This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good yarn about ag life with producers who are having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories and also pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan. Today, we're continuing our chat with
Annie Scott. In the last episode, Annie talked to us about their farming operations and how their approach and management has changed over the years through fine- tuning their soil management and grazing approaches and keeping a structured annual calendar for key livestock production activities. In today's episode, Annie reflects
on her personal journey with the Angus breed. Beginning in the 1990s as a youth ambassador, her many years serving as chairperson of Angus New South Wales and culminating in the recent World Angus Forum, which only comes to Australia every 30 years or so, where Annie was recognized with an industry award for more than 20 years of service
to the Angus breed. You'll also hear Annie share her personal philosophy of you either win or you learn as she aims to keep Karoo in the top 20% of farms. And added to that, her strong desire for the industry to grow through better mentoring of younger generations and more positive media coverage to help bridge the growing city
and country divide. Local Land Services senior ag advisor, Lauren Costin, caught up with Annie following a successful World Angus Forum to bring you part two of their two- part chat.
So I'm curious because I think this is different and not many people have had the World Angus Forum on their property of late, so you were recently involved in the forum, tell us about that, Annie.
Yeah. That was really exciting and it was really a privilege to be involved in the event as it only comes to Australia about once every 30 years.
Does it? 30 years?
Yeah. The last time it was in Australia was 1997 and went full circle on that because in 1997 I was the Angus Youth Ambassador and then coming to 2008 to hosting the event or part of the event. So it was a real gratitude moment just saying that we've
succeeded within the Angus breed. And we were privileged and thank Angus Australia for letting us do that as we were one of only a few studs that got to showcase Angus breed on the tour that lasted about two weeks, and it also included an expo in Tamworth, which Tony and I attended, and a conference in Brisbane that
was just world- class. It has been a tremendous event and took a lot to organize, obviously, but we enjoyed the day with our guests. So yes, it was a real privilege.
So had people actually come on farm and have a look at your animals and your system here at Karoo?
Yeah, we did. When we do something, we like to do it properly, so we set ourselves a challenge and we put on display just over 600 animals, so just around a bull shed and the small paddocks that we have around here. So it took a lot to get those 600 animals in. With that, we produced a catalog.
So we had all those animals in that catalog with their breeding, their EBVs, a bit of history on us, and I think the guests really enjoyed it and really enjoyed that we went to that effort. It was a lot of work to pull off such an event, but my team is just wonderful and I think, Lauren, the eye rolling stopped after about the 100th request of my crazy ideas, but they accepted all my wacky and wonderful ideas
and we pulled off the event. It was definitely a team effort and yeah, I thank our team for making it the success it was. The people were from 26 different countries as well as a great mix of Australian Angus breeders as well. They were interesting and interested in our program. They showed a lot of interest in our
program while they were here. And also, we did a tour led by Gareth around the paddocks who talked about our cropping program and our pasture improvements, which they really got a lot out of as well. I think the biggest difference, I guess, between us and a lot of the guests was our scale. They weren't used to the scale of our operation and they appreciated what we did.
And like I said, it was a real privilege and just a great honor to host them for the day. Like I said, we're probably only one of three studs in Australia that actually hosted them while they're on tour. So yeah, a massive opportunity and a real gold star for Karoo, I think. Yeah, a real pat on the back for their effort.
No, and I hear a pat on the back for you too with the New South Wales Angus, the Dedication and Service Excellence Award.
Yeah. That was a bit of a surprise, but thanks, Lauren, for bringing this up. It was something that, I guess, I'm really proud of in the sense that I guess I love this breed and it has played a huge role to help me shape who I am today. So going back a bit, like I said, I started off in the youth program back in the early 90s and I won a scholarship and an overseas trip through the youth program.
I also learned about public speaking and corporate speaking, and it built my confidence and helped me with my early business management. I then went on to be the chairperson of Angus New South Wales and have recently resigned off that committee after about 20 years, really just to focus on Karoo since the passing of my father, and I just wanted to consolidate just a few things I was
doing and just take a breath, I guess. And yeah, Karoo's my life, anyone that knows me, they know that. Karoo's my number one. It's who I am, it's who my family is. I just want to leave it in
a better state than what we got it. And not saying that John didn't do a good job, I think he did an excellent job and John's the reason Karoo is as successful as what it is today, but you can always make improvements and I think the dedication and service to an Excellence Award is a testament to, I guess, the improvements that we've made at Karoo and to who I am today.
That's amazing. Congratulations for that. I think that's pretty great, and I do love your passion and your enthusiasm in what you do. It comes across, I think, for me, every interaction with you, no matter what we're talking about.
I just love what I do and I love the fact that I can do it every day. I love the fact that the ag space is such a progressive and forward- thinking space. It's always changing. Nothing's dull. There's always some technology, something coming up that just can improve the success of everyone. And I'm a team player and I also just like to involve everyone in what we're doing.
And I think Karoo speaks for itself that it's a family operation. We still have consultants, like we said, outside and
all those are considered as part of the business. And I think relationships form a great part of a successful business, and I think we've got great relationships right through to our agents at Elders Emms Mooney and just Emerge Ag that provide the consultants for our agronomy and our vet consultant and other people that come on and do
different things throughout the year. I just think that makes us who we are and as successful as who we are.
The next step is like, well, what's next? What's happening in the next 5- 10 years? Anything particular that you came to get your teeth into? Any challenges or opportunity?
Where's the crystal ball, Lauren? Yeah, no. So I'm a half- glass- full kind of person, so I
I don't have any skin in the game on this one.
love a challenge. I guess our biggest challenge, and it's pretty obvious, is the weather. That really determines what we can and can't do throughout the seasons. And also, I always say that rain makes a farmer look smart. You can have really bad pastures, but after rain, it turns green, everyone thinks you've got a heap of feed, but if you look at that dry matter per hectare, it's still
not very good. Yeah, so challenges are the weather. Unfortunately, I think the government is becoming a big challenge that farmers need to take into account now more than ever, and that's a really hard space to navigate, so I think that's something that we'll have to look a bit more in the sense of the challenges that they are putting forward for us. Like we've talked about, pests and weeds
are always a challenge at certain times of the year, and that goes with the seasons as well as what the weather throws at us. And turning to opportunities, I guess working the ag space provides a great lifestyle and it's a wonderful place to raise, we've got one son, Riley, he's a young man now in his late teens, but I just see it as a great way giving back and hopefully I give back to this industry and I just
love what I do. As far as crew is concerned, we have plenty of opportunities to fine- tune our breeding program and our pastures and cropping program. And I guess that comes with accessing more knowledge as it becomes available. And just any opportunities that arise in the short term and long term, we'll take them and grass them and
move on and take that extra step. And I think if we can do that, and this 1% is just so important, a bigger percentage is also important, but if we can just improve those one percenters day in, day out, that goes ahead in leaps and bounds to improve our programs, our cropping programs, our pasture programs, and our breeding objectives.
If we can just improve on those, I think when the opportunities arise, I think that gets us forward ahead of others. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else, by no means, but I'm just saying that education and taking those opportunities is what gets us a bit further ahead.
I was recently involved with the LLS farm planning workshop that we had, and I think a fair bit of time on that first day was just around setting up a vision and objectives for the business. And I keep coming back to that with a lot of people that we talk to just about general inquiries and things like that. I think it's really good to have that sit down and make a clear focus on where you're going
and how you're going to get there. And that sort of clarifies things for you along the road and makes sure that you are on your eventual aim. You can have short and long- term goals and things like that, but yeah, I think that structure is really helpful with that seasonal variability that you really don't have any control over.
Yeah. And I think that's a thing. I think with the opportunities and to have something successful, it's probably best, and we do this, we try and focus on the things that we can control. Things that we can't control, while we worry about them and we spend a bit of time on them,
they're noise in the background. If you focus on the things that you can control, that will get you that next step and that leads you to that next thing that you've got to do. So focusing your business on something that you can control will improve your business.
There's a lot of news and I guess a little bit of that outside noise around that carbon scenario. Have you guys, as a business at Karoo, thought about your position on that and how you're going to tackle it if you are going to tackle it at all?
We are sitting on the sideline for this one for the minute, Lauren. Well, we do take in that noise and we've talked to our agronomists about it. We do a carbon plan. What do we do? We're just sitting on the fence at the moment just waiting for a bit more structure and a bit more confidence or determination in what is actual fact and what is fiction in the sense of, what do we need to do, I guess,
to put in place a carbon plan? But it's so blurred at the minute. So if there was something that was a plan of attack that was written down that was fact, and this is what you have to do to achieve this, we need to do this to achieve a certain point in that plan to tick it off, sure, we'd do that. But in saying that, there's probably things that we are doing in the noise of we plant
trees every year, we don't overgraze. If you looked at our stocking rate, it probably doesn't look pretty on paper, but we are a profitable business because of that. The stud business is a bit different. It takes up a bit more area per hectare to run to achieve what we achieve. But we are doing things in that carbon space like that, waterways, we don't erode, all that sort of stuff,
troughs and all that. We try and concrete around those so they're not eroded around and stuff like that. So we do do stuff I guess in that noisy space intentionally or unintentionally to then help us when it becomes an issue that we have to do to achieve something
or if we need to do it to achieve something better. We've sort of got a bit of stuff in the background that we've already got, and especially in our soil test if you want to go back to that, with that, it does actually show dry matter and all that within the soil, and we're achieving way beyond the targets there so far anyway. So if we had to put a formal plan in place-
You'd have the numbers.
Yeah, it wouldn't take a lot for us to actually formalize it, I guess. So while it's not a priority for us, yeah, it is one of those noisings that's happening in the background. Yeah, that's just ticking along at its own pace. When we need to up that pace, well, then I guess that's another challenge for me, and that's where we go. We target that challenge and we execute it to the best of our ability and try
and be in that top 25%. That's where we like to sit. We like to sit in that top 25% of farms just so that we know that we're up there. Like I said, I'm not the best, but we're always willing to learn and try and get into the top 20% if we can, but we're happy to sit at the top 25% of farms.
I've got a final question. If you could do one thing to change anything in Australian ag, what would it be? I'm talking about things outside of your control.
I find this question really hard because I love the ag industry space and it's been very kind to me. So to help make it better, I think we need to focus on the younger generation and give them all the mentoring you can. The better mentors you have, I think will make this ag space a bit better and
fill in the bigger picture. The other thing I guess I would love to see, and it's probably a bit left- of- center, and it doesn't actually have to do with a sign within ag or a specific ag thing to make it better, but the bigger picture, I'd love to see mainstream media highlight positive things that we do within the industry.
The media is really good at highlighting floods, fires, and droughts, but not so good at highlighting things that we do good on a regular basis. And whether that became something where we could slide into that prime time TV once a week and just have a really quick good positive story, I think that would make ag a better space within the noise of life.
And perceived a little bit differently by the wider community who are predominantly city- based.
Yeah, city- based. And I think that's something that's really becoming evident. The city- country divide, unfortunately, I think is becoming wider. The gap's getting wider, it's not closing in. And I think one of those things is because family farms are getting smaller within the ag space, so city people don't have that school holidays where they'd come out to grandpa's farm or whatever. That's just not happening as
much as what it used to. And I think within the ag space, that's why we need to mentor the young ones. And I think on a positive, again, glass- half- full person that I am, mentors are really important and I've been lucky to have really good mentors to get me to where I am. And I guess my biggest mentor, obviously, anyone that knows me well, would be my
father, John, or was my father, John. So that has been a real challenge for me, I guess, to reset on not having John around, but when I make a decision, I always stop and think, " What would John do? What would be his perspective on making this situation better? Or how can I change it to make it a better situation?" And that's why I say, you win or you learn, you never lose. You win or you learn.
And that's something that, I guess, I take and really focus on a lot in our decision- making for Karoo.
I think that's a beautiful way of ending, Annie. And I think that's a good thing to have in your mind every day, really.
Yeah, it is.
I just had a wonderful time. Thank you so much for being part of our podcast and being so open, and I really appreciate all your thoughts and opening up your business like this. So yeah, thank you very much.
Thanks, Lauren. It was a pleasure and I hope someone gets something out of it. Thank you.
This episode of Seeds for Success is supported by the Australian government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate Smart Agriculture Program, and delivered by Local Land Services, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel. Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you by
Central West Local Land Services. Local Land Services delivers advice and support to farmers, landholders, and the community across New South Wales. To learn more, you can find us online
by searching for Central West Local Land Services. If you'd like more information about the topics we discussed today, as well as links to relevant articles, fact sheets, events, and other helpful resources, we've added those into the show notes for this episode. You can find them by tapping or swiping over the cover art in your podcast player now. Hey, and while you're there, please leave us a five-
star review. It really helps other farmers find the show. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan, and I'll chat to you next time.