart of this conversation. Because so often on a family farm, there isn't one plan. There are two, or three, or four, each one living quietly inside a different family member's head, each one slightly different, and none of them written down anywhere everyone can see. 

In this episode, I'm&nbs...

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 founded neXtgen Agr...

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 go on to impac...

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 minu...

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 grow...

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 was possible, and le...

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, who brings more than 20 yea...

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 before...

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 ...

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. Fo...

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...

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 structure and ...

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 inside,...

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 who, in just 18 months,...

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 large-scale dairy business wh...