Cattle, Hay and Hard Conversations with Gillian Fennell

Jon Paul Driver 0:05
Welcome to the Hay Matters podcast brought to you by LocalAg and Feed Central. This is your go to source for all things hay related in Australia, I’m your host, Jon Paul driver, in today’s episode, we’re joined by Gillian Fennell. Welcome to the podcast.

Gillian Fennell 0:19
Thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here on Feed Central’s podcast today.

Jon Paul Driver 0:24
Now, Gillian, tell us a little bit about your not so little operation.

Gillian Fennell 0:28
Oh, that’s pretty funny, actually, because in the scheme of things, in where I live in Australia, we are one of the smaller operations. We’ve got about a million acres and about 5000 head of breeding cows. And in our district, we are one of the smaller places around we also have very recent addition to the operation, a small irrigation block down in the Flinders Ranges about 900 or so kilometres away. So our foray into growing fodder is a pretty new and interesting for us when previously, we’ve only ever grown cows. Family owned and operated. My husband and I and our family are here on the station full time. His parents still own and operate the enterprise as a whole. We do what we do in the middle of Australia.

Jon Paul Driver 1:11
So you’re relatively active on AgTwitter. How did you get started into that?

Gillian Fennell 1:18
I don’t really know, to be completely honest, but once I fell into Twitter, it was just like there was just so much to learn and so many different people to talk to, and then you start realising what you don’t know. And I’ve, I’ve spoken to so many people from all around the world, and learn how ag is done in so many different countries. And you know, you find amazing similarities in some areas, and then the amazing differences, and just understanding that, I think at the end of the day, farmers around the world, we all have the key core sort of values and problems, regardless of where our government sits. You know, what our broader global issues are. It all comes down to cost of inputs, cost of outputs, how we manage family succession, how we are perceived in the marketplace, and how we can do our job without being told we’re doing it wrong all the time, and being told that we are environmental demons who are just wrecking the countryside when all we’ve done for 1000s of years Is feed people.

Jon Paul Driver 2:21
Oh, we’re gonna have fun in this discussion. This is gonna be great. Okay, where did you start in agriculture?

Gillian Fennell 2:28
So I’m probably what you’d call a first generation farmer. I didn’t start in agriculture my parents, my Mum’s the daughter of a bank manager, and my dad is a mechanic, son of a shearer, like we were ag adjacent, I guess we call ourselves, yeah. So then I met and married my husband around 20 odd years ago, and his family very long connection to being pastoralists and having large tracks of land and all that sort of stuff. So married into it, essentially, yeah, have been in it for about the past 22 years.

Jon Paul Driver 3:00
Tell me about your interactions in regard to society’s perception of agriculture and the environment.

Gillian Fennell 3:08
That’s that’s an interesting one, isn’t it? I think in Australia’s context, is particularly is we rolled up like’we’ meaning white people, we rolled up around 230 odd years ago, with very European ideas about how to farm in the landscape, and that involved wholesale cutting down trees, damning rivers, all of these sorts of things that worked really well in Europe because they have very, very different in farming environment, very, very different experience with agriculture, because even though our indigenous people practised agriculture. It’s not what we would recognise. As you know, agriculture coming from a European background, to be fair, we did a lot of damage when we first turned up, for maybe the first 80-90 years before things before we had the opportunity to look around and go hang on, there must be a way to better way to do this. And we started taking on that role of being environmental custodians and managing our landscape better. And you know, the invention of no till cropping, you know, the use, the use of glyphosate, which you know, has its own sort of different demonization involved, because it’s a chemical, but it really revolutionised the way that farming happened in Australia. Made us much more sustainable and competitive. You know, we take our job as as landscape managers and custodians very, very seriously these days. That’s what we feel very hurt and very offended when, when we’re told how much we’re destroying the environment, because we literally given it every day. We you know, we work with it. We’ve learned our lessons from the past. We are out of our own pocket, rehabilitating areas of bush that we may have inadvertently destroyed. We’re doing all of that off our own back sort of thing, and still to be told, ‘Well, you know, your cows are ruining life for everybody’. It’s all their problem, all these sorts of things. It’s we know it’s not true, but we’re also not well equipped with the tools you. To take our message forward into the broader public, because there’s other organisations and people with vested interest in seeing livestock agriculture, especially Finnish, they’re much better resourced. They’re much better equipped. So there’s all these sorts of things that it all comes together. I think it’s all come together in like a perfect storm in this sort of current political environmental environment that we’re living in globally at the moment, and it’s become very wild, very politicised, and you’re either you’re right or you’re wrong. There’s no middle ground. There’s no acknowledgement that, you know, we could do things better or we’re not doing anything wrong. You’re either for or against. A lot of it’s because we’ve lost that connection to our cities and towns. Back in the day, everyone had an aunt and uncle or grandma and granddad who lived on a farm, and they’d go and they’d do farm things on the holidays and those sorts of things. And so everyone who lived in town had a greater connection to agriculture, and they knew the people who were carrying it out. So they knew they weren’t terrible people. They knew they weren’t cruel to their animals. They just like, this is their life. This is what they do. This is what they have to do, and this is the product they make that keeps me alive, and we’ve lost that. So trying to build those relationships back, I think, is part of why I’m so passionate about social media, because you can talk to so many different people and make personal connections with them, and they get to know that we’re not terrible people as a whole. We’re not all bad people. We’re people just like you who are just trying to do our job and raise our families and look after our home. We’ve got the same goals as a lot of people who live in cities. And making those connections, I think, is probably the one of the most important things that if you’re going to step into that advocacy space, is what you can do, making those human connections.

Jon Paul Driver 6:42
One of the things I’m always prepared to do is give my elevator speech right and in the in that elevator speech, I talk about three key components, because people remember things in threes. If you were to give a fellow farmer or pastoralist three talking points to go out with and have conversations with, let’s respectfully call them city people. What would those three points be?

Gillian Fennell 7:07
Oh, wow, three key points is that we’re really good at what we do. We are already sustainable. Because if we weren’t, we’d all be out of a job, and we acknowledge and appreciate the environment around us, because it sustains us. That’s probably the three biggest things that we want to communicate to other people, because they’re at the core of everything we do.

Jon Paul Driver 7:29
Look at that. We just gave a whole bunch of people great talking points. I’m so excited for this. Okay, let’s touch base on some farm management topics, because we’re both really passionate about farm management. There’s always a problem that starts the discussion around Farm Management. And maybe I’m not going to ask exactly what your problem was, but how did your journey start in in management and transition planning?

Gillian Fennell 7:54
Ah, that’s that’s an interesting one, because it’s always been at sort of the periphery of what we do is like because a lot of Australian pastoralists, they’re all very end farmers too. And it’s not just sort of broad acre, it’s horticulture, it’s all these sorts of things. It’s all built around the family unit. Even those, those farming families that have have sort of evolved into a more company structure. It’s still nearly always, you know, goes the the chair of the board or CEO is always a family member, all those sorts of things. And some people can do that really successfully. For a lot of smaller family family farms, it’s just not possible or practical to do that. And so you especially when you have kids, when you start your own family, you’re like, Okay, what’s the future going to look like for them. So how are we going to get to a point where I know that they can, you know, live their dream or fulfil their duty, or whatever you want to call it, to this land, this enterprise, this ideal that we all have of being farmers, because that’s that’s a big part of it. Farming is our identity. It’s part of who we are, which, I think wise, a lot of people struggle to step back from being the farmer they they want to, because it’s, it’s such a core part of who they are. It’s shaped their entire lives. It’s, it’s identity taken from you by the next generation is such a deep hurt. So yeah, it and then, like, in my particular case, like, I’d go to a lot of different events, and I’d go to a lot of conferences, and I’d talk to a lot of women my own age, so mid 30s through to mid 40s, and we’d be talking about, oh, my husband’s so frustrated because dad won’t hand over management, and he’s got all these ideas, and he’s not allowed to implement them. And, you know, and, and as I’ve watched the generation sort of progress, so women younger than me who’ve been to Ag college themselves, or have degrees, or are agronomists, they’re like, I’ve got ideas. I want to play a more, you know, integral role in the farm, but I’m not allowed, because I’m a woman, and I just have to raise children and cook morning tea and all those sorts of things. And you hear all these frustrations, and you realise that despite all. The different training courses and seminars and books and workshops that are had, it is still a massive, massive problem for all of agriculture. And the more I talk to people overseas, it’s a worldwide problem.

Jon Paul Driver 10:14
I can confirm.

Gillian Fennell 10:15
Yeah, and you would see in your role in farm management, it’s phrased as a an asset transfer problem or an accounting problem, but it’s not. It’s a communication problem. It’s a people problem, and if they don’t solve that first, then it doesn’t matter how many facts and figures you have, it’s never going to work.

Jon Paul Driver 10:35
The only thing that I would add to that is having that goal in mind and then communicating the the legal structure and the accountants are like, dead last in that process. They’re still important, but they are. They’re just dead last in the in the process.

Gillian Fennell 10:51
But so often we go to them first, right? And they’re looking at it from a, oh, well, you know, from a taxation point of view, we have to do X, Y and Z. But where does that leave the people and their goals and their dreams. And I think that’s part of the thing is we don’t speak honestly enough with each other about what we want to do with the future and and so it might be mum and dad’s dream to have generation after generation after generation, you know, inherit. And so then what happens if you strike a generation who doesn’t want to be a farmer, what happens then, in a lot of cases, what happens if the sons aren’t interested, but the daughters are, or if everyone’s interested, and you’ve only got a really small farm, so all of these sorts of things, we don’t start thinking about them early enough, and they cause massive, massive problems.

Jon Paul Driver 11:36
One professional suggestion that I have for all farmers the world over, if you’re going to start to try to have these conversations, don’t do it at holidays. Don’t Don’t do it when you’re trying to have meaningful family time. Don’t do it while you’re while you’re travelling. Treat it like a business meeting. I know lots of farm families that have Monday Monday morning meetings, and that’s a good and healthy practice that starts some of these conversations. That’s the way that we can do some of this.

Gillian Fennell 12:05
I think that’s, that’s a really good suggestion, because it can’t again, it comes back to we are so involved in this. This is our life. So we don’t treat it like a business. We treat it like a lifestyle. Because it’s, it’s it’s our calling, it’s our vocation. And so the money always comes and management and actual frameworks always come last, because, oh well, I’m a farmer. I’ll just keep farming. Like, you’ve probably got the same thing in America. It’s like, so, oh yeah, the Farmer Brown from down the road, he won ten million What’s he going to do? Oh, he’ll just keep farming till it’s all gone.

Jon Paul Driver 12:36
You do know American farmers just as well?

Gillian Fennell 12:40
It’s, you know, it’s, we can’t perceive ourselves in any other way. We will just yeah, yeah. And farms take whatever you can give them. And so we need to be mindful that it is a business, not just an extension of our own selves.

Jon Paul Driver 12:56
Is there anything else in that transition space that you’d like to point out?

Gillian Fennell 13:00
Oh, I don’t think we do it early enough, the moment you get married, start thinking about it, the moment you have children, like you need to start thinking about it. And it’s not just because you make a plan now doesn’t mean it’s going to have to be the plan in 10 years time. Because things change, people change circumstances, change markets, change, all these different things can change. So it has to be something that you’re constantly thinking about and reviewing and transparently and openly communicating with everyone who’s affected, family members, bank managers, accountants. You have to keep saying, Oh, we’re thinking about doing this. We’ve decided to do this.

Jon Paul Driver 13:38
You have to have a team around you. We’ve talked just a little bit about accountants. Those accountants are helpful for communicating with your outside family team. Right as we think about the language that bankers and bookkeepers speak, it’s balance sheets and income statements, and that’s the same the world over. So if you want to communicate outside of the family, financial literacy is really important. But also, if you want to be financially honest with yourself, those things are are also important.

Gillian Fennell 14:09
Yeah, and you’re right, you’ve now that you need to have a team, and you need to have a team you can trust, and you need to be able to and I think this goes more for the second and third generations who are coming along. You need your own team. You can’t share trusted advisors for the for the business, for actual business operations. You can because you’re operating the business, but for things that relate specifically to you and your personal, I guess, goals and your personal financial situation, which are different to the businesses, you need your own trusted advisors, because otherwise you may find yourself in a situation where it just gets too messy. It’s too messy, and you shouldn’t have to put other people in that position of having to, you know, keep secrets or wall things off from other entities involved in this discussion.

Jon Paul Driver 14:59
Yeah. Let’s go talk about some fodder. You mentioned that you just started a foray into forage production.

Gillian Fennell 15:07
Yeah, it’s been a steep learning curve, that’s for sure. Because not only have we never grown anything before, we’ve never granted with it’s in under irrigation. The majority of it, we’ve never had anything to do with irrigation and the new, the machinery that you have to have and like a baler, like you would know, you open up the back of a baler, it’s like, what the hell happens in there? It must be magic. Like, there is no, there is no other way to describe how a bailing machine works. But it has to be magic.

Jon Paul Driver 15:35
That’s actually how knotters work. It’s by magic.

Gillian Fennell 15:39
We are so used to being self sufficient and and repairing all our own machinery. So the first time that the baler broke down and we opened up the back of it, and we were like, No, we have got zero chance. Mechanic in and a guy turned up with a heap of different tiny little hammers, and he tap, tap, tapped, and he fixed it. And we were just like, yeah, that’s magic. We don’t we can’t do that.

Jon Paul Driver 16:01
I can confirm that’s how you fix knotters on a balers with a hammer. Yeah. Is that a step in vertical integration? Is that a step in of bringing more folks back to the farm and needing in my experience, the way that you bring family back to the farm and incorporate them is not to cut the same size cake into smaller pieces, but to make the cake bigger.

Gillian Fennell 16:25
Yeah, I think it’s probably a mix of both, in the sense that hay in South Australia, where we are because a very arid and we’re a long way from anywhere, so it has to be freighted in we’ve got no chance of growing it here ourselves, and so we didn’t want to be reliant on other people to produce hay for our cattle when we needed it. And so we’ve built a massive, massive, big hay shed here at the station, our biggest construction project we’ve done for decades. And you know, we don’t know anything about what we’re growing. We rely completely on the agronomist to tell us what to do and when and why, and even when it comes down to why you have to, you know, you have to cut that hay now, it’s like, oh, okay, I’ll get right on that to sort of diversify our operations a little bit. It gives us a place, because we are a long way from anywhere. It’s, it’s a place for the cattle to rest and spell before they go on to market or before they go to somewhere else. Because if we’re selling large volumes of cattle, it’s a long way for a cattle agent to come and look and inspect and those sorts of things. But if the cattle are already down south, where the agents live, you can get more agents to come and look. So you can get a bit of competition going, get a bit of price, and then you can sell in different lots. You don’t have to sell like, five six road trains at a time. You can sell them, you know, one road train at a time to this vendor, one, you know, one to that. So it’s, it’s a lot of different things to sort of support what we’re already doing, because the pastoral station is our core business, always will be. And it’s just a way to sort of support that.

Jon Paul Driver 17:56
That’s a great way to think about that. It’s obviously that you wear many, many hats. What’s the most impactful for you? Where do you find yourself in that state of just ease as you’re working?

Gillian Fennell 18:09
Oh my gosh, I don’t think I find myself in a state of ease ever. To be completely honest, as you’d know, there’s a lot of frustrations that come along from being in a family enterprise, especially when you’re like the the in law, you’re not, you’re not one of one of the family, so to speak. So there’s a lot of frustrations that arise from that end. And you find yourself looking for somewhere where you know something you can call your own, something where you can sort of make your own mark. And I guess I find that through my leadership positions in ag, I’ve been quite lucky, I guess luck and hard work, because it is, it is hard work, and you do need certain skills to be on a national representative board for grass fed cattle producers. Now the chair of livestock SA, and we represent all the goat cattle and sheep producers in South Australia. And I think that’s probably what supports my soul the most, is being able to make a positive impact for everyone in our industry, through leadership and through hopefully making space for other leaders to come through behind me like I don’t want to be here forever. I want to I want to make something that everyone is proud to be a part of, so that we’re fighting off people who want to join boards and committees who are really highly skilled. I want to make it so popular and desirable to represent your state that you know we’re overrun with good leaders that that’s my dream, I guess, is to sort of really build that leadership capacity in ag.

Jon Paul Driver 19:43
That’s a wonderful, a wonderful goal. You have a new podcast coming.

Gillian Fennell 19:48
We do, I do, yes.

Jon Paul Driver 19:49
Is it out yet, or is it in the works?

Gillian Fennell 19:52
So we, I’ve got one at the moment. I do, called absolutely fabulous with Katja Williams, who’s also known as the ultimate farm wife. And that’s a weekly podcast, but the other one that I’m working on my passion project is called succession. When planning for the future doesn’t go to plan. And so we’ve got four episodes recorded, and I need to track down two more guests, and I’m going to do a special episode with a lovely couple who have had what I would describe as possibly the most nightmarish succession experience, and they would like to share their story with the rest of Australia and the rest of the world. Just not, not to bag anyone out. Yeah, they don’t want to do it to be, you know, to get revenge on anyone or anything like that. They just want to share where they found themselves and why, because they don’t want other people to end up in the same place as them. And I think that’s a really brave thing to do. And the thing with Ag in Australia is it’s such a small community, like there’s not that many of us, realistically, you can’t really have these open and honest conversations about all my experiences being this, and my experiences like that, because you know these people, you know their parents, you know the in laws, and you know everyone’s so protective of their reputation and their identity get really nasty really quickly. So to want to share their experiences and that I will be like, I’ll allow them to do it anonymously, of course, because I don’t want to ruin their lives any more than it has been, but to want to share that for the good of other people, I think, is incredibly brave. And yeah, so it was an originally planned to be six episodes, but it will be seven.

Jon Paul Driver 21:31
Ah, so it’s a mini a mini series. Yeah, a mini series.

Gillian Fennell 21:35
It’s a limited edition series. Because, as you know, as I said before, I never find ease anywhere. I’ve already got another project in the back of my mind that I’ll be working on when this one’s in the cans.

Jon Paul Driver 21:46
Oh, wonderful to hear that sounds like an amazing endeavour to bring some of that reality. And the other thing about agriculture is it can be isolating. We have to remember that we’re not alone, that there’s other folks going through the exact same things. What I didn’t mention earlier is that my position at the University is funded by a rural mental health grant, so which is absolutely wonderful. The government figured out that finances are stressful to farmers, and so they hired me. Is how that happened. There’s definitely a mental health component to that, and remembering that you’re not alone and that you’re not the only one having these problems is so helpful and like liberating, because you get in these ruts where you think you’re you’re the only one having these problems. I so look forward to hearing what you’re doing.

Gillian Fennell 22:33
It’s so easy to think, well, there must be something wrong with me, because I’m having these terrible problems. But then you start to share your experiences with other people, and they go, Oh, no, that’s happening to me too. And it’s like, okay, so maybe it’s not us as people, but it’s not about taking anyone’s job or forcing anyone to something that they don’t want to do. It’s like being okay. Well, if people are good at something, let’s support them in doing the thing that they’re good at and they want to do, because that’s going to add value to your business in the long run. Yeah. Why take people with with the, you know, with the necessary skills, and put them into a role where they’re not happy, because it’s going to make everybody unhappy eventually.

Jon Paul Driver 23:08
Oh, yeah, spot on. That’s part of being a good manager is putting the right people in the right places. As we’re managing these agricultural enterprises, it’s all about the peopl.

Gillian Fennell 23:18
And we lose that, I think, because we are our businesses. So we don’t think that we’re managers, because we’re farmers, and this is a farm, and so we don’t need to have people skills, we don’t need to have all these other sorts of management skills, because we just exist and we just do but yeah, you look at anyone, any family enterprise, that is really, really successful, well, they do take that step back, and they do treat it like a business, and they do invest in people skills and all those sorts of things. So, yeah, it’s, I think if more of us could acknowledge that and even take the tiniest little steps, you know, it’ll, it’ll eventually, hopefully for the next generation and the generation after, it won’t be such a painful process.

Jon Paul Driver 23:57
Absolutely, you’re deeply involved with women in agriculture. There’s some other issues out there that I know that you talk about. Let’s have it.

Speaker 1 24:05
I guess one of the biggest things that we talk about is we get told often that if we just shut up, this is we, as in women, if we just shut up and work hard, then it doesn’t, you know, you’ll get more you’ll be more accepted. Which, what does accepted mean, because I’ve shut up and I’ve worked hard and still be sexually harassed at work. You know, there’s there’s girls and women working in farming across Australia who are really good at what they do and work really hard, and they are still harassed and assaulted at work or passed over for opportunities. So what point do you say this has got nothing to do with my ability, but more to do with my gender and this for some people, they get really frightened and really upset by this sort of attitude and that we have expectations of going into a workplace and being safe, physically and emotionally and, you know, not being bullied, not being excluded, or all of these sorts of things. So it comes back to the people. Management side of it. So if you’ve got people who are passionate and good at their job and working hard, why not give them an environment in which they’re safe to do so? And like we said earlier, they exist in all workplaces. It’s not everyone, but if we continue to ignore it, then we’re part of the problem. So at least just, let’s just say, Yeah, I can see that this could happen, and this may be happening. So let’s make a space where this doesn’t happen to people. Make it safe for people to go to work and be at work. Because in the Australian context, we live on farm away from our own families a lot. We’re isolated from other people, and it becomes sort of it is a very isolating experience. In some circumstances, you lose all contact to the outside world for for periods of time, and so you are trapped, I guess, for a better sense of a word, in in these little enclaves, which may or may not be healthy to be in, and may or may not be safe, but you also can’t see a way out. You have no support structure around you. And some businesses are really, really good at acknowledging that and making sure that people are safe. But a lot of people like, Oh, you just gotta toughen up. And it’s just part of the job. And if you remove yourself from your identity of being a farmer and just looked at it as a person problem, we’re not attacking male farmers. We’re not attacking, you know, male farm employees. It’s like, hey, this thing is happening to some people. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen anymore. You’re never going to weed out every bad apple because they exist everywhere. But let’s just make sure we make it really uncomfortable for those bad people to hang around so they leave.

Jon Paul Driver 26:30
How do you see the role of younger generations evolving in the future of agriculture?

Gillian Fennell 26:36
That’s an interesting one, and this is where the AgGech sort of conversation comes in because people like, oh, AgTech’s going to revolutionise everything, and it’s going to change the world and and to a certain extent, it has and it will. But at the same time, farming of any description, it is going to be sweat and tears and and hard work out in the elements that are going to make you successful. Like no amount of drones or robots are going to fix a fence or pull a calf or shear a sheep, or any of these sorts of things. They may take some of the Labour away, like spot spraying and make, you know, great gain efficiencies in that way, but it’s still going to require hands on, hard work forever. I can’t see that ever changing, and while, on one hand, we do want to attract other people, like, you know, additional people into agriculture, because we’re understaffed the world, world round, and there is space for people with a technology brain, like with a background in robotics and programming and all that sort of stuff. I don’t think we’re working hard enough to bring on young people who are just have a good work ethic, who just want to work hard, who just love what they do, and bringing them into the fold and saying, there is a space here for you as well. We’re working too hard to get all like the brainy people in but we need people who, you know, our brains and broad we need everyone to come together. So we’re ignoring people who have a lot to offer, agriculture, ag’s a broad space there is a space here for everyone. If you can possibly conceive of a job, there’s it will happen in agriculture.

Jon Paul Driver 28:05
It exists, whether it’s banking or barristers or all of the above, right?

Gillian Fennell 28:09
Yep, you can have an ag, focus on any profession in the world. Yeah, anything you can conceive, there’s a space for it in agriculture. I think we need to make it, not more attractive, but we need to value those people who do work hard and have a good work ethic and and work with their hands, and they’re prepared to go outside in all weathers, you know, because so for a long time, especially in Australia, it’s like, oh, well, don’t be a trades person or a farmer, go to uni, be an accountant or a doctor or something like that. And so working outside, you seem to be lesser or stupider, or, you know it, you know, not as competent as someone who went to university, but our world cannot exist with people without people who are going to go outside and work hard, and there’s no there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re not stupid. Like some of the most intelligent people I know are farmers. So it’s society needs to frame the way it thinks about agriculture and farmers in general. Like, I don’t know what like, how many farmers you know that that are also very skilled at welding and veterinary stuff and can also the mechanical all those sorts of things. Whereas, you know, you go to uni, you can be a lawyer, and that’s about all you can do. You can’t, you don’t have the capacity to build your skills in all these different areas. Whereas a farmer can do all sorts. You know, it’s we need to support the next generation and show them that this is a job that has value, and they need to be proud of them.

Jon Paul Driver 29:32
And you’re saying we need to support more avenues back to the farm than that track through university?

Gillian Fennell 29:40
Oh, definitely. There’s talk in Australia, and has been for many years about making a sort of an ag certificate, so that it’s a recognised qualification like and we’ve and a lot of different of our educational institutions have had a go at like a certificate too, in beef cattle production and those sorts of things. But what they. Failed to develop is the hands on skills, as well as the business management skills, people skills is a massive component that’s always been missing out of those things. So you know, and trying to make farming or agriculture, whoever you want to frame it, a recognised qualification, I think, would make parents feel more comfortable about their children pursuing it as a career, because there’s a really good opportunity to make good money in agriculture if you have a mixture of hard work, good luck, a sizeable inheritance never hurts.

Jon Paul Driver 30:33
That just makes it easier. It doesn’t make it completely attainable. No,

Gillian Fennell 30:38
it’s all these sorts of things. And you know, for a long time, the trades and those sorts of things have been demonised or whatever, but it we’re the qualifications, we’re the jobs that make the world go round. Why not be proud of supporting the rest of the world with food and fibre like that’s an awesome job.

Jon Paul Driver 30:56
This has been absolutely fantastic. And I want to say thank you. No worries, thank you. And I want to say not just thank you for being on the podcast, thank you for being on the podcast, but thank you for your advocacy in the agricultural space that’s so important, and we all need to be better at it.

Gillian Fennell 31:13
We do. We need to be proud of what we do and tell people why in a way that encourages them to come with us on our journey. Yeah, come along, learn along with us absolutely and be open to learning about their world too.

Jon Paul Driver 31:25
Yeah, it’s got to be a two way street. Has to be a big thanks to our guest today for sharing valuable insights. This podcast is proudly presented by LocalAg and Feed Central. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes.