July 7, 2024 • 29 mins
What happens when a Merino sheep farmer turns into a digital marketplace mogul? Our guest this week, Dwain Duxson, founder of Farm Tender and The Farmers Club, shares how and why he switched career paths.
While Dwain enjoyed his time farming and breeding Merino rams, in 2011 he decided a change of gear was in order. “For me, [selling rams] was pretty restrictive in how many customers you could serve. I wanted to serve a lot more customers. I had a bit of an idea of what I wanted to do when the internet was kicking into gear. So that was the main reason we left the farm. We just wanted to try something else and service more people.”
After a few different business ideas, Farm Tender was born. Farm Tender is an online platform for buying and selling agricultural products across Australia. And, with over 72,000 members and around 40 new members joining daily, their database is huge. Dwain wanted to help farmers get the best deals and also provide them with the top-notch customer service he was accustomed to giving when selling breeding stock.
Launching an online platform, however, came with its fair share of obstacles. In the podcast, Dwain discusses the early days of establishing Farm Tender and the challenge of trying to break into the American market.
Dwain also talks about his latest venture, The Farmers Club, a daily newsletter that provides agricultural news and articles. This is where Dwain shares his insights on the current landscape of Australian farming. After years of running agricultural businesses, Dwain has realised that writing is what he loves. Through Farmers Club, he can make the dream of writing about agriculture - every day - a reality.
If you would like to find out more about Farm Tender, you can visit their website here:
https://www.farmtender.com.au/.
If you would like to subscribe to The Farmers Club, visit the following link:
https://thefarmersclub.com.au/.
Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. We help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best: info@nextgenagri.com.
Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.
Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome Dwayne Duxon to Hedgehabit.
Thanks very much, Ferg.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to have you here,mate, and yeah, we've got a few
questions to run through but I'msure we'll get off track a few
times.
But your journey started out atGlendamah, manu, right in the
middle of a heap of merino studsback in the day.
It'd be interesting just tohear your perspective on that
early part of your careerfarming and it was in the Jim
(00:21):
Watts era where changing themerino and throwing caution to
the wind was sort of very muchpart of what was going on.
It would be interesting to hearyour story of those days.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, they were actually wonderful days.
I remember them like they werelast year and obviously my
brother's still at it at thefarm at Glendamara.
I'm sort of no longer involvedin the business but definitely
grew up there until I think Iwas there until the age of 35.
And yeah, jim Watts, that was awonderful area.
Jim was sort of you know, hewas a wonderful scientist and a
(00:53):
great marketer and he certainlytook, you know, our stud to a
next level and much higherprofile and a lot of others and
you know some of the higheststuds Merino studs in Australia,
are now sort of Jim Wattsdisciples.
But yeah, we did a lot of weirdand wonderful things.
I think we used a lot of fingenetics back then for cundinam
and yeah, they were interesting.
(01:14):
The crosses and we had a bit ofluck with the Rambouillet cross
out of the US and managed tobreed a sire called Brown Six
and I was looking back not solong ago we sold over a million
dollars of weather semen fromthat guy.
So it was pretty amazing.
But they're really out theregenetics, I can tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, indeed.
So yeah, it'll be interesting.
I guess obviously familysuccession, whatever people need
to move and make room.
So you made the call to changegear completely and get out of
farming and stay very much an ag, but not directly on the tools.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, it was interesting, like being involved
in that Merino stud game.
You know where you're dealingwith customers and clients and
what have you and I just youknow, for me it was pretty
restrictive of how manycustomers you could serve, so I
wanted to serve a lot morecustomers.
You know, through a particularbusiness that I had a bit of an
(02:14):
idea of what I wanted to do andwhen the internet was kicking
into gear.
So that was probably the reason, main reason, we left the farm.
We just wanted to try somethingelse and, you know, service
more people.
So, and you know, we had awonderful succession with my
brother and father, so we, youknow, initiated it early and it
(02:37):
went really well.
And you know now the best thingwe have Christmas together and
all those sorts of things whicha lot of people don't, because
succession goes bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah 100%.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
The big question for the day is one we're asking
commonly now, which is what isthe last thing you changed your
mind about?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Oh, ferg, good question.
That sheep farming is reallybloody hard.
Because what we did when wemoved off the farm, we went and
lived in a place in New SouthWales.
Victoria bought a place calledYarrawonga for 10 years and
we've probably lived in six orseven other places since, but we
lived in sort of rentals andthings like that.
(03:15):
But three years ago we got backinto farming in a small way,
much smaller way than Glendamar,but we started running sheep
again and we just found out howactually hard it is.
It's amazing.
So, you know, now I've got acouple of businesses on the go,
you know, finding the time torun the sheep and just the
physical hard work.
I've decided to give it awayand give it to a young bloke
(03:37):
who's adjusting it now.
So I found that, yeah, I'veworked it out after a while.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It's very hard, yeah yeah, worked it out after a
while.
It's very hard, yeah, and thatwould be a confronting job to
let someone else take over yourland.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
No, it's quite enjoyable.
He's a young guy, you know,he's a young builder that loves
agriculture and he's, yeah,really excited about his future
and obviously wants to get outof the building game, get more
into ag, but he's afirst-generation farmer, so to
speak so he's going to have tobuild up the way first
(04:10):
generation farmers do Excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So, yeah, farmtender was at least one of those things
you hooked into when you wereleaving the farm, and it's your
online marketplace.
It's a well-known name inAussie, ag.
I'm not sure if those in otherplaces would know it, but it's
got a massive membership now.
72,000 members is huge, and Ithink that's about how many
farms are on Australia, sothat's a big cut through.
Yeah, talking through the earlydays of setting that up, the
internet was just kicking away.
(04:32):
I remember you chipping away atit.
Yeah, I mean, it would havebeen hard yards early, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, it was, and when we left the farm we never
really actually knew we weregoing to do that, so we never
had that as a you know, we neverpinpointed that as a business
we're going straight into.
We actually tried a few otherthings that sort of never really
got going.
And farm tender as a business,it originally was a, um, a
buying service.
So how that worked was a farmwill go on the list, you know,
(05:01):
let's say they wanted 200 ton ofMAP fertilizer and then
suppliers would just go on thelist.
You know, let's say they wanted200 tonne of MAP fertiliser and
then suppliers would just go onquote.
But after sort of you know asupplier losing five quotes in a
row, they'd say, stuff, this,I'm not going to do this anymore
.
And all of a sudden the businessdidn't really make sense.
So we were at a field day onceand one of our customers came up
(05:21):
and said to me at field days,why can't I sell shit on your
website?
So?
And then I thought about it forabout 10 seconds and I thought
why can't?
So we, you know, spent the nexttwo or three months with our
developers turning into aselling service and probably
since that day it's.
You know they talk aboutpivoting and things like that,
but since that day we've neverreally looked back.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Excellent, so maybe just yeah.
For those that aren't Aussie,just explain what the platform
is these days.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
As you said, it's an online marketplace for farmers.
So farmers can go and buy andsell items online and basically
a farmer would go and listsomething like a tractor and
then other farmers would go andinquire on it through the
website.
We don't put contact details onthe listing, so people have to
inquire through the website.
And then we also have peoplesitting in the background, you
(06:13):
know, helping facilitate thedeals.
You know facilitate the buyingand selling process.
So when I first started out bymyself, I wanted to make sure
that you know that, like we didwith the stud game, you know we
have to service people and buildrelationships and earn trust.
So I wanted to build that intoan online business right from
day one.
So hence the reason why we havepeople in the background
(06:35):
helping.
So these guys you know we'vegot 15 staff at the moment and
these guys are sitting in the,you know, working from home,
sitting in front of thecomputers and screens like we
are now Ferg and just basicallytalking to customers on the
phone, helping them through theprocess and building
relationships and trust.
So the marketplace we deal inused machinery, grain, hay,
(06:57):
livestock fertiliser, livestockequipment, trucks anything
that's ag-related, you know,we'll have a crack at.
So yeah, so you know, like fromthe start of it from scratch,
lucky enough to have areasonable database to enter
into the game with.
But it's all like everything ag, it grows incrementally and
(07:18):
it's all sort of one new memberat a time, you know, one listing
at a time, one sale at a time.
That's how it worked right fromthe word go, and now you know
that's how it still works tothis day.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And obviously it's been at a time where I mean
farmers, if we want topigeonhole people, which is
always dangerous, but likearen't necessarily that tech
savvy but I guess since everyfarmer's got a phone in their
pocket, has that been the change.
Once people, once internet wasreally on your phone rather than
on a screen and that changedthe game.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, and it made a massive difference really.
You know, like if someone's gota tractor over there, they can
just take photos on their phone,look it on the website, you
know, and within a minute it'sup there and you know you're not
going to sell it in the back ofthe shed, so you've got to put
it out there and make surepeople see these things.
(08:13):
So, yeah, the phone hasdefinitely been a big part of it
and a lot of our customers aredoing business through us on
their phone.
So, yeah, it's been a big part.
We've still got a lot of themarket we can penetrate.
We aren't as big in Queenslandand Western Australia, so we've
(08:33):
got a lot of work to sort offind new networks there.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, you must be pretty proud of how it's gone,
though.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It's gone well yeah no well, as I said, it started
with me originally and we'vebootstrapped the business all
the way along so we've nevertaken any sort of investment
type thing.
So basically, I run it whereyou know, we build it up, we
make enough money to employanother person, and we make
enough money to employ anotherperson after that.
So that's how it works.
(09:02):
But, like as I said, inagriculture everything's
incremental.
So you know, and you look atour growth over the years and
sort of at like a 30-degreeangle just slowly inching up.
But you look back, you knowwe've been in business 12 years
now and you look back and youthink you know it's come a hell
of a long way.
So, yeah, it's been a wonderfuljourney and, yes, we are very
(09:25):
proud.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah yeah, excellent.
A quick look at your LinkedInprofile would suggest you
definitely get the label of aserial entrepreneur 55 Farms of
Lape, the Farmers Club and thenobviously Farm Tender as well.
Yeah, obviously not into that.
Maybe not that label, but yeah,what do you think it drives you
to in your belief of apotential, of a better way?
There's obviously something, aspirit of entrepreneurism,
(09:47):
somewhere in there.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
There is and you know , as I said, we're lucky enough
to have an audience and adatabase so you can actually try
things.
You know you can put it outthere to the database and
they'll sort of vote with theirfeet whether something's any
good or not Of those businesses.
55 Farms was our Americanexperiment.
So I went to America, myselfand my son there for a couple of
(10:10):
months to just do a bit of afact-finding mission whether we
could take our farm tender modeland work it over there, whether
it would work over there.
And we sort of came backthinking, yes, we could.
So we went and lived there for12 months and tried to get it
going over there, but we justcouldn't get it going.
So yeah, we sort of gave it, wewanted to give it 12 months, we
gave it 12 months and we justcouldn't penetrate the market.
(10:30):
Not that I think it wouldn'twork at the moment Like now this
is seven years on but yeah, wejust we just found trouble sort
of trying to get into thatmarket.
They sort of everything's thesame but different over there.
So they do it everything, this,everything looks the same and
acts the same but they do itdifferently.
So, like with the usedmachinery model.
(10:51):
What had happened?
Over there?
They, they don't sell on farm,whereas we sell on farm here.
They'll go and sell in, youknow, through on consignment,
through the dealers or throughan auction system, whereas over
here we're happy to just walkout, you know, rent in the shed,
and take a few photos and listit online, which is um makes
sense to us, but it doesn't makesense to them yeah, and there's
(11:12):
well, there's severalbusinesses, even even across the
ditch between like kW companiestrying to set up in Australia
and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
It's tough going once you change geographies.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, 100%.
You just can't.
I've worked out over the yearsand we've seen it with other
businesses out of, let's say,the US and come to Australia and
trying to replicate their modeland it never works and they end
up, you know, like we did,retreating and going back and
just concentrating on what youdo.
So it is difficult to, yeah,replicate a model and go to
another country and expecting itto work.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, I mean there is another quote, but it's
something like yeah, if you wantto have more success, you've
got to have more failures.
There's several quotes aroundthat, like the only way you
out-success people is toout-fail people.
So it must have been.
I mean you obviously go toproper crack going and live
there, but you'd be pretty happythat you made the call rather
than try and drag it on forthree or four years and then
(12:05):
retreat.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, yeah, I was happy to make the call to say we
failed and come home, but itwas also a wonderful learning
experience.
You know, starting a businessover there.
You know, just things likeopening bank accounts are so
much different.
You know, talking to people onthe phone, like I'd get on the
phone and talk to the Americanfarmers and they'd just say, hey
man, I can't even understandyou, you talk too fast.
(12:26):
You sort of didn't really get acrack at it.
And then I worked out that Ihad to employ Americans.
And then, you know, I think thefirst five I employed and
sacked, employed.
And you know, I think the firstfive I employed and sacked,
employed and sacked, employedand sacked.
Until I found someone that Ithought was half reasonable and
you know he was making a littlebit of progress, but we just
couldn't get there.
I can see it was going to be abig waste of time and money.
(12:46):
So we thought we'd come homeand concentrate on what we, you
know our core, and trying tobring sort of new products to
the you know, australian market,to the you know Australian
market.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, no.
Excellent.
You're a self-diagnosedagricultural enthusiast, which I
think is a pretty common themefor everyone.
On Head Shepherd, we're allpretty passionate about the game
.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
What do you love most about ag?
It's diversity, and there'salways something going on.
That's probably the thing thatI find.
I'm an avid reader, so I get uppretty early and start
preparing my Farmers Clubnewsletter, which I send out six
days a week, and so I read lotsof you know different articles
(13:27):
and lots of blogs, and lots ofyou know Twitter feeds and
LinkedIn feeds and things likethat.
So anything I can get my handson that's related to ag and
there's any particular day.
You have no trouble findinginformation that you know.
We collate a lot of thisinformation, then put it
together in a newsletter andsend it out.
So, yeah, that's what I loveabout ag there's so much going
on and you know nothing'spredictable.
I'm sure a farmer wakes upevery morning sort of half
(13:50):
knowing what they're going to do, but it never really goes to
plan all the time yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
No, I don't think we've ever had a day go to plan
on farming no, not this time.
Yeah, I'm intrigued that yourecently discovered what you
really want to do, and that's towrite.
You definitely have your ownstyle, a no BS style that would
resonate with farmers 100%.
At a time when print media isgetting decimated, it's hard to
know where AI starts and humanstops.
(14:15):
Talk us through that newfoundpassion of riding and what your
vision for the Farmers Club is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, it's an interesting one.
I've sort of been lucky enoughto build the farm tender
business to where it is today,where it doesn't require my
attention all the time, so I'veput people in positions where
they can sort of run theday-to-day side of it, which is
what, you know, every businessowner wants to sort of strive
for in the end, I think.
So that's allowed me to sort ofdo things like the Farmers Club
(14:44):
, which is a newsletter that Isend out six days a week, goes
out at 5am Australian time everymorning and, as I said before,
we collate information aroundarticles and news items and
blogs and, as I said, socialmedia feeds, and we just put it
all in the newsletter.
I also write three articles aday that we put in there as well
(15:07):
, and we get probably between 20and 30 replies to our articles
every day.
So we put anonymous replies inthere as well, so you can hear
what you know the farmers areactually saying.
So that's been going probablysince september last year and,
um, we've just started.
It was a it's free, so we juststarted to put it under a
(15:27):
subscription model, so, which isa great way to sort of keep
refining your audience.
So, yeah, it's.
Not everyone wants to pay forcontent and that's fully
understandable and we get that.
But, um, it's something thatI'm very passionate about now
and I've worked out at the ageof 54 that I want to actually do
that for the rest of my life.
And it sort of stemmed from Iused to write sort of little
(15:50):
gossip columns and things likethat back when I was at Manu
about the cricket club and youknow about people and you know
started a lot of nicknames byjust naming them in the press.
You know, starting a nicknameand that sort of went really
well.
And then we went when we wentand lived in Yarrawonga.
I sort of continued that onthrough the cricket club up
there and we actually put thatin the newspaper, the local
(16:10):
newspaper, which was a prettywidely read thing, and people
loved it and yeah, and then theeditor got to it and said, oh,
you can't put that in, you can'tput that in.
So I sort of gave up in the end.
But that's where my passion forriding fuel from, and because
I've been involved with ag onthe farming side for the first
35 years of my life and throughFarmTender I can sort of I'm
(16:31):
lucky enough to be able toresonate with the farmers and
they really enjoy the contentthat we send out there.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, excellent.
Is there an English teacher atStorle High School or somewhere
that would be amazed to see youwriting a newsletter.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, probably I wasn't the greatest student and
I don't know whether, yeah, Iwasn't the greatest student, but
what gets me by Ferg is the useof Grammarly.
I don't know whether you knowwhat Grammarly is.
It's a yeah very much so yeah,yeah, you cut and paste your bit
in there with lots of ummistakes and grammar errors and
(17:06):
put it in grammarly and then youcan go and correct it and then
you, you copy it and put it backin the system and no one would
know any different.
So I used to get, beforegrammarly came along, I used to
get a lot of replies from theyou know people making mistakes,
from me making mistakes, sorry,with my writing.
So they used to police thatpretty hard.
But now I haven't had one forages.
So, yeah, no writing I actuallylove and, as I said, I want to
(17:30):
do that for the rest of my life.
And, you know, grow theaudience and work it from there.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, excellent, great to see.
I've just signed up.
I haven't signed up to the paidversion yet, mate.
I've just signed up the otherday, so I started to get my.
Well, it's a 3 am prompt here,yep.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
No, it's all going well.
I'm surprising how many areactually, you know, on the paid
side of things.
So it's going better than Ithought.
Yeah, cool, but I've got sortof you know incremental targets
over.
You know the targets aren'tthat big, but yeah, no, it's
going really well.
I'm surprised by you know, it'sjust going better than I
expected.
Put it that way.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, and I guess that whole realm of media is
changing and which createsopportunities, which is great.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I think you know you mentioned about AI and there's a
lot of that coming into playwith you know writing a lot and
the media side of things.
But I reckon AI is going to begreat but I think it'll make
human written content morevaluable if it makes any sense
authenticity.
They want to hear what aparticular person's got to say.
(18:44):
That'll just make the humancontent much more valuable.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I think we're saying that already, like I've seen
some punters out there who'vepublished stuff that's been
clearly written by Chate GPT.
Yeah, and you can just yeah youcan tell immediately and yeah,
and I think that's and people,yeah, it's quickly turned off by
that sort of generalised typewriting, whereas, yeah, it's
boring, yeah, yeah, opinionpiece type stuff Like, yeah, you
(19:10):
can never you can read it.
Yeah, no, ai model.
Well, yeah, I can't see itbeing able to write
authentically like a human canno great for boring stuff like
legal stuff and accounting andthings like that Great for that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, yeah yeah, writing manuals and things like
that, but not for creativewriting and, you know, opinion
pieces and things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, you attend a lot of events.
I saw you maybe at Beef and,yeah, you're around the place.
So your fingers and through,obviously, all your things you
do your finger's very much onthe pulse for a lot of things.
There's no doubt that 2024probably gets etched in the
memory of Australian farmers forsome time to come.
What's your take on the currentlandscape out there, and either
Australian or global, howeverbig you want to go?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, obviously we're going through some tougher
times with higher interest ratesoff the back of, you know,
increasing land prices.
I can only speak for Australiahere, but you know people have
sort of geared themselves up alittle bit, so you know, and
paid a lot of money for prettyexpensive land.
So there's a few farmers, youknow, probably didn't realise
(20:18):
that interest rates were goingto go to where they are now and
perhaps they're doing a littlebit tough.
We've got issues withgovernments I think it's
happened in New Zealand as welltrying to push us around a bit
and make it hard to farm harderto farm, so to speak.
Yeah, and you know like thesheep industry has gone through
(20:38):
a pretty tough time in the lasttwo years with the price you
know prices going down aftersome pretty good years before
that and probably a pretty good15 years for, you know, lamb
prices and sheep prices.
In Australia Wool prices are alittle bit different.
They had that burst for a while, which you know.
I think the sheep prices andlamb prices will go back up.
(21:00):
But I think what will happen is, you know, people have probably
lost a bit of confidence in theindustry and getting that
confidence back is going to bepretty hard, even though you
know we're going to see goodprices again.
But I think people don't.
They're going through some painnow.
They don't want to go throughthat again.
So we could see a little bit ofa drop off and with sheep
numbers, you know, in Australiaat the cost of cropping and this
(21:25):
is not to say it's not going tohappen to cropping either.
But yeah, I just think that'sjust a point that you know.
I think sheep farmers, you knowsome, will drop off out of the
system just because of that,because they don't want to go
through this sort of pain again.
I think what?
Yeah, we do attend a lot ofevents and you get some pretty
good stuff from some of theevents, get some pretty ordinary
(21:46):
stuff because you know we'reclearly focused on the farmer
side of things.
So go to a lot of these eventsand you know some of them aren't
very farmer focused.
So these events and not, youknow some of them aren't very
farmer focused.
So, like I think, um, elonmusk's bloody, what is it?
The phone to satellite thingcoming at the end of this year
and into 2025 will change thethe landscape in australia.
(22:08):
So every, every farmer willhave mobile access and already
has internet access, but mobileaccess, which which will change
the face of Australian farming.
I think that's one of the bigchanges we've got coming and
it'll probably be the biggestchange in the next 10 years.
I think what's the Amazon guy,jeff Bezos, said to focus on
(22:28):
things that won't change anddon't focus on the things you
think will change in farming.
So you know, we're still goingto be growing wheat, we're going
to be running sheep and cattleand doing all those sorts of
things in 10 years' time.
But I think you know, obviouslywe can along the way, we can
get much better at those sort ofindustries.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely, and I can't remember
who makes the quote, but I'vegot it in my presentation.
I'm giving in Ballarat, I knowthat, but.
But I've got it in mypresentation.
I'm giving in Ballarat, I knowthat.
But the fact that we're likelyto well, the expectation is that
this century we'll see 20,000years of change at today's rate,
and so we're in for change.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, we are.
And you know, if Elon gets hissatellite to mobile, it'd be
good for face recognition andshape.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's right.
Yeah, there's so many thingsthat become enabled once you
have connectivity.
You also have some productivityissues.
Any farm I work at which hasmobile reception, it seems for
young blokes at the back of therace on Tinder rather than
focused on the job, but that'snot universal.
But, yeah, it'll be interesting.
Once everyone is connectedIt'll be disruptive on a range
(23:34):
of fronts mostly good, nice,yeah.
And I guess if we end this isconnected, it'll be disruptive
on a range of fronts mostly good, nice, yeah, yeah.
And I guess if we end thisstory where we started, back at
Glenomar, it's now in the heartof a cropping zone, really, with
a handful of other industrystalwarts like Wolloo Park and
Glenomar, whereas growing upwell, I know, growing up further
north in the Sandia country,manu was the great sheep country
, yeah, so we have been a bigchange there and I guess across
(23:59):
all the Wimmera really thosefence lines are a bit harder to
spot these days.
It's a big change, I guess.
Yeah, it'd be interesting howthat trend plays out for the
next 10 years.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, look, I think, like where we are situated,
which is sort of southeast ofMarnoo, most of the most of the
farmers there regained that sortof mixed farming enterprise.
So there's still a lot of sheepin that area and, um, yes, yes,
there's probably a little bitmore cropping, but it hasn't
gone like like up where you are,where you were in the Mallee,
(24:28):
where it's pretty muchwall-to-wall now cropping and
and you know they've learned howto how to conserve moisture and
you know know they do it verywell.
It's gone from a marginalcropping area into a sort of
mecca really, and similar to theWimmera, where the soils are a
lot more clay-based and holdmoisture better.
But, yeah, definitely the Manuarea has changed a little bit,
(24:52):
not as much as most Like, as Isaid, most of the enterprises
around there are still runningthat mixed operation with a
combination of cropping andsheep.
So, yeah, they're all doingwell.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, I guess it's.
When I drive in there.
It's coming from the northoften and you don't see too many
sheep until you get to Marnie.
No, no, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, they're still there.
And you know, obviously, when Iwas a young fella, there was
probably 15 or 18 studs thereand it's probably narrowed down
to six or seven now.
But that's just the way youknow.
That's just the way it works.
Consolidation yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, no for sure.
Thanks, mate.
All the best with the FarmersClub, really.
Yeah, yeah, great to be havingsomething out there telling the
story authentically, I think.
Yeah, I guess you'll have towork out like that will come
with an expectation that peopleare reading.
I mean, it sort of brings itsown pressures, I suppose, in
terms of your voice starts tomatter more and more the more
(25:48):
people are listening.
So I'm sure you're up for thatchallenge.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I am, but it is a lot of work, you know I probably
spend.
You know I've got a day-to-daybusiness in farm tender to run
so this has done sort of outsidehours as a side hustle and I
probably spend five or six hourson this project each day, so
I've got to get up fairly earlyNow.
(26:12):
It's been great to chat Fergan,but can I just have one request
?
Yeah, go for it that you getDavid Thompson on the….
Oh no, it's been great to chatFergan, but can I just have one
request?
Yeah, go for it that you getDavid Thompson on the.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Oh yeah, we should definitely have David Thompson.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I mean, you've had him on, but what an entertaining
podcast that would be if yougot him on from Mujibin WA.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, no, we'd get David.
We haven't had David.
Have we Did, we do both.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No, we haven't had David.
Have we?
Did we do both?
We just had Hamish.
We wouldn't need a morepassionate man in ag.
Remember back at those MujibinRam sales where we used to spend
three days there and it wasthoroughly entertaining, wasn't
it?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Definitely entertaining.
Lucky, we're here to tell thetale.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
That's it.
I reckon that would be a mustlisten if you've got old Grinner
on.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah well, I'm a would be a must listen.
If you've got old Grinner on,yeah well, I'll lock Grinner in
for, yeah, I'll just listen tohim on ABC on the weekend.
Actually, yeah right, yeah,awesome, mate, we'll do that for
you and yeah, thanks very muchfor your time.
Good on you, ferg.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Welcome Dwayne Duxon to Hedgehabit.
Thanks very much, Ferg.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to have you here,mate, and yeah, we've got a few
questions to run through but I'msure we'll get off track a few
times.
But your journey started out atGlendamah, manu, right in the
middle of a heap of merino studsback in the day.
It'd be interesting just tohear your perspective on that
early part of your careerfarming and it was in the Jim
(00:21):
Watts era where changing themerino and throwing caution to
the wind was sort of very muchpart of what was going on.
It would be interesting to hearyour story of those days.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, they were actually wonderful days.
I remember them like they werelast year and obviously my
brother's still at it at thefarm at Glendamara.
I'm sort of no longer involvedin the business but definitely
grew up there until I think Iwas there until the age of 35.
And yeah, jim Watts, that was awonderful area.
Jim was sort of you know, hewas a wonderful scientist and a
(00:53):
great marketer and he certainlytook, you know, our stud to a
next level and much higherprofile and a lot of others and
you know some of the higheststuds Merino studs in Australia,
are now sort of Jim Wattsdisciples.
But yeah, we did a lot of weirdand wonderful things.
I think we used a lot of fingenetics back then for cundinam
and yeah, they were interesting.
(01:14):
The crosses and we had a bit ofluck with the Rambouillet cross
out of the US and managed tobreed a sire called Brown Six
and I was looking back not solong ago we sold over a million
dollars of weather semen fromthat guy.
So it was pretty amazing.
But they're really out theregenetics, I can tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, indeed.
So yeah, it'll be interesting.
I guess obviously familysuccession, whatever people need
to move and make room.
So you made the call to changegear completely and get out of
farming and stay very much an ag, but not directly on the tools.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, it was interesting, like being involved
in that Merino stud game.
You know where you're dealingwith customers and clients and
what have you and I just youknow, for me it was pretty
restrictive of how manycustomers you could serve, so I
wanted to serve a lot morecustomers.
You know, through a particularbusiness that I had a bit of an
(02:14):
idea of what I wanted to do andwhen the internet was kicking
into gear.
So that was probably the reason, main reason, we left the farm.
We just wanted to try somethingelse and, you know, service
more people.
So, and you know, we had awonderful succession with my
brother and father, so we, youknow, initiated it early and it
(02:37):
went really well.
And you know now the best thingwe have Christmas together and
all those sorts of things whicha lot of people don't, because
succession goes bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah 100%.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
The big question for the day is one we're asking
commonly now, which is what isthe last thing you changed your
mind about?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Oh, ferg, good question.
That sheep farming is reallybloody hard.
Because what we did when wemoved off the farm, we went and
lived in a place in New SouthWales.
Victoria bought a place calledYarrawonga for 10 years and
we've probably lived in six orseven other places since, but we
lived in sort of rentals andthings like that.
(03:15):
But three years ago we got backinto farming in a small way,
much smaller way than Glendamar,but we started running sheep
again and we just found out howactually hard it is.
It's amazing.
So, you know, now I've got acouple of businesses on the go,
you know, finding the time torun the sheep and just the
physical hard work.
I've decided to give it awayand give it to a young bloke
(03:37):
who's adjusting it now.
So I found that, yeah, I'veworked it out after a while.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It's very hard, yeah yeah, worked it out after a
while.
It's very hard, yeah, and thatwould be a confronting job to
let someone else take over yourland.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
No, it's quite enjoyable.
He's a young guy, you know,he's a young builder that loves
agriculture and he's, yeah,really excited about his future
and obviously wants to get outof the building game, get more
into ag, but he's afirst-generation farmer, so to
speak so he's going to have tobuild up the way first
(04:10):
generation farmers do Excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So, yeah, farmtender was at least one of those things
you hooked into when you wereleaving the farm, and it's your
online marketplace.
It's a well-known name inAussie, ag.
I'm not sure if those in otherplaces would know it, but it's
got a massive membership now.
72,000 members is huge, and Ithink that's about how many
farms are on Australia, sothat's a big cut through.
Yeah, talking through the earlydays of setting that up, the
internet was just kicking away.
(04:32):
I remember you chipping away atit.
Yeah, I mean, it would havebeen hard yards early, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, it was, and when we left the farm we never
really actually knew we weregoing to do that, so we never
had that as a you know, we neverpinpointed that as a business
we're going straight into.
We actually tried a few otherthings that sort of never really
got going.
And farm tender as a business,it originally was a, um, a
buying service.
So how that worked was a farmwill go on the list, you know,
(05:01):
let's say they wanted 200 ton ofMAP fertilizer and then
suppliers would just go on thelist.
You know, let's say they wanted200 tonne of MAP fertiliser and
then suppliers would just go onquote.
But after sort of you know asupplier losing five quotes in a
row, they'd say, stuff, this,I'm not going to do this anymore
.
And all of a sudden the businessdidn't really make sense.
So we were at a field day onceand one of our customers came up
(05:21):
and said to me at field days,why can't I sell shit on your
website?
So?
And then I thought about it forabout 10 seconds and I thought
why can't?
So we, you know, spent the nexttwo or three months with our
developers turning into aselling service and probably
since that day it's.
You know they talk aboutpivoting and things like that,
but since that day we've neverreally looked back.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Excellent, so maybe just yeah.
For those that aren't Aussie,just explain what the platform
is these days.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
As you said, it's an online marketplace for farmers.
So farmers can go and buy andsell items online and basically
a farmer would go and listsomething like a tractor and
then other farmers would go andinquire on it through the
website.
We don't put contact details onthe listing, so people have to
inquire through the website.
And then we also have peoplesitting in the background, you
(06:13):
know, helping facilitate thedeals.
You know facilitate the buyingand selling process.
So when I first started out bymyself, I wanted to make sure
that you know that, like we didwith the stud game, you know we
have to service people and buildrelationships and earn trust.
So I wanted to build that intoan online business right from
day one.
So hence the reason why we havepeople in the background
(06:35):
helping.
So these guys you know we'vegot 15 staff at the moment and
these guys are sitting in the,you know, working from home,
sitting in front of thecomputers and screens like we
are now Ferg and just basicallytalking to customers on the
phone, helping them through theprocess and building
relationships and trust.
So the marketplace we deal inused machinery, grain, hay,
(06:57):
livestock fertiliser, livestockequipment, trucks anything
that's ag-related, you know,we'll have a crack at.
So yeah, so you know, like fromthe start of it from scratch,
lucky enough to have areasonable database to enter
into the game with.
But it's all like everything ag, it grows incrementally and
(07:18):
it's all sort of one new memberat a time, you know, one listing
at a time, one sale at a time.
That's how it worked right fromthe word go, and now you know
that's how it still works tothis day.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And obviously it's been at a time where I mean
farmers, if we want topigeonhole people, which is
always dangerous, but likearen't necessarily that tech
savvy but I guess since everyfarmer's got a phone in their
pocket, has that been the change.
Once people, once internet wasreally on your phone rather than
on a screen and that changedthe game.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, and it made a massive difference really.
You know, like if someone's gota tractor over there, they can
just take photos on their phone,look it on the website, you
know, and within a minute it'sup there and you know you're not
going to sell it in the back ofthe shed, so you've got to put
it out there and make surepeople see these things.
(08:13):
So, yeah, the phone hasdefinitely been a big part of it
and a lot of our customers aredoing business through us on
their phone.
So, yeah, it's been a big part.
We've still got a lot of themarket we can penetrate.
We aren't as big in Queenslandand Western Australia, so we've
(08:33):
got a lot of work to sort offind new networks there.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, you must be pretty proud of how it's gone,
though.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It's gone well yeah no well, as I said, it started
with me originally and we'vebootstrapped the business all
the way along so we've nevertaken any sort of investment
type thing.
So basically, I run it whereyou know, we build it up, we
make enough money to employanother person, and we make
enough money to employ anotherperson after that.
So that's how it works.
(09:02):
But, like as I said, inagriculture everything's
incremental.
So you know, and you look atour growth over the years and
sort of at like a 30-degreeangle just slowly inching up.
But you look back, you knowwe've been in business 12 years
now and you look back and youthink you know it's come a hell
of a long way.
So, yeah, it's been a wonderfuljourney and, yes, we are very
(09:25):
proud.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah yeah, excellent.
A quick look at your LinkedInprofile would suggest you
definitely get the label of aserial entrepreneur 55 Farms of
Lape, the Farmers Club and thenobviously Farm Tender as well.
Yeah, obviously not into that.
Maybe not that label, but yeah,what do you think it drives you
to in your belief of apotential, of a better way?
There's obviously something, aspirit of entrepreneurism,
(09:47):
somewhere in there.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
There is and you know , as I said, we're lucky enough
to have an audience and adatabase so you can actually try
things.
You know you can put it outthere to the database and
they'll sort of vote with theirfeet whether something's any
good or not Of those businesses.
55 Farms was our Americanexperiment.
So I went to America, myselfand my son there for a couple of
(10:10):
months to just do a bit of afact-finding mission whether we
could take our farm tender modeland work it over there, whether
it would work over there.
And we sort of came backthinking, yes, we could.
So we went and lived there for12 months and tried to get it
going over there, but we justcouldn't get it going.
So yeah, we sort of gave it, wewanted to give it 12 months, we
gave it 12 months and we justcouldn't penetrate the market.
(10:30):
Not that I think it wouldn'twork at the moment Like now this
is seven years on but yeah, wejust we just found trouble sort
of trying to get into thatmarket.
They sort of everything's thesame but different over there.
So they do it everything, this,everything looks the same and
acts the same but they do itdifferently.
So, like with the usedmachinery model.
(10:51):
What had happened?
Over there?
They, they don't sell on farm,whereas we sell on farm here.
They'll go and sell in, youknow, through on consignment,
through the dealers or throughan auction system, whereas over
here we're happy to just walkout, you know, rent in the shed,
and take a few photos and listit online, which is um makes
sense to us, but it doesn't makesense to them yeah, and there's
(11:12):
well, there's severalbusinesses, even even across the
ditch between like kW companiestrying to set up in Australia
and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
It's tough going once you change geographies.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, 100%.
You just can't.
I've worked out over the yearsand we've seen it with other
businesses out of, let's say,the US and come to Australia and
trying to replicate their modeland it never works and they end
up, you know, like we did,retreating and going back and
just concentrating on what youdo.
So it is difficult to, yeah,replicate a model and go to
another country and expecting itto work.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, I mean there is another quote, but it's
something like yeah, if you wantto have more success, you've
got to have more failures.
There's several quotes aroundthat, like the only way you
out-success people is toout-fail people.
So it must have been.
I mean you obviously go toproper crack going and live
there, but you'd be pretty happythat you made the call rather
than try and drag it on forthree or four years and then
(12:05):
retreat.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, yeah, I was happy to make the call to say we
failed and come home, but itwas also a wonderful learning
experience.
You know, starting a businessover there.
You know, just things likeopening bank accounts are so
much different.
You know, talking to people onthe phone, like I'd get on the
phone and talk to the Americanfarmers and they'd just say, hey
man, I can't even understandyou, you talk too fast.
(12:26):
You sort of didn't really get acrack at it.
And then I worked out that Ihad to employ Americans.
And then, you know, I think thefirst five I employed and
sacked, employed.
And you know, I think the firstfive I employed and sacked,
employed and sacked, employedand sacked.
Until I found someone that Ithought was half reasonable and
you know he was making a littlebit of progress, but we just
couldn't get there.
I can see it was going to be abig waste of time and money.
(12:46):
So we thought we'd come homeand concentrate on what we, you
know our core, and trying tobring sort of new products to
the you know, australian market,to the you know Australian
market.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, no.
Excellent.
You're a self-diagnosedagricultural enthusiast, which I
think is a pretty common themefor everyone.
On Head Shepherd, we're allpretty passionate about the game
.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
What do you love most about ag?
It's diversity, and there'salways something going on.
That's probably the thing thatI find.
I'm an avid reader, so I get uppretty early and start
preparing my Farmers Clubnewsletter, which I send out six
days a week, and so I read lotsof you know different articles
(13:27):
and lots of blogs, and lots ofyou know Twitter feeds and
LinkedIn feeds and things likethat.
So anything I can get my handson that's related to ag and
there's any particular day.
You have no trouble findinginformation that you know.
We collate a lot of thisinformation, then put it
together in a newsletter andsend it out.
So, yeah, that's what I loveabout ag there's so much going
on and you know nothing'spredictable.
I'm sure a farmer wakes upevery morning sort of half
(13:50):
knowing what they're going to do, but it never really goes to
plan all the time yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
No, I don't think we've ever had a day go to plan
on farming no, not this time.
Yeah, I'm intrigued that yourecently discovered what you
really want to do, and that's towrite.
You definitely have your ownstyle, a no BS style that would
resonate with farmers 100%.
At a time when print media isgetting decimated, it's hard to
know where AI starts and humanstops.
(14:15):
Talk us through that newfoundpassion of riding and what your
vision for the Farmers Club is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, it's an interesting one.
I've sort of been lucky enoughto build the farm tender
business to where it is today,where it doesn't require my
attention all the time, so I'veput people in positions where
they can sort of run theday-to-day side of it, which is
what, you know, every businessowner wants to sort of strive
for in the end, I think.
So that's allowed me to sort ofdo things like the Farmers Club
(14:44):
, which is a newsletter that Isend out six days a week, goes
out at 5am Australian time everymorning and, as I said before,
we collate information aroundarticles and news items and
blogs and, as I said, socialmedia feeds, and we just put it
all in the newsletter.
I also write three articles aday that we put in there as well
(15:07):
, and we get probably between 20and 30 replies to our articles
every day.
So we put anonymous replies inthere as well, so you can hear
what you know the farmers areactually saying.
So that's been going probablysince september last year and,
um, we've just started.
It was a it's free, so we juststarted to put it under a
(15:27):
subscription model, so, which isa great way to sort of keep
refining your audience.
So, yeah, it's.
Not everyone wants to pay forcontent and that's fully
understandable and we get that.
But, um, it's something thatI'm very passionate about now
and I've worked out at the ageof 54 that I want to actually do
that for the rest of my life.
And it sort of stemmed from Iused to write sort of little
(15:50):
gossip columns and things likethat back when I was at Manu
about the cricket club and youknow about people and you know
started a lot of nicknames byjust naming them in the press.
You know, starting a nicknameand that sort of went really
well.
And then we went when we wentand lived in Yarrawonga.
I sort of continued that onthrough the cricket club up
there and we actually put thatin the newspaper, the local
(16:10):
newspaper, which was a prettywidely read thing, and people
loved it and yeah, and then theeditor got to it and said, oh,
you can't put that in, you can'tput that in.
So I sort of gave up in the end.
But that's where my passion forriding fuel from, and because
I've been involved with ag onthe farming side for the first
35 years of my life and throughFarmTender I can sort of I'm
(16:31):
lucky enough to be able toresonate with the farmers and
they really enjoy the contentthat we send out there.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, excellent.
Is there an English teacher atStorle High School or somewhere
that would be amazed to see youwriting a newsletter.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, probably I wasn't the greatest student and
I don't know whether, yeah, Iwasn't the greatest student, but
what gets me by Ferg is the useof Grammarly.
I don't know whether you knowwhat Grammarly is.
It's a yeah very much so yeah,yeah, you cut and paste your bit
in there with lots of ummistakes and grammar errors and
(17:06):
put it in grammarly and then youcan go and correct it and then
you, you copy it and put it backin the system and no one would
know any different.
So I used to get, beforegrammarly came along, I used to
get a lot of replies from theyou know people making mistakes,
from me making mistakes, sorry,with my writing.
So they used to police thatpretty hard.
But now I haven't had one forages.
So, yeah, no writing I actuallylove and, as I said, I want to
(17:30):
do that for the rest of my life.
And, you know, grow theaudience and work it from there.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, excellent, great to see.
I've just signed up.
I haven't signed up to the paidversion yet, mate.
I've just signed up the otherday, so I started to get my.
Well, it's a 3 am prompt here,yep.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
No, it's all going well.
I'm surprising how many areactually, you know, on the paid
side of things.
So it's going better than Ithought.
Yeah, cool, but I've got sortof you know incremental targets
over.
You know the targets aren'tthat big, but yeah, no, it's
going really well.
I'm surprised by you know, it'sjust going better than I
expected.
Put it that way.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, and I guess that whole realm of media is
changing and which createsopportunities, which is great.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I think you know you mentioned about AI and there's a
lot of that coming into playwith you know writing a lot and
the media side of things.
But I reckon AI is going to begreat but I think it'll make
human written content morevaluable if it makes any sense
authenticity.
They want to hear what aparticular person's got to say.
(18:44):
That'll just make the humancontent much more valuable.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I think we're saying that already, like I've seen
some punters out there who'vepublished stuff that's been
clearly written by Chate GPT.
Yeah, and you can just yeah youcan tell immediately and yeah,
and I think that's and people,yeah, it's quickly turned off by
that sort of generalised typewriting, whereas, yeah, it's
boring, yeah, yeah, opinionpiece type stuff Like, yeah, you
(19:10):
can never you can read it.
Yeah, no, ai model.
Well, yeah, I can't see itbeing able to write
authentically like a human canno great for boring stuff like
legal stuff and accounting andthings like that Great for that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, yeah yeah, writing manuals and things like
that, but not for creativewriting and, you know, opinion
pieces and things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, you attend a lot of events.
I saw you maybe at Beef and,yeah, you're around the place.
So your fingers and through,obviously, all your things you
do your finger's very much onthe pulse for a lot of things.
There's no doubt that 2024probably gets etched in the
memory of Australian farmers forsome time to come.
What's your take on the currentlandscape out there, and either
Australian or global, howeverbig you want to go?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, obviously we're going through some tougher
times with higher interest ratesoff the back of, you know,
increasing land prices.
I can only speak for Australiahere, but you know people have
sort of geared themselves up alittle bit, so you know, and
paid a lot of money for prettyexpensive land.
So there's a few farmers, youknow, probably didn't realise
(20:18):
that interest rates were goingto go to where they are now and
perhaps they're doing a littlebit tough.
We've got issues withgovernments I think it's
happened in New Zealand as welltrying to push us around a bit
and make it hard to farm harderto farm, so to speak.
Yeah, and you know like thesheep industry has gone through
(20:38):
a pretty tough time in the lasttwo years with the price you
know prices going down aftersome pretty good years before
that and probably a pretty good15 years for, you know, lamb
prices and sheep prices.
In Australia Wool prices are alittle bit different.
They had that burst for a while, which you know.
I think the sheep prices andlamb prices will go back up.
(21:00):
But I think what will happen is, you know, people have probably
lost a bit of confidence in theindustry and getting that
confidence back is going to bepretty hard, even though you
know we're going to see goodprices again.
But I think people don't.
They're going through some painnow.
They don't want to go throughthat again.
So we could see a little bit ofa drop off and with sheep
numbers, you know, in Australiaat the cost of cropping and this
(21:25):
is not to say it's not going tohappen to cropping either.
But yeah, I just think that'sjust a point that you know.
I think sheep farmers, you knowsome, will drop off out of the
system just because of that,because they don't want to go
through this sort of pain again.
I think what?
Yeah, we do attend a lot ofevents and you get some pretty
good stuff from some of theevents, get some pretty ordinary
(21:46):
stuff because you know we'reclearly focused on the farmer
side of things.
So go to a lot of these eventsand you know some of them aren't
very farmer focused.
So these events and not, youknow some of them aren't very
farmer focused.
So, like I think, um, elonmusk's bloody, what is it?
The phone to satellite thingcoming at the end of this year
and into 2025 will change thethe landscape in australia.
(22:08):
So every, every farmer willhave mobile access and already
has internet access, but mobileaccess, which which will change
the face of Australian farming.
I think that's one of the bigchanges we've got coming and
it'll probably be the biggestchange in the next 10 years.
I think what's the Amazon guy,jeff Bezos, said to focus on
(22:28):
things that won't change anddon't focus on the things you
think will change in farming.
So you know, we're still goingto be growing wheat, we're going
to be running sheep and cattleand doing all those sorts of
things in 10 years' time.
But I think you know, obviouslywe can along the way, we can
get much better at those sort ofindustries.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely, and I can't remember
who makes the quote, but I'vegot it in my presentation.
I'm giving in Ballarat, I knowthat, but.
But I've got it in mypresentation.
I'm giving in Ballarat, I knowthat.
But the fact that we're likelyto well, the expectation is that
this century we'll see 20,000years of change at today's rate,
and so we're in for change.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, we are.
And you know, if Elon gets hissatellite to mobile, it'd be
good for face recognition andshape.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's right.
Yeah, there's so many thingsthat become enabled once you
have connectivity.
You also have some productivityissues.
Any farm I work at which hasmobile reception, it seems for
young blokes at the back of therace on Tinder rather than
focused on the job, but that'snot universal.
But, yeah, it'll be interesting.
Once everyone is connectedIt'll be disruptive on a range
(23:34):
of fronts mostly good, nice,yeah.
And I guess if we end this isconnected, it'll be disruptive
on a range of fronts mostly good, nice, yeah, yeah.
And I guess if we end thisstory where we started, back at
Glenomar, it's now in the heartof a cropping zone, really, with
a handful of other industrystalwarts like Wolloo Park and
Glenomar, whereas growing upwell, I know, growing up further
north in the Sandia country,manu was the great sheep country
, yeah, so we have been a bigchange there and I guess across
(23:59):
all the Wimmera really thosefence lines are a bit harder to
spot these days.
It's a big change, I guess.
Yeah, it'd be interesting howthat trend plays out for the
next 10 years.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, look, I think, like where we are situated,
which is sort of southeast ofMarnoo, most of the most of the
farmers there regained that sortof mixed farming enterprise.
So there's still a lot of sheepin that area and, um, yes, yes,
there's probably a little bitmore cropping, but it hasn't
gone like like up where you are,where you were in the Mallee,
(24:28):
where it's pretty muchwall-to-wall now cropping and
and you know they've learned howto how to conserve moisture and
you know know they do it verywell.
It's gone from a marginalcropping area into a sort of
mecca really, and similar to theWimmera, where the soils are a
lot more clay-based and holdmoisture better.
But, yeah, definitely the Manuarea has changed a little bit,
(24:52):
not as much as most Like, as Isaid, most of the enterprises
around there are still runningthat mixed operation with a
combination of cropping andsheep.
So, yeah, they're all doingwell.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, I guess it's.
When I drive in there.
It's coming from the northoften and you don't see too many
sheep until you get to Marnie.
No, no, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, they're still there.
And you know, obviously, when Iwas a young fella, there was
probably 15 or 18 studs thereand it's probably narrowed down
to six or seven now.
But that's just the way youknow.
That's just the way it works.
Consolidation yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, no for sure.
Thanks, mate.
All the best with the FarmersClub, really.
Yeah, yeah, great to be havingsomething out there telling the
story authentically, I think.
Yeah, I guess you'll have towork out like that will come
with an expectation that peopleare reading.
I mean, it sort of brings itsown pressures, I suppose, in
terms of your voice starts tomatter more and more the more
(25:48):
people are listening.
So I'm sure you're up for thatchallenge.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I am, but it is a lot of work, you know I probably
spend.
You know I've got a day-to-daybusiness in farm tender to run
so this has done sort of outsidehours as a side hustle and I
probably spend five or six hourson this project each day, so
I've got to get up fairly earlyNow.
(26:12):
It's been great to chat Fergan,but can I just have one request
?
Yeah, go for it that you getDavid Thompson on the….
Oh no, it's been great to chatFergan, but can I just have one
request?
Yeah, go for it that you getDavid Thompson on the.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Oh yeah, we should definitely have David Thompson.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I mean, you've had him on, but what an entertaining
podcast that would be if yougot him on from Mujibin WA.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, no, we'd get David.
We haven't had David.
Have we Did, we do both.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No, we haven't had David.
Have we?
Did we do both?
We just had Hamish.
We wouldn't need a morepassionate man in ag.
Remember back at those MujibinRam sales where we used to spend
three days there and it wasthoroughly entertaining, wasn't
it?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Definitely entertaining.
Lucky, we're here to tell thetale.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
That's it.
I reckon that would be a mustlisten if you've got old Grinner
on.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah well, I'm a would be a must listen.
If you've got old Grinner on,yeah well, I'll lock Grinner in
for, yeah, I'll just listen tohim on ABC on the weekend.
Actually, yeah right, yeah,awesome, mate, we'll do that for
you and yeah, thanks very muchfor your time.
Good on you, ferg.
Thanks for the opportunity.
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