Oli Le Lievre 0:02
G'day, and welcome to this episode of the humans of agriculture podcast where we're going to say konichiwa because I'm recording this intro from outside of Starbucks, here in Tokyo. Today we're sitting down with one of the 2023 Syngenta growth award winners, James Carl's story is fascinating. And it's one of those moments where I just absolutely love the chance to sit across someone and pick their brain and ask them questions about something that I'm really genuinely interested in. Whether it was family business succession, how he actually manages his time between what he's doing in the paddock and various boards. But what I didn't probably realised walking game was over 60 years ago, an American farmer would be sitting down reading The American Farm Bureau magazine, unbeknown to him, it was a moment that was pivotal to the development of Australia's cotton industry. And Australian agriculture would actually never look the same again, from the 1960s. James's father was truly a pioneer in Australia's cotton industry. And so it was incredible to be able to pick his brain and chat about all of that, and the history and what it was like coming to Australia as a American kind of 10 or 12 year old, and what it's been like to build his career in agriculture over the last 50 plus years. So let's jump into this one. Enjoy it. And if you want to hear any more about any of these topics, I think Chad is probably someone we'd love to sit down with again in the future. So if you've got any questions, hit us up. Maybe we can take them to him.
James, firstly, I guess, also your very, very brief speech at the Syngenta growth awards. It was very brief, I think what you said was, thank you and walked off. So if we can just make a pact that we'll get a little bit more out of here today would be great.
James Kahl 1:46
More commonly, you can't stop being no dice. The problem there was that it was a case of I'm accepting an award which I'm not accustomed to for a start. But I'm also not accustomed to taking accolades and I'm gay. I'm really uncomfortable here right now. So that was the issue. If we're just having a yawn, you would have been struggling to get me off the stage. Also,
Oli Le Lievre 2:10
how long this one goes, yeah. And to be honest, I'm gonna say I don't even know where to start today. I think your story what you've done, we've been chatting for for about an hour now, just off air about the different areas of agriculture that you and your family are involved in. And I think we've only touched the surface. But let's start at the Syngenta growth holes. That's where I first saw you what was running through your head when your name was read out as one of the growth award winners.
James Kahl 2:36
I did say when I got up there that I that I was thrown because I fully walked into the room and sat down with the intention and expectation that I was just going to be supporting and clapping on and and supporting the winners and settled into a meal and a couple of good read bytes and other just going to be really fun. So I everyone says they weren't expected at all add up, I was just clearly there thinking this is good for. And the reward for me was going to be the networking that earlier that afternoon, I met some really intelligent people. And a good lot of people from all across Australia, New Zealand, I thought I'm going to I'm going to follow some of these guys up because they're really interesting people and, and I'm really pleased I'm now part of that network. And I've got got somewhere to go and chase people up and talk about what they've done. Because, again, we only touched on the surface of what they'd done in in that afternoon network and as well. And just there's going to be fun. Looking forward to it
Oli Le Lievre 3:43
is so impressive people in the room, you you and your stories incredibly impressive just in and of itself did. Do you feel like an imposter in the in that room when you see what other people have been up to?
James Kahl 3:56
No, no, I don't know. I don't I'm not that humble. I'm well aware, I've had a really blessed life. And I've said before that I've got such a variation in the careers I've had, and even overlapping each other and coinciding with each other. So I just had such wonderful opportunities and it all started with as far as innovation and and why is sustainable because that's another story, innovation and development of of whether it's an industry or company or a project. That to me is just always been exciting and it's a driver and that came from my upbringing and that came from dad of course, but it came from landlines Australia's 10 year old with parents and and his partners that we're going to build a industry with became regularly in the top five exporting industry agriculture industries in Australia, out of nothing. And literally it was at a nothing because everything required as support mechanisms and infrastructure for growing cotton in Australia
Speaker 1 5:17
wasn't here. So, it
James Kahl 5:21
you had to be innovative and you also had to be positive because it would have been really easy to just go. This is all too damn hard. We never realise we're going. But that was never in backup. deadhead. And that's the way I grew up. That's never going to be in the back your head. Someone
Oli Le Lievre 5:36
asked you at 10 years old, you moved out to Australia from California. Yep. And your dad decided we wore Can Can I ask? Why have you been on multiple trips here? Why we will? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 5:49
that. That's
James Kahl 5:51
not a long story. There was a Hungarian plant breeder who applied for a job breeding wheat for the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, in 1959. So he was here already. And he was working at the Watson Research Institute nearby, and breeding weight to the department. And he was pretty clever man, he was doing fine. What he was also as a Hungarian in was a cotton breeder, back there. And he was working here nearby, and he just recognised the soil types, the climate, the fact that keep a dam was nearing completion. And he was well aware that there were no licences, irrigation licence has been issued, because there was no demand for them.
Unknown Speaker 6:40
And he just thought, This is really weird.
James Kahl 6:43
And this is the perfect opportunity to build a cotton industry and Australia at that time had five cotton mills, they only consumed about 200,000 barrels a year between them. But all of that was brutally imported, the only cotton produced in Australia at that time. There had been a cotton industry in Australia for the previous 2030 years. But it was dwindling. And the reason it was dwindling is because it was based on 1930s technology. And it never moved forward. So it was just not working. Not happening. The only cotton gin left in Australia was a little old one in the middle of Brisbane. And the only real cotton being grown was in central Queensland with heavily subsidised production. And the quality of that was with varieties that were so old that mostly the cotton was unsustainable. So the mills were importing virtually all their needs. And Nick was sitting in a nearby breeding wait. So he went to the his bosses and said, Look at this opportunity. And they said,
Speaker 1 7:47
short term, shut up and breed wheat.
James Kahl 7:52
And enough, not enough of talk about that. So he tried again, sometime later and got the same response from some different people. And you thought, I don't know what's going on. This is really weird. But someone's got to know about this. So he printed an article in the American Farm Bureau magazine, which goes through every farmer in America. And both my dad and his partner Frank Hadley picked up on the article because they both subscribe to it. And they chatting about it at Rotary or church one day, wherever they caught up and said we should go and have a look. So that's how they came here.
Oli Le Lievre 8:28
Incredible. What made your old man Paul and Frank Hadley, the the people to really get the industry going here in Australia. What were the characteristics dad
James Kahl 8:37
had already decided he didn't want to be a farmer in California anymore. And Frank was the same. That was was more row cropping. Frank was an orchardist growing stone fruits, mostly, both of them were were feeling of over controlled in that the government that California government at that time, and they didn't get much better actually. The just absolutely control what you grew. And with quotas and, and and subsidisation. So we had a moderate sized farm for California in those days has been 350 acres to utilise that. That was great eight different crops. Because they were all restricted to 30 acres of that 40 acre solution. 25 acres of walnuts 50 acres of almonds, rarer, so he had to have the capital equipment for each one of them. So it was just ridiculous. There's no way he could make money. And all he was doing was working for the government because he'd never got to make a decision every year they got to make the decisions about what he did. And he said, I'm not doing this anymore. He just hadn't figured out what it was going to do instead. And Frank was similar. But already there are already there were innovators because they're already building their own equipment for their some of their selective enterprises. At that time anyway, Dad was already the the armour harvesting operation was all hand done. And it was just starting to become mechanised. And some of the early models were pretty hopeless and pretty brutal to the trees. And so dad was already with with the manager he had designing and building better and more efficient tree knockers and sweeps and pickups. And that was just it was in his blood.
Oli Le Lievre 10:28
What like, when he started farming in Australia, do you recall what he said about the opportunities here and and what it was about Australian agricultural and cotton production, he that was different to America. When we
James Kahl 10:41
came here, he didn't know either. So the reason they came as partners was because they needed did an initial visit, had a look around, they got taken by an issue of Health Department down to the MIAA to the southern region. And that was the problem. They develop that and they'd snowy scheme was finished. They then went about buying tracts of land and delivering of river delivery systems of irrigation water to farms, which they subdivided into 400 Acre Farms. Those guys down there didn't want to borrow but either, because partly what was foreign to them. But mostly, they're happy doing what they're doing, and when just when interested. So it was all starting to look a bit like a white elephant, a snowy scheme was fine. But they'd spent a lot of money on the delivery system. It just no one wanted anything to do with it. So they were trying to attract any interest in irrigation farming in New South Wales, to that region. And, and then Frank just said, that's great. Appreciate it, and that we'll even go down there and have a look with you. And that way we can actually show you what work are the varieties which is totally unsuitable for that shorter summer. And the climate was just way too short a summer. And even two years later, after we got established, after we started to get established, and we were, we actually went to the trouble of leasing a farm down there, and attempting to grow a cotton crop down there. And it was a financial failure. We said, Look, we didn't we didn't orchestrate that result, that's the best we could do. It would not work. So it got lifted that but that was the problem. So when they came here, they had no idea other than they agreed with Nick Durairaj in that this was the perfect climate, all the weeds here were the same weed. So we're continuing within California. So it's got to be the same climate grows the same words, and they're just as healthy. The source were better than ours in California, and there was a water supply. So that was particularly is ticked all those boxes. The only trouble is, is no infrastructure and had no support. So the challenge is going to be to build a critical mass of participants fast enough that we can build the infrastructure post farm gate, and pre farm gate and suppliers of inputs. So all this is going to work. And if that hadn't happened, it would have failed anyway.
Speaker 1 13:17
So there was there was about three
James Kahl 13:20
major challenges in setting out to do it. However, they did one visit. And we're only here for a week or 10 days, went home, thought about it didn't talk about it for several months. And then got together and said we should really should go and have a second look. So they came back. And a week after they got here. They rang their wives and said guess what? We just bought a farm.
Unknown Speaker 13:46
So that that's
James Kahl 13:48
how much they knew about Australian agriculture, other than what they gleaned in two one week long visits.
Oli Le Lievre 13:54
What was your teenage years like? The what? What were your teenage years like, here as your dad was establishing the business or the industry? It
James Kahl 14:02
was not surprising. There was an attitude that everyone was welcoming. Personally, they were all welcoming, nervous, there was some there made everybody welcome in both families and and there's a lot of immigrants that moved in behind us having heard what we did all felt the same about California. And so there was like 3040 families descended on we will in the next three years. Some of them went home again. But that's how fast it started to happen. And it only took a year or so before some of the locals said I'm over this boohoo and tall poppy syndrome because the perception being passed around was that these Americans that come in here they're going to spend a lot of money. go broke, leave a lot of debt and hightail it back across the water and leave We're very high and dry. And
Unknown Speaker 15:03
that kind of stuff sticks. So we
James Kahl 15:06
were continuing with that, personally, everyone was happy and friendly. But there was an undertone. And the End of Time was not spoken to the, to the, to the face. But it was enough that interesting enough, my first year of school here was last year of primary school, which was in Waco. And I was ostracised, and picked on and just wanted to die. Except for a high school student decided, after watching all this go on for about three or four months, stepped in and told her when to back off. So I survived. But the teenage years, there wasn't a high school and in and we want to say so my, my high school years were in a state school and nearby. And that was good timing because the headmaster's mistress came in and ran the school just as I went there. And she was brilliant and ran a great school. So I had a great time.
Oli Le Lievre 16:04
And going from there to University of New England, you started off studying, I think it was an Ag Economics degree or something similar to that, you worked out that actually what you were, you're quite driven with what you wanted to get in terms of the skills to actually run a business and the unit wasn't offering it to you actually came up with a proposal to the university to talk me through that story.
Unknown Speaker 16:26
So
James Kahl 16:27
that actually happened to two of us. At the same time. A relation of my dad's partner in in California had followed over as well, but they didn't move here. They moved to Queensland. But Fred, and I ended up going to Armineh uni at the same time, and coincidentally had applied for the same degree course, economics. And within six months of starting through for you one, which just sitting down the backup ruins by one night over a beer and said, I'm sick of this, I'm not doing this. I don't know, it's wrong, and fracas, I thought I was the only one that thought that. So we started comparing notes with him with him.
Speaker 1 17:08
It was some, it was too basic,
James Kahl 17:12
a lot of the components of a economics degree were just too too basic. There was just no meat to them. And it was largely around livestock as well. And we were farmers. And we identified where it was missing the mark. And so with, we actually had to scramble a little bit to even pass first year because we'd lost interest in everything except football, women and beer. So
Oli Le Lievre 17:42
so it asked you what kind of football by this stage? Were you a true Australian? Rugby or were you still watching?
James Kahl 17:48
Nanos rugby? Yeah, yeah. But I'd never played in high school because it wasn't available in Narrabri. Yeah, gotcha. But I got to uni, and they're all playing this rugby union. I thought that looks pretty cool. Take me along the hook into that. So we got to, we got to the end of first year and had actually just scraped through. And we had to wait for our results to be short, because neither one of us are confident. And when we did, we made an appointment with the dean in January, to go back and talk to him about this issue. And, and I think the only reason we got a hearing, in fact, was because he was the patron of Rob college football club. So we actually knew him. And I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have got an interview otherwise. But he said, I'll give you 15 minutes on Thursday, the 10th of January. And we went, Okay, don't think we're gonna get through this in 15 minutes, but we'll give it a go. So we weren't totally prepared for 15 minutes, we just put in front of him piece of paper and said there's 32 units, and they will have a reason why they're important, written beside him. And so we just threw it at him as we move and it talks through this. So we're there for three hours. And in the end, what he said, What, why do we say we just want an education and how to run a small business and a rural environment in Australia. And peg economics is not it because it's got no law. It's got no tax law, it's got no company law. It hasn't got any accounting. It hasn't got business management has got very little marketing, and an add on we're not just talking about running a farm, it wouldn't matter what you're doing. If you go back to Narrabri in the 1970s, and wanted to run a small business, economics was not going to equip you to do it. You'd be left floundering with every service supplier that you wanted to deal with, because you wouldn't know whether he's telling you the truth or not. So he came around and he said, Can you make a good point, but the problem is, this covers five faculties. How are we going to possibly do that? Because there's clashes everywhere. We said that's our problem. Day not yours. We'll deal with it. And he has, but it doesn't fit any degree we said yet. We know that too. We suspected You might be worried about that. Because now you have to be pursuing a degree at USC, you don't come here for any other purpose. Okay. So we said, well, what's a closer he said, Well, it's actually pretty close to an economics degree. It's about needs to more economic, pure economics units. And he said, like, what's the choices he made? And he rattled off five units. And we looked at each other, we said, We'll take that international marketing one. And this other one, they said, right, what are you going to cancel? Is it nothing, you're not getting that we want all those other 32 to help us run a small business in a rural environment in Australia.
Speaker 1 20:35
And he goes, so you, you're going to do 4034 units
James Kahl 20:39
for 32 unit degree with it, if you insist. So we agreed the fun part was we both passed it and got on with their lives, that the fun part was about seven years later, I happened to be reading through some material from una and they developed and we're putting out for offer a degree called an Applied Economics degree. And the core subject base of that was exactly the sheet of paper we put on his desk six years before
Unknown Speaker 21:09
the Heckel
Oli Le Lievre 21:11
writing university degree. What is it about you James, like when when there's a problem placed in front of you that you will just find a way, this determination to find a way through it. It can
James Kahl 21:23
be driven by a need, or it can be driven by you told me it can't be done. And dad was the same. You didn't tell Dad, it couldn't be done. And I just grew up that way. And maybe it can't be done. But I'm gonna find out. Yep. And so we got told that when classic was we got involved in some agriculture down in Tasmania, back in the 90s. And it was been supported and run by some Japanese researchers. And there are still two of them. Were still on staff when I got involved, and I said, Why the hell do we try and sort and grade scallops out of the water? It's killing them, literally, there's a percentage of them or die, you can't keep them out of the water that low? I said, Well, that's because that's what you do. So what there's got to be a way to do this underwater. And the Japanese said, if there was a way to do it underwater, the Japanese would have figured it out a long time ago. And I said, we thought you would have to but because you guys are the experts. But clearly you haven't. And they said no, it can't be done. Oh, you should not have said that. So that was a way sailing around the nation somewhere at that time. But when he got back, I said, you want something to do that? Because, yeah, I said, Come and share a Read with me. And we'll talk about this schema, scallop sorting underwater. And so we're playing around with figures and pitches and stuff. And he got really interested in authority work because he was looking for something to do. And I said, How about we go and sort this out? And he said, What do you mean? I said, Well, how about you and mom moved down to Tasmania for six months. And there's few other things I want you to sort out with the business as well. And we'll just sort this one out for a start. And we'll get your house to live in. And he said that sounds like fun. So went down there and played some all with it. And we had the conceptual ideas pretty well sorted. So then we took it back to the Japanese and they just said, No, that won't work. And if it were to work, we would have figured it out with it. Okay. So we went to our local engineer and Troy Urbana, and said, Were you prepared to help us with this? Because we need a workshop? And he said, Sure. Can I make a bomb out of this? And we said, sure. But you're not expected to do it for nothing. We're doing it for nothing, but you don't have to. So when and it took, so dad stayed there, I was back here most of that time. But he kept telling me where we're up to. And we're throwing ideas back and forth. And in the end, they did it. They created and it just it went to Japan we know it did. And they said why don't you peyten Then we'll get right. Hey, stop people building their own sword or when it's that easy? Yep. So we never bothered, but we know it spread around to Japanese industry.
Oli Le Lievre 24:16
It can be done. Yeah, can be done. What were your career aspirations as you like the degree design was to run a small business in rural Australia but what your your dad was establishing on play a key role in establishing the cotton industry? What were your aspirations as a young fella stepping out into the world?
James Kahl 24:35
I didn't have aspirations of being an industry leader until I became one. And, and that opportunity came about when I was asked to consider taking on a directorship of cotton seed distributors, consumer distributors as the only seed supplier to the cotton industry in Australia. So they are a monopoly which was Never to our liking. But there was nothing we could do about it because the landscape was we were so competitive that no one wanted to be against us. So any other seed company just left the country, and two of them did. But it became entrenched as a party to the structure of the cotton industry in that there are three, these guys these days very prominent entities at the top of the industry, that collectively and collaboratively run the industry. So the year the cotton seed business, you had the CRDC, and you had cotton, Australia, and cotton Australia's largest responsibility is advocacy. And they just do that really well. And then, but we and CRDC is obviously research and government funded. Largely. CSD is not funded anything other than by seed and traits. So the three of them collaborate so that there's not overlapping, there's not duplication, and there's no gaps. Um, years ago, we lost the CRC, the cotton community's research called seven years something ish is there, that's terrible. Now, it made a demise because there was no further funding we couldn't get a renewal. And and while that was a bit disruptive and very sad for some people, but the getting on with life, we we identified the gaps that was going to live. And the other three picked that up. And some of that was done in joint venture activities between the other three, so couldn't see distributors became it became an increasingly important link. And I was invited to become a director of that. And it was only a very short period of time, a year or two before I was vice chair. And then I was the successive chair after that. And I stayed there for 19 years. And that period of time was was overlapping with other things I was doing. And it was crazy, a lot of fun, which were just I just love what I do. I get to have all kinds of fun and call it work the I can be out at 4am and clearing a drain pipe in the bottom of the field with spiders and crap crawling all over me but somebody else given me a hand and five hours later be in a boardroom with the coat and tie on talking to the global managers have had quite a contrast but that was life has been my life
Unknown Speaker 27:40
and I just love it. What
Oli Le Lievre 27:42
is it about agriculture? What is it enabled for you to have fun?
James Kahl 27:45
Now I do I did I just really enjoy what I do. I love farming. I always have the we have a family farming business here and and I took that on Dad pretty well handled that over when he's in his mid 50s.
Unknown Speaker 28:00
To jaws.
Oli Le Lievre 28:02
And how old were you at that stage?
Unknown Speaker 28:05
Late 20s.
James Kahl 28:06
I was about three years home out of uni. And since then we've been operating at that time. We're nearly insolvent about 10 years later I'm sure we were there I wasn't asking too many questions because the bank was still on our side so and not to say that can't happen again because it's agriculture so we've had we've had a roller coaster ride isn't good times and some not so good times. But even in the not so good times. It doesn't stop being positively minded about let's make it better. That might soften the next bedtime and CSD was the same it was it was struggling I mean it's its livelihood was safe house. So if there was no water there was no seat sales there was no income for CSD and it got pretty ugly. But the good thing about that experience and and the what that allowed me to help do because pretty much everything I've ever done is not me on my own. If I can't think of anything I've ever done exactly. On what I've been blessed with his ability as a leader to get good, really good people around me and make things happen. And CST is exactly that. So I was steering the ship, but I was down the back with a rudder. There's other people up the front. And, and they were more of the face of CST than I was, but that's fine. I didn't have to be the face of CST. But we we restructured the business where it was no longer just a seed company. It became a crop management company. And it's now producing digital apps that are sought after all around the world because actually work and there are only reason to work. It's not rocket science. We went about developing and building eight years where data before we build the apps, and everyone else in the world wants to build shiny little apps that don't work because the data source is, is models. So models are only as good as somebody made up to put in it. But, and just taking the time to do it right and get it right in the first place. So it was really good fun building that business up. And it's now the we got to the point in in the early 2000s, about six or seven when we actually didn't have much capital. But it became very aware that also that was just building into the start the serious part of this dry cycle that we've just had for the last 20 years up until 2020. And that was an early part of that. And so we weren't doing all that well, because people weren't by my seat. But it's also when we became very much aware that the Commonwealth Government who funds CSIRO research, was being quite flippant and radical, irrational at times, about whether they're going to be in agricultural research or not. And so, one year ago, yeah, that's all the go, well, they must have need to vote somewhere. And then the next thing you know, there's talk about just cutting it all together, we thought the problem with all that is, is a CSR as breeding programme. That was the backbone of the cotton industry, because they were just ticking boxes like you wouldn't believe and we had a great team there always have had still have most remarkable breeders some of the best in the world. And still,
Unknown Speaker 31:47
it would have been really tempting.
James Kahl 31:50
And there have been plenty of participants if it was an opportunity for the likes of multinationals like Bayer Monsanto, Syngenta, Ciba Geigy. All those guys would have loved to have just thrown a check at the Australian Government and said, We'll buy that off. Yeah. And that would have been the end of the cotton industries. comfortable position as well. wouldn't matter the the industry, but it would have been made
Speaker 1 32:16
it uncomfortable. So we tried to buy it. And of course, forgot the obvious answer. Like hell you're buying
James Kahl 32:23
it. We said, Okay, well, let's get serious in about how we do something together. So one of the greatest things we we pulled off, which was it and under the chairmanship of John Grohmann. But I was vice chair by then and we, and we were developed at which still exists today. And it's now held up by CSIRO has been the best example of the model of doing business with between research agencies, and corporations, and, and private sector money. And the reward return for CSIRO is as great as it is for the other participant and for the rest of the industry. And the best part about all of it is we locked it in to the point that no one else can buy it without us refusing to buy it. So it can never be lost to the industry. And that was just such an important step. And and that's how it exists today. That that set of agreements. And it's just a joint venture, it's not even an entity when we don't have a tax file number. It's just a joint venture. But it's renewed in advance. And it's currently renewed well into the night into 2000 and 30s. Because everybody likes it so much. And it's more than likely that in another 10 to 15 years, it'll have surpassed the income stream of CSR as inventing Wi Fi.
Speaker 1 33:56
Wow, remarkable. It is. It is so
James Kahl 34:00
boards and and CEOs of CSIRO these days go, this is how
Oli Le Lievre 34:07
to do research a bit more of this. Yeah. That
James Kahl 34:11
sounds great, fun setting that that model up. And then of course, you got to keep it relevant. So it's constantly been adjusted and reviewed and, and made relevant to all parties and keeping everybody happy in the gym.
Oli Le Lievre 34:24
You've always, uh, well, I'll say you've always because it's what you told me but in terms of as we've been chatting over the last few days about the importance of things being good for the industry and not about individual competitors. I think it's really interesting how you look at your business and you said, well, we don't actually have competitors because of we're all in it together marketing together.
James Kahl 34:47
At a farming level. It never ceases to amaze me and in some cases, it does amaze me. They might be a bit strong. How so many farmers think the guy across the fence is a competitor so I'm not going to share my ideas with you, and if you think I'm gonna tell you what to put on that crop to make it yield an extra tonne of the hectic go to battery, the
Speaker 1 35:07
small secret he's not your competitor. Canada is your competitor for Durham
James Kahl 35:15
rashes, your chart your competitor for basic milling wheat, not your neighbour. So where's that, where's that mentality coming from, but it's entrenched, there's just so many agriculturalists. And it's not healthy, because while you're not sharing, you're not improving each other. And you're not even allowing yourself to improve, because you're missing out what he could have been showing you. And GRDC are doing their best to break that down with all the field work they're doing. And they do a good job of it too. But it's a big challenge. While
Oli Le Lievre 35:49
I know that they have just missed out on it, unfortunately, which is a bit of a sore point now. But they're, they're investing hugely in terms of communication channels set up in their podcasts and their videos to actually get that information in front of growers. What, what's it going to take, obviously, that leadership, but what's it going to take to? If you had a magic wand and could wave it? What would you be something that you'd change or implement to make Australian agriculture more collaborative,
James Kahl 36:16
the biggest, the biggest hurdle is individuals. perceptions. So and I'm not quite sure how to change that, because it's different for different people, some people a good a good conversation or swinging them around to thinking something different. Others are just so entrenched, you can't buy what will help the recent American model works so well. And it does, because they've actually got political sway. at federal level, they can swing an election, the Farmers of America can swing an election, Australian farmers couldn't do
Speaker 1 36:51
an election. So the difference is that
James Kahl 36:55
their industry structures are very clear, very concise. And at the top, there's one too many Australian industries have a collaboration of a combination of, of several different peak bodies, or nearly peak bodies that aren't actually working that greatly together. And it's really easy for a government to divide and rule that. I'll give you an example a more basic regional example of that. So in
Speaker 1 37:24
the About 20 years ago,
James Kahl 37:29
I'm very much involved in water issues, as you have to be if you're an irrigator. Otherwise, you have no lift at all, the m&m only valley there are four water use source groups. So you've got the river system, the unregulated stream system, the groundwater system of the lower Nimoy and the groundwater system of the upper Nimoy. And there are four different associations, one for each of those. The obvious thing to me always Was that why have we got four? It's basically the same water source, it's rain falling on the NEMO Valley. So why, why, why are we duplicating? And why are we fighting each other?
Unknown Speaker 38:13
When you looked into it, which I did?
James Kahl 38:16
And some others with me? The obvious answer was that divide and rule. Every time that DEP came out to give us more bad news, they would tell the lower Nimoy groundwater users, that they couldn't do anything about it because it was those blokes in the upper Namoi that caused the problem. And they'd tell the river water users that it was the problem of the groundwater users and, and they did it all the time. And it was pretty easy to discover, because all you had to do is be a participant in more than one of those groups, and turn up at the meetings, to hear him tell you one day how good you are, and the next day how you are the worst bastard in the world to a different group verbal. So in those in the in the late 90s, there were several of us from different those different groups, tried to persuade the groups to join together, simplify administration, simplify our representation, make it one body, and all be part of that, and have it in the Constitution that none of those four groups could be ever diminished out of their, their right to be involved in and be influential in that group. That
Speaker 1 39:24
was all locked in. It failed. The first team filed with so
James Kahl 39:31
we're hugely disappointed, but we let it go and stop, stop beating that drum for about five or six years. And then there was an instance where the government got really the government representatives Department of Water representatives got really sloppy, and they came up and blatantly did the same divide and rule activities. But it was so blatant that they were being really careless and it just angered so many people So, the small group that have tried to do before, cut back on the waggon cut back on the phone, and we put it together with support in two weeks. So hence Nemo water, which has is representative of all three of those groups. Those four groups all have places on the board of Nemo water. And Nemo water is the voice of irrigators. So the NEMO Valley and wider and a lot of circumstances, and the department can't divide and rule anymore because the NEMO water executive at all those meetings and just go out, you can't say that. And the ministers now sit up and have a listen because now I want actually speaks with authority. That's what agriculture largely needs. We don't need multiple groups, we need multiple groups feeding into a body that actually has a hearing at levels that make decisions that matter. And we just in so many industries, we don't have that in cotton we do. I was gonna ask
Oli Le Lievre 41:05
you while we're talking about water, because I think it's, well, it'd be interesting for you to explain, but cotton gets a lot of, I guess, eyeballs on it in terms of consumers and the broader Australian public, looking at it going cotton's bad Australia's rice country continent in the world, Paola. But how does the whole water system work? How does it work? Whether you decide you grow cotton, you grow lots of cotton, or you grow? Man? You?
James Kahl 41:32
Yeah, that's good question. And, and the and the answer is not complicated, but the perception is really quite muddy. And that's orchestrated by the people that want to create the bad perception. And that is also really easy to do. If you if you speak first. So then any refute by the cotton industry, it goes Oh, you guys are just
Unknown Speaker 41:56
sour grapes, because you got to call it out.
James Kahl 41:59
And the people making the statements first place absolutely know that they're just playing that game.
Unknown Speaker 42:04
So it's a difficult one.
James Kahl 42:06
But the answer is, to the point that there are a lot of cotton growers, when introduced to Metropolitan social groups and in the in groups that they become mixed with, they will actually deny the fact that they want to know they will not put forward the fact that they are cutting grass, that before the fact that they're irrigating crops. Yep. They might mention cotton, because they're just going to cut flack over the whole dinner party, which has happened to all of us at some point or another. And, and so you tend to do avoid it? I don't, I got thick skin. But But the answer to your question, the second part of the question is, is really simple. And it's in here as well. The answer is that you will grow an irrigator will grow the crop that produces the best return. Now, that varies. And generally speaking, that's why it particularly where the climates right, there's cotton is such a proper popular crop, because commonly, very commonly, cotton is the most profitable crop to grow per hectare, if there's a water shortage and you're being limited on the production across your whole enterprise by the lack of water. In fact, cotton is not the highest return per megalitre. So there are other crops. The classic one is mung beans. You can you can make two to 250% better return on mung beans per megalitre then you can add a cotton but it's only about a quarter of the return per hectare. Okay, got that? Yep, so cotton's producing so you're growing
Oli Le Lievre 43:54
more? In a nutshell you grow more mung beans per mega litre of water, but you can grow a lot more cotton per hectare, and you can grow mung beans per hectare,
James Kahl 44:04
and cotton's worth more Gotcha. So the profit per hectare here. So it comes back to a decision on what I hear restraint resources. And commonly we believe there are five resources to do what we do as irrigation farmers in northern New South Wales. And we need land, we need water, we need capital equipment, we need capital, and we need people. Now whichever one of those is the most constrained, is the one that becomes the decision maker. And that can change within a calendar within a budget. It doesn't normally, but because you can normally see further ahead than that. But if that ever changes then so to your decision patterns. So when you say what do we choose to grow? It depends on how much water we've got. But so there was a period This happened twice in the last 20 years, where with a dry cycle, we're running out of water. And we had plenty of people, we had plenty of land, we had all the equipment, and we weren't going to leave them sitting idle. So we're growing four times as many hectares of mung beans with the same water, that we could grow one hectare of cotton. So we could keep at least two thirds of the farm employed, land, capital, machinery people. By doing that, instead of if we're just growing cotton, there have been people had to be laid off, machinery would have been sitting idle, land would have been laying fallow, fallow and the soil health would have been deteriorating because of that.
Unknown Speaker 45:47
None of those things are working.
James Kahl 45:50
So those five constraints, those five resources, just simply, our decision making comes back to whichever one's constrained.
Oli Le Lievre 45:58
And it seems like a very rational decision making Do you have an emotional title one of those five key areas more than another, are
Unknown Speaker 46:07
saying no, I've.
James Kahl 46:11
So a little bit of pride, I've never sacked anyone in my whole life. And now that's not to say I haven't encouraged people to leave, and actually help them find another job because this one wasn't working for him or me. And so I help them move on, which is different to saying there's a gate piss off. But, of course, people are very important to us. And really, because we're, we do a lot of work more and more these days with developing people and people skills in agriculture and managing the style of agriculture that we're involved in. And we're training them and there's over 10% of our, of our staff are trainees. And it gets up to 15% regularly. And that's kind of pushing the limits, because you run out of resources to maintain that, but, but that's how important it is to us. If, if machines, if the cash flow is not all that great for four or five, six years, and the machines are getting a bit of age, we'll know some through so they don't have to be turned over unless circumstances prevail. But so I guess really, yeah, people would be be the one that water is the most critical to an irrigation farmer. But in decision making, but we just we just go out of our way not to put people off because they just too important. In the 2010 11 flood, we'd already had 10 years of dry cycle. And I've got that as us I mentioned earlier, 789 got really nasty and we were down to minimal production, there's no way with groundwater only, which is only about 20% of our water supply. And then we got down to that there was no river water at all. And we can't make a profit at that level. But we still refuse put people off. But what happened was, some are left some decided to go and do something else, some retired. And we ended up with about two thirds of our staff left. And it didn't matter because there was nothing to do. So just relieved the pressure of finding him something to do and trying to support them when I didn't have a profitable budget.
Speaker 1 48:18
So I did that. In 2010 11
James Kahl 48:22
Flood came along, suddenly we're at 100% a water supply. There's nothing wrong with the equipment. The land was prawn. We were not at full production for a year and a half after that, because we didn't know the people couldn't do it. And there's no way we're going to flood the ones that were left here to try and do it can't be done. We just got to work our way back into that. And everyone was in the same boat. So trying to find help in 2012
Speaker 1 48:49
was crazy stuff fighting
Oli Le Lievre 48:53
for everyone. What's next? Or what is the future of your business here look like you've got one two sons, three, three sons back in the business now. What is that evolution of your business here look like?
James Kahl 49:04
Really, really strong and really and a lot more fun. It's, it's gonna be a truly positive. The weather again through high school, there's three boys under three. The third one is 10 days younger than the first one's third birthday. So they went through high school together they had a lot of fun at tears and and it was great on weekends because their mother and I only had to take them to one sport, one venue because they were all doing the same thing. Halfway through high school I recognised a pattern in their development and they were all totally different except that they did get on really well and look out for each other when they're a boarding school. I thought well that's a that's a plus. But there was one that was clearly going to be academic and and administratively very sound. There was one that was just hands on one of the he actually wanted to be a pilot but he and up becoming the farmer, and the other one was tearing apart remote control toys at four years old and rebuilding them into something else. Okay, there's a mechanic and there's an IT guy. Yeah. And as they're finishing high school, that's where they're all headed. So Danny went off and did a business degree. He's now running the the administration and business management of the of the family farming business. Sam is the farmer, which came as a bit of a surprise to him as well. But two years after he finished high school, he worked out that he actually loved growing stuff. So he's now the farmer. And and Matt is maintenance it and harvesting. Just loves harvesting equipment. Okay, so they got three different jobs as a management team. They're all home. When we have a management meeting, it's really fun, because they all want to know what each other's doing updated on what's going on in your world. But never once in the seven or eight years I've been home, have any of them ever seriously questioned? What one or the others is doing? And why? Because they don't want their job. They're really happy in their space. And they go well, if that's what you and dad figured out, then it must be right.
Oli Le Lievre 51:16
And so what's your role in this? Either? Coach? If
James Kahl 51:21
you look at our organisational chart, I am actually still at the top. Thank you very much. Yeah. And I think I'm called Managing Director even are there Yeah. When they came home, the reason the the prompt for them to come home when they did, which was around 2015 16 was set in late 2014. And neighbours, and incidentally, it was dad's partner, the Headlee family decided to sell off the last of their land. And they've been doing that for a while, but they kept the the land and the knmi. to last. And they and they offered it to us as a lot, a single lot parcel. And they said, We're gonna break it up. You don't get it. If you want it all, you can have it. So it took a whole week to negotiate that deal. But part of the week, or your books
out of that week was getting the boys home and same his proposition. But he think they were pretty excited about it. And I said, Well, that's interesting, because there's the bank. And they went, Oh, what's your problem? I said, my problem is I'm 65. And unless you guys are coming home, I'm not doing this because I don't want to be here in seven years time on my own. I just don't want to be here. And in my 70s running all this by myself won't be quite as much fun as it used to be. And they said are dead. We're coming home. Okay, good.
Unknown Speaker 52:56
So they did. So
James Kahl 52:58
that's that's what brought them home. And and they're just flying. I tell them at the time, when we settled down into it, and worked out roles and worked out salaries, of course. And it's a single business. We don't we don't divide farms. So the eight farms are all a collaborative of a single business is three, four subsets of management. territory. Yep. But that's all departmental managed by Sam, the administration and business management is all done by Daniel, the maintenance and the support is all done by Sam. I've met all of that as a single unit. And I told him at the time, I said, Now, if the big proverbial bus comes along and takes me out anytime in the next 12 months, you guys are in the shit. And I mean, deep. You're too young, you're too inexperienced, and I don't know how you're gonna get through, it'll be really tough you want to have that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 53:57
In about two or three years. You'll struggle, but you'll get through, and you'll wish I hadn't died in about four or five years. You'll
James Kahl 54:10
be comfortable that you've got it. But you'll just be a bit tentative in six or seven years. You wish you didn't have to take time off from a funeral because you're too busy running the farm.
Unknown Speaker 54:21
I said what I reckon, and
James Kahl 54:23
Matt. And Sam said, So Dad,
Unknown Speaker 54:27
what are you going to do then?
James Kahl 54:29
And I said, Oh, and by the way, in about that timeframe, I reckon I'll just become potentially redundant. And Sam goes so dead. What are you going to do then? And his older brother Daniel said, Sam, you were listening. He said potentially he ain't going nowhere. And he's right. We're at that point. They are running the show. I get the pleasure of ringing them up and say what do you want done this week? Because I've actually got about four days free And they know not to give me all the shit jobs, but some of my older glamorous ones either. And so, this morning, I was changing stuff into four o'clock in the morning. So that's okay. And I don't mind that, because I balanced that with sitting in a boardroom with somebody else. And I just think it's a great experience and great life. Because I get time to think, Well, I'm doing either one of those jobs, I've got time to think about what I'm doing other things that I'm doing, where the business is going, it's we're just trying to, we believe we're very close to the scale of operation, we we think is ideal. So we haven't got great upgrade or growth aspirations much anymore. That could change. But this is the current thinking. And, and they're also starting to build families. So they don't wish to be at work 15 hours a day, either. So I just think it's more or less same, but more of the same means that we're just keep looking on how to improve what we're doing. Why and beyond where we were five years ago. Most recently, a few years ago, we we had one of the farms become accredited as carbon positive. Yeah, better than neutral. Last year, we had our whole farming operation across all eight farms, management systems, declared carbon neutral.
Oli Le Lievre 56:27
I want to ask how, what have you guys done in order to be able to become carbon neutral, partly
James Kahl 56:34
is retaining and looking after and improving riparian zones, which we don't cultivate anyway. So that's stalking areas. But we're also collaborating with landcare. And country road and people like country road now. Might want to tick that box. Yeah. And so they're getting involved supporting financially activities in several different regions in New South Wales. And I believe they're moving into Queensland with that effort as well. So that's going on, but we've been doing that for 15 or 20 years before, before that came along. So we've been we've got a pattern of developing that for a long time, the soil carbon building has been going on since we were in New England, running sheep in Ben Lomond. And we, we thought, that's when the first chatter about all the carbon and the carbon credits and how you're going to make mutter out of selenium. And all that kind of chat was going on, with no substantial evidence of any of it. But it was good chat. And we thought, why not how that really would work. So we started looking and testing ourselves up there and in the mid 90s, Angus grazing country. And by early 2000s, we built out up from point O four up to about point eight. And we doubled it and with it, that's cool. And we've done that with Holistic Management and just simple grazing techniques like either third, treble, third, lever third, and just just building organic matter in the soils as working really well. The
Unknown Speaker 58:13
the,
James Kahl 58:16
it was difficult to do out here, because of the dry cycle. And that becomes really difficult to main terrain, so carbon, let alone build it, because you're not growing crops yet. So it's, it's pretty hard to do. But in 2020, we could see the end of the dry cycle coming and beginning of a decent wet cycle. So we started actively testing soils here on we will farming and found it to be around about point 5.6 After extensive dry cycle. And I thought Yeah, I wonder what it was before that because it would have been pretty nice. Anyway, we've already built that up to 1.4. Well, in about two and a half years. And that's just by that rotation programme that we use. That is, is loaded with we grabbed five crops in four years. And the rotation cycle is designed to rotate chemistry, both herbicides and insecticides. So there's a whole 18 months of it that we don't use Roundup. And that's pretty hard to do these days in a culture but in that cycle there there is a period where roundup doesn't go near that paddock, and then it's also rotating the amount of organic matter we're putting back into the crop, mung beans, but bugger all in that column puts massive amounts in. So that's, that's all happened. It's breaking the disease cycle. So some of them are host to the semi host some of the diseases that cause us a fair bit of grief. Others are not. So it's rotating that and the end it's just developing farming systems that retain the Start Up, but we're not no till can't be an irrigations to shoot up. And I wouldn't want to be anyway. So we're minimum till so we'll plant two of those five crops go straight into stubble of the crop before them. The other three behind tillage that turned all that into the soil so we can get on with writing it down and creating carbon loads instead of rubbish on top.
Oli Le Lievre 1:00:26
So can I ask on D D for say, like in the next dry period that your carbon levels will actually drop again? And is there a risk of not maintaining carbon neutrality for a short period of time?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
I would expect as possible. Yep.
James Kahl 1:00:41
You can't control that situation if you can't grow anything. And cropping leaving a spin long run. Fellow sit Longfellow syndrome is just nasty. And a bit of you have got no moisture to grow crops with. That's what you end up with. Regardless of how good an operator you are, so it's possible. But we we weren't anticipate it because we will be anticipating that potential scenario before it happens and be trying to create a loading of carbon that might carry you through.
Oli Le Lievre 1:01:22
Yeah, gotcha. Yeah. And that's where you'd be willing to change the type of farming as you lead into a potential dry cycle. Yep, too. Yeah. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:30
Yep. That all works.
Oli Le Lievre 1:01:32
So Well, a couple of questions, I guess, to wrap it. If, if you were getting back into agriculture today, if you were stepping out of the Golden gates of university again, and you could do absolutely anything in agriculture today, what would what would be an area you think you'd pursue,
James Kahl 1:01:48
it's a bit like the earning house. And if you've got a dream that you're going to own your own farm. That's, that's a really tough call. And you're gonna need a lot of help somewhere along the way to achieve that. I just don't. And you see a lot of people now that have recognised the fact that you can actually get satisfaction and enjoy what you're doing. By just having a responsible job of managing tracts of property, as long as you've got a decent landlord or a decent boss. I know lots of people that just you know, this is the best of both worlds because I don't have the worry of it all going pear shaped.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:31
So if it goes pear shaped, I'm just
James Kahl 1:02:34
I'm not wearing it. I just think that the opportunities in ag are the same as they were except epi got a hell bent desire to own your own place, then the you're beating your head a bit. Otherwise, take a peek. There's, I don't know an egg industry in Australia that doesn't need good management and will pay for good management and, and the rewards and job satisfaction in good run up organisations will make that pretty comfortable. Without the risks.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:12
Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 1:03:13
So one final question then you'll be heading overseas presenting this year 2024 on the trip What are you most looking forward to when you get to mingle with the group of winners again?
James Kahl 1:03:24
What do you know that I don't know? I don't know when I guess we're going but there's been no dates mentioned. So might be I've just I really enjoy that. I got to do a lot of that when I was the lead of CSD. We had international relationships with Monsanto, Bayer, Ciba Geigy, Syngenta, with all the heavy hitters, because they're all in the same industry we are. And we're doing things that that mean that we need them. And quite regularly, they need us because we're supplying the best germ plasm in the world to to all the leading cotton producing countries except the ones that don't recognise the contract. The but the rest of them. That's where we are. That's, that's where CSD is and that's what we were doing. And so we had the benefit of experiencing a lot of trouble and mixing with a lot of CEOs and high level managers of multinationals. And they're really not that ugly and dangerous. Yeah. What I really love about all those guys now and guys, I mean the corporations as and when they keep reducing a number with them. We haven't got Monsanto anymore. But even before Monsanto went saw go back half a dozen years. All the ones that were there then were results of others that merged together prior to that in the last 20 years and Syngenta is absolutely a product of that, that there wasn't a bad attitude before. But I think those majors now all have a really strong desire, a true honest desire to benefit and, and make farmers do better. Now, I was in a chem game as a distributor, all through the 70s 80s and 90s. And, and they were my suppliers. I can't say that it was exactly the same honest opinion held by them. They were more interested in shareholder profits, quite frankly. And the and the competition was fierce to get it. I think there's a culture change in those big companies. And Syngenta is a classic. They are they genuinely, genuinely want to help farming industry. And you can be cynical and say, Well, the obvious answer is that of their farmers aren't doing well. They're not buying your product. So you're not going to do well.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:59
And that's, that's a truth.
James Kahl 1:06:01
But I don't think it's a driving truth that makes these companies do what they do these days. I think they genuinely have an interest in seeing a culture do well. Yeah,
Oli Le Lievre 1:06:11
I think I think at the core of it all is they are human beings. And I think when it comes to agriculture, people genuinely care about what, what it is that they are doing. And I think what's amazing about the bigger end of town is that what they do actually has a global footprint and impact, which
James Kahl 1:06:28
is they do and what they do around the world is not a lot different to what they do here. So it's not like they're putting up a front in Australia and New Zealand, that are not backing up around the world. Except again, I say there's a couple of major countries in the world that don't recognise a contract. So it's pretty hard for those guys who need to earn a quid to do any business there. And frankly, I wouldn't be either. Other than that. That's true. They really do and they and they Syngenta do a great job of that. And they and they've been moving in that direction for way more than a decade.
Oli Le Lievre 1:07:07
Oh, James, thank you so much. I feel like we're gonna have to come back and chat to you. Again, I think we've only just hit part one of God knows how many parts but it's been fantastic sitting down with you and hearing a bit of that journey from 10 years old, right to where you are today and where the business is heading. So thank you. Yeah,
James Kahl 1:07:22
we skipped a few bits. might play pleasure. And thanks for thanks for making it so easy. It's been a good discussion. Thank you.
Oli Le Lievre 1:07:32
Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts. And if you're not, let us know hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guest recommendations topics, or things you'd like us to talk and get curious about. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Rate, Subscribe, review it, any feedback is absolutely awesome. And we really do welcome it so Look after yourselves. Stay safe. stay sane. We'll see you next time.
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