One of the biggest lesson I leant when working as a banker was that I can learn hell of a lot about my own farm performance by looking outside the industry I grew up in. I was very fortunate as a young bank manager to be exposed to the dairy industry when I was stationed at Warrnambool in South-West Victoria. The lessons I learnt about grazing management and running a profitable farm I still teach today at Marcus. So I want to use today podcast to discuss profit drivers and the concept of resili...
Nov 26, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 30
ROBERT SAIK has had forty years of experience as a Professional Agrologist, entrepreneur and an international consultant who's worked with a wide variety of agriculturalists from Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture to Bill Gates on implementation of ag tech to help developing economies. Over his life he has founded over 15 companies in the areas of Farming, Agri-Retail, Distribution, Media and Ag Tech including The Agri-Trend/Agri-Data Group of Companies which were acquired by Trimble. Robert is C...
Nov 19, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Join us this week as we check in with the Founder and Managing Director of Market Check, Brett Stevenson, for a grain market update. Brett Stevenson, comes from a pioneer farming family in the Central West of NSW, founded AgRisk Management Pty to provide a range of grain marketing and risk management services to Australian grain growers. Brett brought a team of expert analysts and advisers together in anticipation of the deregulation of the wheat industry and in 1996 the trading name “Market Che...
Nov 12, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 28
My guest this week is someone who I probably first bumped into at the back bar of the Tatts Hotel in Armidale over 30 years ago. At that stage we where both on a road to completing a Bachelor of Ag Economics from the University of New England Andrew Bouffler hails from Lockhart in Southern NSW, 70kms West of the town Wagga Wagga in the State of NSW. Andrew is the Managing Director of Valera Pastoral Company, a mixed sheep/wheat family-controlled business that has maintained a traditional balance...
Nov 05, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Nearly six months ago to the day, David Cornish sat down with NAB Agribusiness Economist, Phin Ziebell, to discuss what current world events meant for farmers and how it may impact them for our first episode of AgTalk. With the recent release of the Australian budget, the first recession in close to three decades and the worldwide pandemic still causing havoc, Dave caught up with Phin to chat about what this all means for Ag. Phin is NAB's Agribusiness Economist. He is responsible for analysing ...
Oct 09, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Professor Reeves is a distinguished international leader in agricultural research, development and extension. He was a pioneer of no-till and sustainable agriculture at the Rutherglen Research Institute in north-eastern Victoria and has held a high number of senior international roles including as Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico from 1995-2002. In recent years some of the many roles he has undertaken include: Member, United Nations Mill...
Oct 01, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Kate Burke is a highly experienced independent farm consultant with a PhD in agronomy. Kate has also spent time in the corporate sector as commercial manager of one of the largest grain producers in Australia and knows what it takes to run a profitable farm business. She has over thirty years’ experience in the farming sector. This includes Research, teaching, technical and business consulting, and commercial management of institutional ag investment. Currently Kate is offering tailored contract...
Sep 24, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 23
In 2015 Fiona Simson became the first female president of the Australia’s peak farmer group. Fiona hails from a farming operation near Gunnedah on NSW’s Liverpool Plains, running a farming enterprise with her husband Ed and family including broad acre farming as well as breeding commercial poll Hereford cattle. 2019 was not an easy year for farmers is that part of the world, in fact probably one of the toughest ever seen. However, Fiona is adamant that she doesn’t not want agriculture in Austral...
Sep 17, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 22
It was, I think, 2007 when on a typically cold Ballarat day I had the pleasure of sitting down with John Gladigau for a coffee and chat about corporate investing in agriculture. John was in the process of completing his Nuffield scholarship looking into the concept of collaborative farming. It wasn’t long till John and his good mate, Robin Schaefer from the South Australian Northern Mallee put the theory into practice, forming a single farming business called Bull a Burra. The farming operation ...
Sep 10, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 21
This week I had the pleasure of Robbie Sefton joining me on AgTalk. Robbie is the founder and managing director of Seftons , a communication agency providing services in corporate affairs, government and media relations, strategic communications and marketing, digital and social media, event management, facilitation and community consultation programs. Robbie specialises in facilitating groups through contentious and challenging issues. A producer of wool, meat and grains, Robbie is a graduate o...
Sep 03, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Today we are joined by Ian Robinson, director and co-founder of Robinson and Sewell partners. Ian grew up on a 28,000 acre sheep station near Hay running 15,000 merino sheep and 1,000 acres of irrigated cereal and oil-seed cropping. Ian has had over 15 years of banking experience across a broad range of disciplines including business banking at a regional and corporate level in Australia with a strong agribusiness focus. His tertiary qualifications include a Bachelor of Resource Economics and Gr...
Aug 27, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 19
In this weeks episode we speak with Dr Frank Mitloehner Dr. Frank Mitloehner is a professor and air quality specialist in cooperative extension in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis. As such, he shares his knowledge and research, both domestically and abroad, with students, scientists, farmers and ranchers, policy makers, and the public at large. He is passionate about understanding and mitigating air emissions from livestock operations, as well as studying t...
Aug 20, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 18
It is my pleasure today to introduce to you Jason Trompf. Jason is the inaugural winner of the Marcus Oldham Flock Leader award, part of the Lambition awards that were kick of this year Jason grew up on sheep properties and developed from an early age a passion of the Sheep Industry. I first ran into Jason many years ago when he was completing his PhD. What stuck out for me about that PhD and I believe has underpinned Jason journey to date has been around the issue of communication and the uptak...
Aug 13, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 17
My guest speaker this week has had a very long and illustrious career in agriculture. Mike's ag management journey started out in Narrabri NSW where for thirty years He managed a cotton operation. In that time he was instrumental in the development of the Cotton industry Best management Practice guide. The Cotton Industry Best Management practice program is recognised as world leader in industry wide environmental programs. Various industries have benefited from Mike’s experience. He was the Chi...
Aug 06, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 16
One of the main themes running through this podcast series is the concept around good decision making. In this podcast episode, I want to explore decision making in a little bit more depth. To help me with this I am joined by Zoe Creelman Zoe's a freelancing agriculturalist based in south west Victoria. She cut her teeth with Southern Farming Systems, working on the Grain and Graze project that looked at mixed farming practices. Whilst working on the project, she completed her honours thesis loo...
Jul 31, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 15
The issue of leadership is an ever-increasing topic of discussion around the world especially in these times of covid. You often here someone say ‘All we need is better leadership and we wouldn’t be in this situation’. But what is leadership? It’s a question that has interested me for a long time. Many years ago I was fortunate enough to be a participant in the Australian Rural Leadership Course. We were given several books to read most of which I have long forgotten about except for one in part...
Jul 24, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Welcome to the Marcus Oldham AgTalk podcast. My guest this week is Dr Harm Van Rees. In the early 1990s Harm began consulting to growers across the Victorian Wimmera and Mallee. He became well known and highly regarded throughout the farming industry for his instrumental roles in the MEYCheck (Maximum Economic Yield) and Top Crop programs which were transformative in the 1990s in terms of driving understanding around production constraints such as water use efficiency and nitrogen management. He...
Jul 10, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Join us this week as we discuss meat and wool commodity markets with Robert Herrmann . Robert is the Managing Director of Mecardo, a specialist in agricultural advisory with a focus firmly on the financial enhancement of primary production and price risk management.
Jul 03, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Join us this week as we discuss meat and wool commodity markets with Robert Herrmann . Robert is the Managing Director of Mecardo, a specialist in agricultural advisory with a focus firmly on the financial enhancement of primary production and price risk management. The company was established by Robert in Adelaide in 1996 under the Ag Concepts Advisory brand. With a longstanding background in agriculture, Robert’s commitment was to deliver a high quality proactive risk analysis and management s...
Jun 25, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Join us this week as we discuss commodity price grain and oil seed forecasting with the Founder and Managing Director of Market Check, Brett Stevenson. Brett Stevenson, comes from a pioneer farming family in the Central West of NSW, founded AgRisk Management Pty to provide a range of grain marketing and risk management services to Australian grain growers. The discussions on this podcast are for general information and education use only. These discussions should not be taken as constituting pro...
Jun 19, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Join us this week as we discuss commodity price forecasting with the Founder and Managing Director of Market Check, Brett Stevenson. Brett Stevenson, comes from a pioneer farming family in the Central West of NSW, founded AgRisk Management Pty to provide a range of grain marketing and risk management services to Australian grain growers. Brett brought a team of expert analysts and advisers together in anticipation of the deregulation of the wheat industry and in 1996 the trading name “Market Che...
Jun 12, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Succession planing in Agriculture often can be a highly emotive issue and one that can have a significant impact on the ongoing success of a family farming operation. This week's podcast is final episode in a series that has looked closely at this issue and ways we can best manage the process to maximise chances of a successful outcome.
Jun 05, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Succession planing in Agriculture often can be a highly emotive issue and one that can have a significant impact on the ongoing success of a family farming operation. This week's podcast is part three of a series that looks closely at this issue and ways that we can best manage the process to maximises our chance of a successful outcome.
May 29, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Succession planing in Agriculture often can be a highly emotive issue and one that can have a significant impact on the ongoing success of a family farming operation. This week's podcast is Part 2 of a three part series that looks closely at this issue and ways that we can best manage the process to maximises our chance of a successful outcome.
May 21, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Succession planing in Agriculture can often be a highly emotive issue and one which can have a significant impact on the ongoing success of a family farming operation. This week's podcast is Part 1 of a three part series that looks closely at this issue and ways that we can best manage the process to maximises our chance of a successful outcome.
May 15, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 5
What makes a good decision and why might that be different to a right decision? Why is it important for farm managers to understand the difference and can we learn how to make better decisions? It has been my experience, working with farmers across Australia, that successful farmers are very skilled at decision making and these skills of good decision making can be learnt. Cam Nicholson, Ag Consultant and farmer joins us to discuss and how farmers can improve the decision-making process to make ...
May 07, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 4
John Francis from Holmes and Sackett -Farm Consulting company joins the Marcus Ag Talk Podcast to discuss the questions around high performing farmers and what characterises them and are there common themes that we can identify and learn from .
May 01, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In 2019, The Centre For The Study of Agribusiness at Marcus Oldham was lucky enough to secure Professor Kevin Folta as the keynote speaker at a special luncheon at Marcus Oldham. Kevin M. Folta is a Professor in the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida. His research program examines how light signals are sensed in plants and how different parts of the spectrum can change shelf life and high-value fruit and vegetable traits. His group also uses novel genomics approaches ...
Apr 22, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Join Dave Cornish, Director of the Centre of Study of Agribusiness at Marcus Oldham, as he talks with the movers and shakers of the Ag world about the issues affecting the agribusiness world for Marcus Oldham's AgTalk. In this episode Dave talks with NAB Agribusiness Economist , Phin Ziebell, about what the current world events means for farmers and how it may impact them.
Apr 08, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 1
