We went LIVE @ Sheepvention with Elders

Unknown Speaker 0:01 G'day and welcome to shape vention 2023. We didn't hear on Gundam our country. And today as part of a little collaboration we're doing with elders, we're sitting down in there Stan, which is pretty jam packed, actually any, any more people and they'd be going straight outside of the market. We're sitting down to chat about the evolution of agriculture. And we thought it'd be awesome to sit down with a couple of people, one being a local Mark government, who I've known for quite some time who, in his family business, they've evolved several times, changing enterprises from his grandparents through to his father through to him. And now obviously, as the business continues to evolve with his two sons in the other person, who we're sitting down with is Brendan Rinaldi, who's the state general manager for Victoria and the Riverina with elders. And Brendan's got a really interesting story, because he's not only had a career in finance and banking, as well as in consulting and accounting. He's also co owning a family farm as well. So he's juggling a couple of things. And he's evolution in agriculture is super fascinating as well, where it's come from a variety of different angles, and actually seeing him being involved in areas that he's passionate about, but not actually necessarily in the things that happen day to day on the family farm. So let's jump into it. We'll might have a few little sound tweaks in here, but bear with us, and hope you enjoy the chat. We'd love to know any feedback you've got on this live kind of. Unknown Speaker 1:21 Right? Oh, thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure, firstly, to welcome you all into the elders tent for sheep bench and 2023. It's great that we've got such a good crowd here today. It's been a wonderful day, I think everyone's enjoyed the traditional shape pension weather like this. It's magnificent bit of sun and no wind and everyone's enjoyed it. You're not here to listen to me though, I'm going to do my best to hand over to Ali leave straightaway. We've got some wonderful guests, and I hope you will enjoy the afternoon. And please stick around afterwards for a drink and whatever is left to the IoT at the back there. So enjoy. Thanks, lovely, thanks, elders for having us here. And thanks, Mark. And Brendan, for joining us for a bit of a chat. For those of you who aren't familiar Malila leave, I've been running a podcast in a media platform and agriculture. We've been running a platform really trying to shift the stigma around agriculture through sharing people's stories. And today, we deliberately tell chose the topic evolving in agriculture. And I think when we talk about evolution, different words such as succession and whatnot might come out. And I think at various stages when it comes to evolving within agriculture, within businesses, there's plenty of decisions that are made. And I know, Brennan, you've made several over your career both inside the farm gate and outside and just for the audience, can you tell us a little bit of your background? Where'd you grow up in? What's your earliest memory around agriculture? Probably cutting burgers at about four years old. It was certainly a family thing where I grew up, the youngest of four kids and obviously growing up on a sheep farm never wanted any birds in the woods. So everyone got a shovel from a very young age. So I remember and we used to bag them up so the seeds wouldn't fall. So that's probably my youngest memory of being on the farm. And what about for you mark? Your home's not too far from here? What's your earliest memory? Oh, my earliest memory we grew up in a Cordell stone. And probably one of my earliest fear memories of agriculture was at an age of 12 to 14 holding 60 kilo rams when we were half the weight. So my grandfather and my father to open the wool and say how pretty and we're being bumped into Rails and, and bashed about by these big rams. But that's one of my memories. Was it at this moment that you love farming? Unknown Speaker 3:18 It's sometime during my life, I got to the stage that I could have been called a sheep hater. Maybe that was it. But at the same time, he started going down the cattle route, no stable shade for a fair while actually. I mean, they were very good to us for some years. But then the Wolverine Jones there as corridors were sort of not one of the breeds to have through that. And then our sheep evolved elsewhere, and I look more at cattle and enjoy the genetics of cattle and took that right. We were chatting before. Because I've been fortunate to be involved with marketing in a couple of different roles. You're a director of a company that I was working in a few years ago. But the decision for you back in the 80s to come back on the farm was it in your hands, you felt, I think probably a lot of my contemporaries and myself. There was an expectation, if you were born into a farm that you as being a male, you would come back to farming. And that certainly happened to my brother. And I think there was positions made and places made for us to come back. So there wasn't a lot of talk about alternatives. We could have taken those but we probably had to fight the family wish. At one stage. I became quite good with computers and could have left and walked down the programming road. But farming had an attraction to me. I had a young family and bringing them on a farm is a great place to be so farming evolved and then took me to where we are today, which has been a great ride. And what about for you, Brandon? Because today obviously involve with elders, I should have given you a bit more of a proper introduction. You've been in the role for several months now. General Manager of Victoria in the Riverina. Why did you decide to go down that corporate path and what were the options to you? Yeah, like I said, I was the youngest of four I had two older sisters and a brother, dad. So we're a fifth generation farming family. Dad was a sharer as well as working on the family farm that never taught my brother or or myself to share because everyone he taught went off sharing the Unknown Speaker 5:00 Don't want that for his boys. But I guess my older brother was probably always destined to go back to the farm. He hated school. And I guess I was a bit more of the academic. So once my brother went back to the farm, I was more pushed down the uni path and, and to be honest, I probably didn't have anything to do with the family farm for a good 10 years once I went off to university in the corporate world. So I started at PwC as an accountant and then KordaMentha and then found myself at at ANZ. And I walked in the doors at ANZ. And they said, You're off the I just got back in touch with my dad and my brother and I had a national agri business role with ANZ dealing with farmers that were actually in financial difficulty. So that took me around the country. And I guess as I was building my expertise in agribusiness, I started to give dad a bit of advice. And I said to dad, one day I you should buy this block of land across the road that had been on the market and didn't sell, but we knew the agent. And Dad said, I don't you know, I've got enough on my plate, I don't want to buy it. And I kept pushing him and pushing him. He said, Well, if you think it's that good as good of an idea by yourself. So I did and then I leased it back to him. So I made him pay for it anyway. But anyway, that's I sort of call myself a bit of an accidental farmer. So I got sort of got back into the family farm involvement there. And my brother runs the farm today. And I sort of do a bit of the book work and things like that keep an eye on the economic side, which certainly helps helped me both in the banking saw, but then obviously, helped me grow up passion towards agriculture, I had a number of different sort of agribusiness roles within the bank and then developed a relationship with some of the key people in orders. And when this job came up, I jumped at it because, you know, it's an amazing business. It's got lots of various business streams, it's obviously got a great history, it has been around since 1839. It's a brand that a lot of us have grown up with. So yeah, I just it was a bit of a natural thing for me, I guess, like the old saying, you can take the boy the country, but you can't take the country or the boy and you sort of end up back similar to my story. I suppose you end up, you've funnily enough end up back where you come from a lot of the time. So yeah. So you say an accidental farmer accidentally in agriculture? So like, Was it planned? For you? Like, was it somewhere with like, with the calling to come back into agriculture? Was it something that was sitting there? Or did you kind of just literally come out when that property came up, and your old man said, Go and have a crack? It was probably that was the first first part. And then the second part was a bit of bit of, I guess, a bit more advice I gave to my dad again, and he said, I'm getting too old for this, if you think it's that good when I talk to you, brother, and you guys can go into business together. So genuinely was it, I guess I Yeah, it's genuine that I that I did become, yeah, it was a bit of an accident at the start. But it's something that I love. And, you know, I do live in Melbourne now, but having the best of both worlds. And I've got three young kids, two boys and a girl and they absolutely loved the farm. And they get back there and see them on the motorbikes and doing sheep work. And you know, my oldest is nine, and he hates school and just wants to be on the farm the whole time. So I get a lot of joy out of that. So the farms very precious to me. And we spoke about legacy before and you know, it's fifth generation farming and seeing the sixth generation come up, it is a legacy. And you do want to continue to build on something that's there for the next generation. And I think that's the beauty of it. We'll come back to that in a little bit. Mark for you, your business, can you just run us through a little bit about what collana is like today, who's involved but also to what that's looked like through your father and and also your grandfather and how the actual enterprises have changed as well. Yeah, good question. I'll probably go back to my grandfather bought Kalina in 1930. And he was the middle, the middle brother of three brothers. And they came from Vera gara and split out and all when farming in their own way. And you know that you'll know the tomato gubbins, that's one of those brothers. And then the bow and hits is full of plumbers and builders and surveys and things like that. That's another arm of family and they were farming as well back in those days. So my grandfather came to Kelowna in 1930 Interesting little bit of history, it had been it had been on the market for some period of time, 3000 acres in those days deemed unviable and overrun by rabbits. And you think of that 3000 acres back then deemed unviable. And you get to after the war or just post war, whereas a soldier settlement block deemed viable with 640 acres, interesting little thing, but phalaris and superphosphate in clovers, and things change farming. But to get back to the modern day of how it's changed men, I was brought up in a shape start, and that's what my family did. And they were very good at that. But farming evolved and changed because the wool boom actually changed the side of the wool industry. And those costs walls were just not warranted. So that changed that we got to the stage, we tried to sell half the car that we we sold half the car now started somewhere in the early 90s, I think and kept half thinking we'll try and persevere. In the end, we couldn't even sell the second half. We just dissolved it back into a commercial no commercial operation. And that's what it got to it. And that's part of the evolution of farming and about that time or maybe late 80s I started to we had a small cattle start selling about 20 balls if that at the time, and I started to see something in that we were starting to sell to a few Hereford breeders and the game was changing a fair bit and evolution took place there. I mean, my whole cattle career effectively in its early days was challenging red cattle to black cattle. And that's what happened. That's evolution. That's part of the deal. So we kept that going for some years Anna and I and ended up with a black Simmental status Unknown Speaker 10:00 On top of the anger start, and then just near the end of our, of our study life, we ended up with a wagyu start as well, because we were starting to lose some bull breeders have a breeders to wagyu. So we thought, let's tap into that. And so that gets into the, into the mid 2015 16. We've been doing some succession talks with our children, three boys. And we sat down and had quite a big meeting about who's going to do what and when, who's going to do something in five years, 10 years, 20 years, and about what we had then. And there was not a lot of hands going up to run the study in the future. So if we took the view of dispersal, and so we dispersed the Angus start and the black semi start, kept the wagyu started for a couple of years and thought that was great for heifer carbon, for they grew too slowly. For us, we thought a cow was better than a than a wagyu calf standing around. And we get to where we are today with farms in South Australia and Victoria and two boys farming with us. So I want to ask you on like, you spent a lot of Blood Sweat Tears emotionally invested chasing both markets, but you love the cattle start, I presume? Is that right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, it took me to the states dozen times, probably chasing genetics, I met a lot of people worldwide. I have had a lot of pleasure out of it. But you know, we really looked at what our family wanted down the track. And I have this view, a long held view that if you want a family farm, you have to let the family farm? Was that something you picked up? Outside the farm? Gator Where'd that come from? I don't actually know where that first started. I did a talk after I dispersed and use them for the first time. I think it's just something that I've thought about for a long time that you know, you see lots of firms that don't go very well through succession and lifetimes and, and you look at them. And you wonder why. And we all learn from that all of us individually learned from that. And I think that was just my view that I've got two boys, I'd love them to firm, I'm not going to make them firm. But if they wanted to that it'd be fantastic. So that's where if you want them to firm, or if you want a family firm, let them let them firm the way they want. I think we might come back and tap on that a little bit. For you, Brandon, you spend a lot of time working outside the farm gate, and looking at things I guess in a corporate business sense of how structures how decisions are made, what time horizons, things are looked at, how do you bring that learning back into the family conversations with what you were doing with actually just leasing the farm back? But then actually how that's evolved to where you're at today? Yeah, I guess that's the benefit of being I guess, in consulting and then banking just had a lot of different clients and a lot of different farmers. And I guess you pick up little things as you go. And you see what Yeah, I started in the risk area, like I said, dealing with farmers that were facing financial difficulties, so you see what can go wrong. And then I lead ANZ, it's corporate agribusiness for Victoria and Tasmania, and then I'll state manager for South Australian Northern Territory. So you see a lot of variety across there. And you see what the good farmers are doing. And you, you take a bit of that, and you like I said, I'd give some advice back to data and say put your money where your mouth is, and and I guess in that corporate agribusiness space that you are dealing with some of the bigger growers and farmers and they are at the cutting edge of usually technology evolution, and you're seeing what they're focusing on. And I guess the efficiencies and some of the traditional farming methods aren't very efficient anymore. So you're saying that the technology and the evolution and I guess bringing that back to the farm, and you do have to have your finger on the pulse as far as the economics go, you can get very emotionally attached to agriculture. And and I guess that's what I bring back. I mean, my brother has been on the farm since he was 15. And and he's not. He's very smart guy, but he's not an academic in terms of the financial or legal side of things. Whereas I've been dealing in that side my whole life. So and I think, you know, my three generations haven't got along like my dad didn't take over his family farm, he sort of was a bit stubborn, and at 25 left with his life savings and bought his own farm. So he's done it the hard way. But he's also done it quite traditionally. And the economics really matter because, you know, we fight to save every dollar and make every dollar so you really got to be assessing the economics and we've trialed the last five years running a, you know, a Merino starred alongside our crossbreds we've always been traditionally crossbred, but we wanted to see how the wool meat composite stacked up against the the crossbreed. We've also started to trade cattle over the last few years, which started as a result of 2009 18 people remember, we got through to about August, and then in our country up near between sort of a chicken dinner loop, and it dried off really harshly in August, and we decided to go and buy a whole heap of cattle really cheap and put them on all the crops. And then the price turned and they put on a lot of weight and actually did quite well out of it. So that's how we got into the cattle trade. But then I remember my folks being in Canada at the time and they saw that we'd cut everything for hay and we'd gone and bought all these cattle and my mum was like, geez, you boys have blown out the overdraft and I hope you know what you're doing. And I showed mum this spreadsheet of all the economics that we'd calculated in terms if we took this to harvest or if we cut this for high or if we put cattle on here. And this is what we'd make versus if we did it the traditional way I suppose. And mom went Geez, you better come back and and run the farm and I was like nuts. Unknown Speaker 15:00 This is too much uncertainty for me to sort of Fathom giving you a log on the weather. But that's, you know, that's what it takes. I think just being able to do those economics not trying not to get too emotionally attached. And you know, there's some tough decisions at the moment where the shape job is versus the cattle job. Yeah, they're both cattle seem to have bottomed out shape, you'd hope or close to bottoming out. But yeah, there's a decision if you can try both, which one do you get into and you know, you do have to look at some economics on that and do some numbers and probably get some good advice on what sort of feed you've got and things like that. But you've got to weigh it up, especially like I said, if you're fighting for every dollar, those decisions count, I'm going to stick with you here, Brandon, because so family farms, obviously, there's lots of emotion attached to it, you're not in the farm into the farm gate every single day. But from my understanding, it seems like the decisions that you're making come with a lot of clout and objectiveness around them. So when it comes to engaging with your brother with the broader family, how do you guys actually approach making those decisions? And having those conversations that could become quite emotive? Yeah, like I said, when when we stick in our lines, like my brothers pure production focus, so it's his job to grow the grain or grow the shape or the cattle, it's my job to make sure the numbers are all stacking up. So to be honest, he's not a man of many words. So we'd probably speak once a day for two or three minutes. And then we cut to the chase, there's no BS when we talk, it's pretty much you know, are you sure we need to put that much fertilizer out there? And he'll say yes, because of this, or he might go Yeah, good point. I'll go and talk to the agronomist but, and we respect each other's opinion, the end of the day, like I said, he's there for production, I'm there to make sure I keep an eye on the numbers. And if it's a financial decision, he'll trust me if it's a production decision, I'll trust Him and we challenge each other. But once the other person's had their say, we don't really challenge it further on, because we stick in our lanes. And I think that's the beauty of our relationship. And are you guys using external advice in that as well? Only agronomy? Yeah. And obviously, we've got accountants, but they probably hate me. Because, you know, being a previous accountant and pushing them a bit, and having studied a little bit of law, the lawyers probably hate me as well. Because, you know, you can sort of, you know, where they need to be focusing and things like that. And you push back on a few things, which probably the average person doesn't they just take it for granted that that's the right advice and that sort of thing. But I do challenge them a lot. But yeah, I mean, we use all those sorts of advisors. And to be honest, your bank managers a good point of call for some advice, too, because they do genuinely see the numbers of a lot of farmers. So if you want to know what works, you know, if you want to go down a separate path and say, Have you got any farmers that are? I guess in our instance at the moment, we don't summer crop, but we could sell a crop now. So we have you any farmers growing maize, and what's that look like? And what you know, what are the economics look like? Can you give us some examples? And yeah, like, I can't divulge personal information, there are the farmers but they can sort of tell you what sort of margins or whatever it is because they see the numbers. So yeah, laying on the right people for a bit of advice. And, and yeah, and that's what we do. And FEMA using externals, you guys that that started dispersal. 2018 was it 2017? Yep. How did you use external advisors to actually guide your decision making and what did that process actually look like up until the point where you said, All right, Fitzcarraldo. That's a good question, actually, I think Ross mill got a phone call. And I said, Ross, I'm dispersing, correct. Anyway, what? Don't say it. Probably did while was my genetic advisor anyway, but I mean, he was just as shocked as anyone else. I think. I think when we went down that road, probably the whole industry was quite staggered them and what are you doing that for? You've got to this point, and you're giving an app, but we weren't giving it up, I'd been in other states, I'd watch the US cattle market go up and down. And we were flatline. We were totally flatlined dollar $60 at a feeder steer for five or six years, and it was pretty bloody boring, I can tell you, but I would watch the the US go through the roof, and then down and then back up again. And I came out in 2016. Just before this, knowing that Australia was gonna get some action for the first time in a long time, even to the extent I stood up at my South Australian bull sale in 2016. And said, if we don't see a price rise, I think about $3 I'll quit. And we saw the price rise just went down before it went up. There was a bit of, but that wasn't the reason why I quit because I just I had this knowledge from traveling around the world that I knew what was going to happen, it was our turn. And it was short lived. But it was there. And so that was part of it that when I came back out of there, I thought we've got to take some of this action and bigger sense in a bull sale, or just ESL, so I'd come out of the US in 2016 thinking let's liquidate some of the commercial herd but then the conversation with family about who's going to do what 510 20 years change that to the start and so who are you using outside to God that process maybe not who how how do you use them? I don't know if we really had no we didn't really use a lot we talked about it ourselves. I think it was a heartfelt decision knowing once we had the conversation in family that there was no one gonna stand up they'll help me keep doing it and I keep doing it. But how long can we do that? Because was big job three animals a year, three sales. It was a big job and how long can we keep doing that? Do we want to keep doing that? Yes, the Unknown Speaker 20:00 Boys will do it for a while. But if they're not really into that, is that fair on them? Is that really what you want them to enter agriculture and go? Well, we're doing this for dad. And I didn't feel that was the right thing. So I don't think there was a lot of outside influence on that. I think it was just a decision. What's it like coming out the other side of that now? And obviously, we won't talk too much about about cattle process. But now what's it like coming outside? Going, you've got now both boys back into business. And still going through this evolution process again, now for them to actually coming out the everyone's snow, what's it like not having a start anymore? And what's it like not breeding, what's great, I don't have to worry about a client, I don't have to keep someone happy when it's going wrong. So that's really good. I mean, I don't regret any decision that we may, I'm not hanging your hand back on my boys and saying you've got to do that. And just really interesting, they just step back to the previous generation. And one of the things that happened to me that probably helped that decision was my grandfather was the great Cornell man. And before he died, one of the things he said to me is this current, our status, your legacy, don't snap it up. You know, that's a pretty big words. And so you think about it, I didn't stop it up. Evolution of agriculture, stuff that up. And you know, I didn't want to hang that on the boys if they weren't really keen on that. So coming out the other side is really good. It's given Max has been farming since 2014. With asset kalana, he started off more of a sheep man than a cattle man, although he's now looking at the economics of it going, or he was Unknown Speaker 21:24 looking at it going, it will, maybe more cattle because of the cost associated with sheep. But it's allowed them to get into the business, ollie, and all Max, especially because he's been in the business longer, and modify the business to what he wants to do. And we've allowed that to happen. So coming out the other side is very pleasurable. And you touch on the word legacy there, I'm gonna ask both you and Brennan, a couple of questions, which are gonna be the same. But let's start with you. That piece of whether it was your grandfather, but also the legacy that you are building through the family business, how important is it that you weigh up, the legacy of this is where we've come from, but actually going, well, the world is changing. And as a business for us to remain relevant, profitable, sustainable into the future, we need to actually change what we might have done in the past. I think we need to look at change every single day. I mean, agriculture is a moving business. It's not stagnant. I mean, you know, it's so broad, you could be a cropper, you could be a sheep graze up cattle graze your Steadman, it is very, very broad. And you've got to come down to the person that's in the game at the time. And what is their specialty? Or what do they want their specialty to be? legacies to me a dangerous a bit, you know, you hang their hat on someone and say, you have to do this, and they don't want to do it's not going to work. So I think that's the whole thing about evolving of agriculture, isn't it? That whatever happens tomorrow, if you're going to adapt and move to go through with that, without chasing fat, some of them I've been down some fat farming, I've grown chickpeas and sprayed them on Christmas Day and things like that, you know, you look over the fence and go, are they really doing it that well? Is it working for them? Before you make a radical change? And that was only a little one when we did it. But you know, careful of Fed farming that does come and go. But mainstream agriculture does move a little bit, it's moving at the moment, are cattle still going to be the Top of the Pops like they've been in the next five years? We don't know the answer to that. I think it's pretty good. But I shaped gonna now be better. We'll wait and see. I mean, that might dictate someone's future thoughts? And what about few brands? You mentioned elder's, around since 1839? Working? You can answer it from two ways, I guess, the family farming side and also from the corporate side. But there's an extreme amount of legacy but evolutions part of the businesses that you're involved in? How do you manage that? Yeah, I guess it's they're both similar. I mean, it's that evolution, sustainability. I guess from a, whenever you go into a leadership role, you always want to leave the place in a better position than where it was when you joined. I think with farming as well, you want to leave the farm in a better state than it was when you found it. So I mean, we've bolted on a couple of farms over the journey. And they've all been run down and let go to be honest. And I guess one of the things my brother takes pride in is actually fixing that farm up through best farming practices and making it into a more sustainable operation, whether that's through developing agriculture, or the pastures and things like that, you know, it's a shame to see the amount of farms around that have just been sort of let go, whether that's through inheritance, and, and then someone just not really caring that much. So I think, you know, like Mark said, we don't know what the future holds, or maybe your son or daughter don't want to take on the farm. So I think it's still just leaving the place in a better position than what it was. I think that's the key legacy you can leave. And that's true in business or whether it's the farm. So a lot has been around upgrading 39 trying to serve rural communities the best they can. And that's what we continue to do. And we try to look for ways to do that, whether that's partnering with the right people to bring technologies or educating clients to have better pasture management or grow better crops. So it's all of that. And you know, we had an agronomy conference at Horsham last week and a lot of that was just talking to, you know, talking to agronomist about best practices and actually going out to see some farmers that are bringing on new technology and so it's all about that education piece. Unknown Speaker 25:00 as well. So yeah, it's just that evolution, I think a point of overcame the word legacy, actually, there is a legacy, the legacy is probably the opportunity that you get out of being able to join agriculture. And within our succession conversation, we've dropped the word fair, because fair is, in my mind different to what it might be in someone else's a brother or sister. So we've dropped that. And we now use the word fortunate. So I think the legacy is the opportunity. So before we throw it, and I think there'll be a microphone going around for some questions from the floor, maybe, maybe it's over here. But I think and you do a really nice conduit there, Mark, it's really well scripted. Now, the soft skills in agriculture, we don't talk a lot about but using the words gratitude, fortunate, etc. But how do you guys ensure in your businesses, that you create an environment to make sure that people are heard and have the opportunity to have that space to actually express themselves and be part of the conversation for the decisions which ultimately do affect them? That's going to take a bit of thought we as a family tried to have regular meetings where everyone can sit down and have some input, or we were why I say where is because we've just split the business into two with our children. So now as from the first of July of this year, we're running two businesses, basically, in the line of succession, we're lucky enough to do that. And and I went out and bought some country in South Australia in Oh, six and 2011, to be able to give opportunity to our children, which was given to me and my brother. And then since then, in 2020, I think it was we bought Fernley, which is just out in England, Thompson, to be able to give opportunities now we've loaded them up for debt, we've given them something to think about. And they got to work hard for a long time. But but they're aware of that. But I think it's all about communication. It's about a plan and communication. If you have that you actually can move somewhere in agriculture or anywhere in life. If you don't have those things. Well, you're not going very well. That's certainly a good motivator, isn't it? gets you out of bed every morning. Yeah, I think I mean, for us, I guess I will, if I look at the family farm side of things, I really like it, all of my siblings are grateful for the opportunity that we've been provided through our parents. And we've seen, I said that sort of went off on his own at 25 and bought his farm and you see the struggles like, you know, sharing his own shape and the old ways of farming, it was a lot of very hands on, and you sort of see the blood, sweat and tears that goes into it, to be able to afford to send your kids to university and that sort of thing. So I guess in my family runs very fortunate for, for what's been provided. And I think when it came back to the succession planning part, I think everyone's just got to be realistic that the person who takes on the most risk should get the most reward. So my brother is going back to the farm. Since leaving school, he's the one that's taken on the risk. He's the one that's been through all the droughts and things like that. So it only made sense to make sure he did get the biggest reward in that district in the break up for the succession planning. And, and yeah, I think everyone else is, is accepting of that. And it's, yeah, I think there's no one size fits all for succession planning, because everyone's got a certain set of circumstances, and it's different. And some families are probably more rational than others and, and things like that. But I think, you know, everyone's just gotta have that perspective that if you do put too much debt into a business, that can be the killer to succession planning. You've just got to start early. And I think you just got to bring people along on the journey. But like I said, you've just got to be cognizant that usually there's someone in the family that takes on more risks than everyone else. And those people that are sort of off farm, yeah, shouldn't be the ones really dictating terms, really, I mean, you've also got to, I guess the challenge is giving mum and dad the retirement that they deserve as well. Because if you did try and buy mum and dad out for face value, then you're probably going to be loaded way too far up with debt and nothing's going to be sustainable. So it does start with a long play and what we've probably been going, it's probably eight years into it now we haven't we're certainly nowhere close to finished it, but it's just going on that journey. Everyone having clarity. Perfect. Now any questions from the floor? For mark or Brandon? Unknown Speaker 28:44 It's a great conversation, thanks to the three of you. Question for you mark, with all due respect, so don't take it too deeply. But often, when talking to grow as awesome about one of the things that keep them awake at night with regard to problems they're trying to solve for on the farm. And think of ways that we can help actually I was awake sleeping a bit thinking about this last night. What keeps me awake at night actually slept pretty well, funnily enough seasons keep you awake, to be honest, and things that are in front of you. But I don't really have a lot of trouble sleeping mostly. So I'm probably not the one to ask when I was in the booth house thing to be able to that kept me awake. There was there was such a big deal, trying to get a client to come and all those things that went with it, trying to get to book work done all that recording performance recording. And you know, as asked before, what don't I miss about studwork is the amount of work that it loaded up. And I admire all those that are in it, because it's a tremendous amount of work but they're the sort of things that keep me away. I mean, probably at the moment you think about the markets the markets ahead and that's where you can help us but I mean, that's what some outlooks but we all know that's not that easy. I mean we're pretty lucky the way we're service by the business that we're allowed to and elders is one of them. You know Hayden Lennon does a great job. Ross was doing a great job when when he was there in the start, but you know our banks Good luck you Unknown Speaker 30:00 communicate with our bank, we communicate about what interest rates are going to do, you know, this whole succession thing we've done with them. We've had open conversations about how it's going to work and how it's going to land. I think if you're lucky enough to be able to communicate and talk to get around that a lot, and I'm fairly good at that. Unknown Speaker 30:16 Other questions? I think if we add to that one, I mean, obviously, good weather forecasting would help all farmers. I mean, we can see in our business that elders the impact that the early prediction on our Nino and dry sort of autumn, winter had in people's decision making, and then obviously, we had a really wet June and everyone's sort of blaming the bomb, and the bombs come under a lot of scrutiny, you just think if we could actually get that bit right and have better forecasting, for farmers that have make decision making a lot better, and you'd like to think that we're working, you know, things can improve in that area, I think, second, I challenge you on that as well. Now controllables, that things you can control versus can't control. For many people in the room, they're not going to have any input over weather forecasting that the Bureau can do so in their business, specifically, or with the support services. What could they do all lineup, I think what this year is actually shown is it's rewarding that producers that stick to their program, those that take canola, for example, those that pulled out and said, Well, it's the dry out Look, we're not going to plant canola. So then all of a sudden elders gets left with a lot of canola See, that was pre ordered. And then because the price dropped, and it looks dry, but now the you know, the wet season has actually been okay, and a lot of areas and the prices seemingly going back up. So it rewards those that stick to their program. So I think that's, you know, you set a program two or three years out, and you stick to it, and you've got to absorb the weather events. And for the things that keep you up at night, Ron, I was saying to the guys before that, you know, I got a call probably six weeks out from harvest last year from my brother, when it just wouldn't stop raining. He said, We're completely stuffed, we're gonna get completely washed out. And we might have a crop this year. So that was a pretty sleepless night. But then you start to think well, what do we do if that? If that is the case? What do we do next? And I think you've always just got to keep thinking forward. If it does rain, we can do this. If it doesn't rain, we're going to do that. And you've just got to have some backup plans. I mean, that's why the traditional mixed farming, cropping and shape and cropping and cattle has always worked so well for farmers. And it's probably the least risky way forward. Because your crop fails, you can rely on your stock if your stock jobs no good, like the moment the cropping Job's quite good. So having that diversity is key. Thank you. Yeah, I had a question here. Sorry. I guess for Mark, you know, you, you go for being in the driver's seat for a long period of time with Anna. And then you've got to get out of the driver's seat, get into the passenger of the backseat or get out of the car altogether. How do you and Anna, I guess process that and what's your new purpose or role as your next phase, I jokingly say that I started a Jackaroo. And now I'm back to senior Jackaroo. And that's my age, we've still got a very big purpose in the business. We've got a big bit or two businesses, but two big businesses that have got quite a few people in them that lead management and that sort of thing. We still on a day to day basis have impact on the farm. And it's gotten to the stage, it's probably more of what we want to do mostly for me, maybe not Anna, Anna gets the phone call. Ma'am. Have you got five minutes that turns in the firehouse? Unknown Speaker 33:07 I think we've sort of worked so hard to we're taking a bit of leisure time. And that might only be one day a week that we didn't take before. But we are spending a bit more time off firm and that'll grow as time goes. We got a few outside programs get their projects going on. We're building a house a port ferry, we've just moved one let's go into dam killed. So we've got other things that we like doing I love using my hands would work and things like that. There's plenty of things we can do. But there's still a farm has got such a variety of things you can do. Yeah, building fixing stuff. You know, I've got a little excavator that's putting on turn that we've got all these cypress trees that have died from the bacteria. And then that is the greatest therapy in five hours. And that punch up cypress trees is just awesome fun. So offering contracting service there. I know why you're good enough to do we got 30 miles of the damn things that my grandfather planted and they're all dying. Any other questions? Yeah, I've just got a quick question from Mark. So you spoke about your trips over to North America and that influence that that had on you? How important do you think it is for other farmers to do those trips internationally or even just get off the farm to progress their own careers or to educate themselves? That is really important. The more you can see about what someone else is doing good or bad for them broadens your experience in your horizons. I mean, I was very lucky because I've had lots of roles in my in my farming life. I was chairman of the ASPCA at a young age, which is the Australian Shepherd association that used to run the sheep show in Melbourne. I was given handed that role when the thing was broken was the big driver for moving it to Bendigo which has now made it a great event. Our farm I've been involved in Angus politics, I was chairman or president of Angus Australia, board of CWA by all things that took me off and looked at other things. I was on ag live the board of ag live that only was employed Unknown Speaker 35:00 Buy, which was a tech company, because I've had this tech interest all my life, probably the most beneficial was probably the US. I'm very lucky that Anna's English I've been, I've been in England and Scotland and places like that on farms for the last 38 years, and that's broaden my horizon. But if you can get off farm, and that's one thing that else could do is help people get off, get them off into other businesses, do bus trips, things like that, that take people off on a little tour together, where they're getting, you know, interaction with like minded people, and go and see what other people are doing, go and see how someone else is doing really, really valuable. I'd rate it right. Now, I was gonna, just while we if there's another question coming, but for you, Brendan, but the benefit of going from Price Waterhouse, ANZ, obviously in two elders had different but similar and what are the learnings you've had from jumping around actually, in those different businesses, different structures, etc? Yeah, like I said before, I'm just taking those little bits of knowledge with you. And yeah, just like I say, particularly with succession planning, I mean, a lot of it's around structuring and you really got to be careful, there's so many booby traps. I mean, there's tax planning, stamp duty. So when you probably sitting around the kitchen table as a kid, we had so many counselors come and talk about succession planning, but nothing ever eventuate it? There's a lot of numbers on the whiteboard, but kind of uh, so what, at the end of it, but you really need to get to the nitty gritty around, you know, when was the asset purchased? Is it you know, what, is it pre TGT? Or post teacher CGT? What's the capital gains impact on that if you're changing names? What's the stamp duty, like? So you don't last thing you want to end up is a huge amount of cost in the business from material. But again, with the proper planning, you can work towards all that sort of stuff. So I guess it's along the way, just picking up little things like that. And, you know, I see where those sort of traps are, and you can get caught out. I think that's the probably the main thing and just watching, like economic patterns, whether it's the markets and things like that, and we seem to have short term memories, we're talking about the cycle before, like, obviously, that we're in a bit of a rough cycle at the moment, as far as sheep and cattle prices go, but it's not going to be down here forever, well, I will probably ignorant to think prices were going to stay as high as they were for any longer because I've actually actually quite high for quite a long time. And if you actually think about the cycle, they're not gonna be down here forever, either. So you've just got to pinch yourself and go, Well, this is only a point in time and things will get better. Or if we hit the top you go well, that's like, for example, we didn't trade cattle last year, just the price scared us. We just went well, we don't want to trade because if we pick this wrong, then yeah, we might not make anything. So whereas this year, we're going to actually set a price where we can actually try, like, that's the beauty of where the prices are at the moment, you should be thing if you've got to buy mentality, or you can buy. I mean, not everyone can because I'm already have might already have too many stock on their property, but you're in a position to trade. It's actually quite good at the moment. So thank you. Any more question? noisy crowd. Um, I'll just touch on one thing. I don't want to offend anyone in the crowd, but to mark before, I think what he's talking about the next stage of life when he's handed over to the sons, but I think it's actually really important both for the senior people in the room that the younger people were mum or dad sort of hand over, the worst thing to do is to have nothing to do like, you've actually got to think of projects like for Dad, it's been the fencing project, and still being able to go around sheep and buying him a boat and things like that. You actually got to keep you got to vote, Mark's got to vote. So I think people will go crazy. Otherwise, you've just got to keep thinking about I guess for the senior people. It's what do I do next? If I do step back? What can I do to keep myself busy and for the younger generation is how can I actually respect mum and dad keep them involved in a way that keeps them active and motivated and things to do? So like I said, we're continually go, like, if dad might do something silly or say something silly, it's only because we haven't thought forward and giving him something productive to do. So you know, we sit back and go alright, Tom, did Boston more fencing equipment, give that a bit more of a bit of a job to do or something like that. But it's actually a really important part of succession planning. I think that step change in the next stage for whether it's coming in as the farm manager owner or actually passing it on as well. Yeah, because you can imagine running and making your toe better this but running the place for such a long time. And then all of a sudden, having no say over the key decisions, I imagine is quite daunting, from your side of things to make sure geez, I hope that I stuffed it up. You do have that in the background, but you put in your process and things that help him that I mean, we still very involved financially with our children and and part of that planning process. I think the greatest thing is having employed quite a lot of people through my life. I don't have to front up at 730 in the morning and think about what they've all got to do. That's Max's problem, you know, I can fry it up a bit. And I don't want to do that either because I don't want to be there interfering. And that's very important that the older generation don't interfere with what's going on. But you talk about it every day, you know what they're doing, you know what the farmer is doing, you know how it's working, you know where you can fit in and do what you want to or not what you want to and if you don't want to you go fishing once a day a week or something like that, which I do, but it is it that is it. It's about we all need to be busy each and every one of us and we find our spot and I've found my spot or we're finding our spot, I suppose. You know we've gone to the extent we've traded houses, we've done the whole lot. And but that's part of the process. It's fantastic. Unknown Speaker 40:00 session that's part of letting go of the reins and going well, it's it's your turn then. But it isn't. It is an evolving thing. It doesn't happen overnight my succession with my family, my father didn't happen overnight. I mean, you know, it's not that long ago, Dad was still doing the books, I didn't like doing the books, but he started making some mistakes. And then eventually, we pulled it away, and Anna started doing it. And that was part of the evolution of that. And then now, our daughter in law is doing the books on their side of the business, probably earlier than what we got the chance to. But that's part of evolution, you got to look ahead and go, What is the best for the business? And we think that's the best for the business, keep them involved. People want a lot more, we probably sat back and we're told what to do back in that day a bit more than today, I think. Whereas now they're hungry for information, they're hungry to go and do it, they want to have a go, I get that. I think that's great. You're gonna let it happen. And so a question for each of you where you're at different stages. What are you excited and optimistic about looking at, I guess, the outlook for Aussie agriculture and what you're involved in going forward? Oh, he's just look where we've just come from Top of the Pops best markets we've ever seen. And I know it's come off now. But I've been there before. And the first 15 years of agriculture when I got into it, when I left Glenn almost in in 1993. It's just Savage, we didn't make any money, our interest rates went up, right? You've all heard it, seven and a half percent. I think the first line I ever fixed was 12 and a half. We fixed that for five years. And then we fixed all our South Australian stuff at the start at seven and a half. And we were happy with that. Because you know, we've done our numbers, we knew we could pay it. But look where it's just come from to where it is now and and get used to the interest rates are not going back where they were. That's that's something that happened in the past, I think. But agricultural is a very exciting space, the tech in egg, the everything you can do. I mean, it is just really exciting. There's some daunting things coming you know, carbon and all that stuff, the cost of labor or being about being able to find labor. But that'll fix itself in time, we'll pick some tech up to do this. And something else to do that we're adaptive. And I think it's great spot. Alright, it's ripping spot in the Outlook. Even though we're on a flat mark, at the moment, the outlook for feeding the world is really, really good. That's funny, even though there's a bit of a gap between us, I think it's almost the identical response. I think the way I put it was was perfect, really, I mean, the opportunities ahead, the technology, the ability to use data to drive better decision making, there's so much ahead of us. That's that's the exciting part and with what's happening around the world, in terms of the climate and having what's an even the geopolitical risk over with Russia and Ukraine and things like that, like we are very fortunate country, and we have got the ability to produce a lot of products. So we're in a good space, and we've got the ability to produce a lot of food for the world. At the end of the day, everyone's got to eat. So I think that's, you know, whatever happens in the economy, or there abouts, you know, it's still a great sector to be in. And I think, like I said, if we can continue to evolve and really capture that data and the efficiencies that we could gain in the future. That's the exciting part. Perfect. Well, thanks, Brendan. Thanks, Mark, for your time this afternoon. Thanks, everyone, for coming along. quick round of applause. Unknown Speaker 43:08 Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts. And well if you're not, let us know hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guests 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. Stay up Transcribed by https://otter.ai