Shows
Farmers Helping FarmersJOHN KEMPF - Australian launch of new AI tool and a whole lot more“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 regenerative agriculture. VicNoTill board member Angus Ingram catches up with John as he launches his new agronomic AI...2025-06-281h 20Farmers Helping FarmersEncore: CALLUM LAWSON. Common sense farming - a profitable regenerative grazing systemApplications 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. ...When Victorian cattle farmer Callum Lawson went to a holistic grazing course, it turned the way he approached farming on its head. He came home from the first day feeling baffled about...2025-05-0647 minFarmers Helping FarmersNICOLE MASTERS - Creating a lasting legacy for soil healthNicole, 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 natural cycles, repairs ‘disturbance’ events, minimises harmful inputs and focuses on building resilience, microbial life and organic matter. She loves that it’s not a scri...2025-04-211h 06Farmers Helping FarmersWILL BIGNELL - The Tassie farmer who's packed four lifetimes into oneAgricultural 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 managed to cram into his life so far. The Bignell family farm is well known for pioneering and innovating a number of new and emerging Australian industries. Will has a fascinating...2025-03-0349 min
Country TodayCountry Today - February 26thThe National Irrigators Council is sceptical about the timing of the Federal Governments purchasing of another 100 GL of water suggests a pre-election rush to show progress in the MDBP The organisation VicNoTill is holding a series of field days looking at the use of soil pits to better understanding soil structure Large scale cattle producers are wondering what impact the Federal Government’s legislation to mandate reporting of carbon emissions will have on their businesses. Barb Madden of Smithfield Cattle Company Also the acting chief vet on the fourth outbreak of Avian influenza in V...2025-02-2624 minFarmers Helping FarmersSTACEY CURCIO - We are what we eat eats, food starts in the soilWhen 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, regenerative practices and systems thinking.
In this Farmers Helping Farmers The Podcast episode with Michael Gooden, Stacey delves into more detail about the way pe...2025-02-0259 minFarmers Helping FarmersKEIRAN KNIGHT - stepping outside the lines and away from chemical-based farmingFifth 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 asking farmers to use, both from an economic and environmental perspective.
She and John started using bio-stimulants and she made a career change to become an agronomist for Best Farming...2025-01-2930 minFarmers Helping FarmersROB HETHERINGTON - Calcium, the king of all elementsIn the FARMERS HELPING FARMERS PODCAST Episode 21, Dan Fox sits down with WA farmer Rob Hetherington who is seeing a lifetime of soil study come to fruition on the Lake King farm he runs with his wife Judi and son Daniel, Kate and family.
This is a fascinating and indepth discussion with an experienced farmer and Wheatbelt NRM Soil Health Champion who was a guest speaker at VicNoTill's 2024 Food for Thought Conference.
Rob discovered a long time ago that calcium was the limiting factor to his soil health on the cropping farm that has been...2025-01-2153 min
The Nature of HealthFarming with Purpose: Michael Gooden’s Values-Driven & Collaborative ApproachIn this episode, I sit down with Michael Gooden, a regenerative farmer whose approach is as rooted in personal well-being and intuition as it is in soil health and sustainability. Michael challenges traditional definitions of farming success, advocating for a more holistic view that prioritises health, happiness, and values-driven practices.
From trusting his gut instincts to building resilience through collaboration, Michael shares how he’s reshaping what it means to thrive as a farmer.
We explore the transformative benefits of no-till farming, not just for the land but also fo...2025-01-0246 minFarmers Helping FarmersNIC KENTISH - Soil and life lessons from the pioneers of the Kentish potatoAustralian families have grown up eating their fair share of Kentish potatoes, but have we ever considered the story behind the pioneering family who brought this staple ingredient to our tables? Michael Gooden sits down with third generation potato grower Nic Kentish, who shares the ups and downs, soil health and life lessons from growing the humble potato. From the drought which preceded Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 to discovering his love for sheep and cattle while jackarooing on the Hay plains and central Queensland in the 1980s to watching the Murrumbidgee River run dry. From being in $2million debt...2024-12-111h 02Farmers Helping FarmersFARMERS HELPING FARMERS PODCAST - Dan Fox & Michael Gooden, VicNoTill President handoverVicNoTill is at the forefront of change in Australian
agriculture, and for the past three years fifth generation Marrar farmer Dan Fox has been president of this farmers helping farmers organisation. Dan sits down with new president Michael Gooden to share how leading change in Australian agriculture has helped him from both a practical and personal perspective.
Soil health has been a progressive journey for Dan. His non-negotiables are 100% groundcover and no soil disturbance, which come about through his strip and disc system. But
once he understood what else he could achieve, he opened Pandora's box.
2024-11-111h 06Farmers Helping FarmersMATTHEW EVANS - The reluctant celebrity farmer and chef using his fame to spread the word about healthy soils, healthy foods and healthy peopleVicNoTill farmers were rapt to welcome food writer, farmer, television broadcaster and chef Matthew Evans to the Food for Thought Conference in Wagga Wagga. After Matthew walked around the paddocks, stood in a soil pit and sampled the beef grown on the cattle stud of VicNoTill’s Michael Gooden, they sat down to talk about the links between healthy soils, food and people.
Matthew shares how he went from a city boy who was always hungry to a reluctant celebrity who uses his fame to ‘bang on about healthy soils’. His purpose is to spread a deeper appreciation of the broade...2024-10-2453 minFarmers Helping FarmersJOEL WILLIAMS - Food for thought and the latest science on building soil carbon in an Australian contextJoel Williams spent several days with VicNoTill at the 2024 Food for Thought conference in Wagga Wagga NSW. Tune into his insightful conversation with Riverina broadacre cropping farmer Dan Fox about the latest science and the on-ground change that is happening thanks to farmers like those in the VicNoTill network.
With links to VicNoTill going back almost a decade, Joel was rapt to be at the conference and having important conversations linking food as medicine with practical strategies for farmers to build carbon in soils.
Joel loves working with farmers because they're
practical and good at...2024-10-111h 09Farmers Helping FarmersJIM ALEXANDER - Taking the foot off the throat of soil biologyVicNoTill board member Michael Gooden visits Jim Alexander on the Cootamundra farm where he lives with his wife Em and two young daughters to talk about his switch from commercial scale broadacre agronomy on the Liverpool Plains to permaculture to regenerative agriculture.
Jim has made a major shift in the way he approaches
life, as a result of his own farming experiences and through what he discovered during a Nuffield Scholarship which took him across Australia and to Asia, Europe, Israel, the US, the UK and New Zealand.
Being among like-minded people for the past...2024-08-3153 minFarmers Helping FarmersALLAN PARKER OAM - Resetting your brain to reset your farming futureThis is a conversation for farmers not to be missed! Allan Parker OAM was a crowd favourite at VicNoTill's conference Transition23 and captured the attention of the whole room within 10 seconds of starting his presentation.
VicNoTill board member Michael Gooden catches up with Allan in Wagga Wagga during his 2024 Regional Brain Reset Tour to talk about succession planning, improving negotiation between family members when making farm decisions, transitioning to a more regenerative farming system without compromising the profitability of the business and a whole lot more.
Allan introduces himself as an eccentric Micro-Behavioural Neuroscientist, International...2024-08-2153 minFarmers Helping FarmersCALLUM LAWSON - The power of opening your eyes and asking questionsWhen Victorian cattle farmer Callum Lawson went to a holistic grazing course, it turned the way he approached farming on its head. He came home from the first day feeling baffled about the way he was farming.
What they were presenting about regenerative and holistic grazing concepts felt like common sense. This started him on a path of discovery, and the more research he did the more fascinated he became. Callum started growing multi-species crops in 2017 and flipped his farming system around to solve problems rather than treat symptoms.
When he started farming more regeneratively...2024-07-2946 minFarmers Helping FarmersJAKE CHANDLER - Farming for the environment can be profitableYoung farmer Jake Chandler has always had a deep connection with all things agricultural, and has experienced the landscape from many perspectives. The son of an Ag teacher, he worked as a jackaroo in the Northern Territory before studying environmental science at university then moved into a corporate career in the mining industry.
After falling in love with and marrying Gemma Wilkinson from Young, he left the mining industry to return to the Wilkinson's family farm. Adjusting to the farming lifestyle after intense corporate life was a challenge so he worked in retail ag where he developed...2024-03-1154 minFarmers Helping FarmersTRAN$ITION23 SERIES: MATT TONKIN - The road to regenerationThe road to regeneration with NSW farm manager and Sober in the Country Bush Tribe Member Matt Tonkin looks at how important it is for farmers to be profitable, not only in the financial sense but also from personal and landscape perspectives.
When Matt's life on the land hit rock bottom he realised he needed to make big changes. Instead of a farming system that relied on chemicals and synthetic inputs he chose to start thinking about one that promoted life, took a more natural approach and had the long-term health of the ecosystem at its heart. 2024-01-1453 minFarmers Helping FarmersPHIL PETERSON - Building carbon in soils Part 2Join our host Dan Fox in Part 2 of an indepth conversation with Phil Peterson about rebuilding soil carbon on farms.
Dan has talked numerous times with Phil in the paddock, and wanted to capture some of these conversations in a podcast. He spoke to him earlier in the year but still had so many questions that he has recorded a follow up.
If you haven’t listened to Part 1, we suggest you go back to Episode 6 of Farmers Helping Farmers first. In Part 2 Phil discusses the importance of sap tests for identifying your risk to pla...2024-01-0449 minFarmers Helping FarmersTRAN$ITION23 SERIES - NAKALA MADDOCK: A fascinating insight into worm farmingThe worms at NutriSoil are treated like royalty, because they are the key to sustainability, healthy soils, plant, human and planet health.
Nakala Maddock is the chief executive officer of the Baranduda-based business and is helping Nutrisoil take worm farming to all new heights. Nakala, also the host of the Biological Farming Roundtable Podcast, stepped out from behind the hosting microphone for this interview with Dan Fox during VicNoTill's annual conference in July 2023.
A farm chemical accident for Graham Maddock in the mid-1980s triggered a rethink of chemical and fertiliser applications and set in...2023-09-2732 minFarmers Helping FarmersTRAN$ITION23 SERIES - COL BOWEY: Key principals of a soil building systemOur host Dan Fox catches up with Col Bowey from CB Farming Systems, who was one of the guest speakers at VicNoTill's 2023 conference. Col also led a soil pit discussion and spent the week visiting NSW farms.
Col says success in farming always comes down to having a good ‘farming system’ in place. In 2008 he founded CB Farming Systems and dedicated himself to learning as much as he could from soil scientists and other farmers. He helps farmers build systems that understand healthy soils are at the heart of farm and ecosystem health, while also understanding they need...2023-09-0741 minFarmers Helping FarmersTRAN$ITION23 SERIES - TIM PARTON: Farmers Are Heroes, Nobody Else Can Do What We DoUK arable farmer of the year and Green Farm Collective founding member Tim Parton spent a week in Australia as part of VicNoTill's annual conference TRAN$ITION23. As well as inspiring over 100 farmers in the conference room, Tim hung out in soil pits and dug into soils with a shovel to gain a deeper understanding of regenerative farming systems in the Australian context. Dan Fox sat down in the podcast studio with Tim to discover what new ideas his visit had sparked. VicNoTill was also keen to find out how Tim is changing the narrative about farmers being the...2023-08-0242 minFarmers Helping FarmersTOM BRIGGS - Lessons About Context And Nutrition When Shifting To A Regenerative Farming SystemIn this episode of Farmers Helping Farmers our host Dan Fox catches up with vice president Tom Briggs. As a third generation farmer in Victoria, Australia, Tom was never a big fan of school; especially the reading and research assignments that were required. But since discovering the practice of regenerative agriculture there isn’t enough reading, research reports and information available to consume.
Tom has been known to say on many occasions, “I eat, sleep, breathe this stuff and consume every bit I can get.”
Tom is candid in this conversation about the things that have g...2023-07-0445 minFarmers Helping FarmersPHIL PETERSON - Building carbon in soils, Part 1In this episode of Farmers Helping Farmers our host Dan Fox catches up with Phil Peterson who is passionate about rebuilding soil carbon on farms. In the many conversations Dan has had with Phil in the paddock, this passion has come through clearly, and Dan thought it was about time he captured some of these conversations in a podcast episode. Phil has been at the grassroots of agriculture for many years, asking questions about the environment and how farmers can improve both the yield and quality of the crops and pastures they grow. This has led to a role...2023-05-1934 minFarmers Helping FarmersFRASER POGUE: The Good Dirt on Good FarmingIn 2016 a VicNoTill story with Ardmona irrigation farmer Fraser Pogue’s began with: ‘The pages in books might be black and white but farming certainly isn’t.’ The analogy drew on Fraser’s ever-increasing book collection on soil biology and his pursuit of a new way of farming that was outside the norm, and definitely not black and white.
Fraser and his wife Leanne are always looking outside the square and among the innovations they are pursuing are organic farming and
value-adding under the name 'The Good Dirt'. In spring 2020 the Pogue farming story moved from the pages of bo...2023-04-0528 minFarmers Helping FarmersDR TERRY MCCOSKER – Rewarding Farmers For Their Natural CapitalOne of the world’s most respected leaders in soil health, carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture Dr Terry McCosker struggled terribly in primary and high school, before discovering he 'learnt by doing'. Since then he has never stopped learning or doing, and is one of the masterminds behind farmers getting paid for improved land management practices and building their soil carbon. After 20 years of lobbying for monetising soil carbon increases, Terry’s focus has now turned to farmers getting paid for their ‘natural capital’. In this episode he provides a valuable insight into the dos and don’ts of setting up...2023-02-2837 minFarmers Helping FarmersMICHAEL EYRES & ED SCOTT: A Soil Pit Will Never LieOver the past decade, Field Systems Australia founder Michael Eyres and Soil Science Australia vice president Edward Scott have stood in around 7000 soil pits around the world. They focus on soil performance in managed agricultural landscapes, and help farmers identify the most limiting factors affecting production. From that starting point they generate soil management strategies that result in profitable outcomes. In this episode they cover precision agriculture, building carbon in broadacre cropping systems and a whole lot more. One of the big take home messages for farmers is to have confidence in the changes you’re making but be pa...2023-01-3142 minFarmers Helping FarmersGRAEME SAIT - On Why Nutrition RulesInternationally renowned nutritionist and farmer Graeme Sait is a wealth of information.
After a tragic family accident, he has dedicated the past 28 years of his life to sharing all that he knows and all that he has learnt about improving plant and human health. VicNoTill is honoured to sit down with Graeme in this episode where he encourages farmers to take small steps towards change and they will reap the rewards, both financially and personally.
You can find out more about Graeme on our website – he knows so much about growing nutritious food and we’ve on...2022-12-0936 minFarmers Helping FarmersGRANT SIMS - It Starts With The SoilWhen sixth generation farmer Grant Sims reintroduced stock into his no-till cropping system, he discovered a whole new world living underneath his soils. Grant’s excitement and passion for a new approach to how farmers feed the world is contagious, as podcast host Dan Fox discovers in the very first episode of Farmers Helping Farmers - soil health, soil function and grassroots agriculture.
Sixth generation mixed farmer Grant Sims is also the founder of DownUnder Covers. You can find out more about Grant at the VicNoTill website – he’s a wealth of knowledge and we’ve only just scr...2022-10-3034 min