Humans of Agriculture

Well it's one full year since host Oli Le Lievre took the plunge from the day job and pursued the dream of Humans of Agriculture fulltime. We're not a full blown team so as all normal podcasts do, Oli sat down with his sister and housemate Sass to chat about the journey over the past 12 or so months. To change it up,. Sass took over the hosting role and asked Oli a few questions. In this conversation you'll hear about:The past year and all that’s come with leaving a full-time job and running your own business (and the highs and lows along the way).Oli’s advice to those considering going it alone/starting their own business/following their dreams (hint: it helps to be a little bit obsessed).What following his dreams has also taught him about managing a team, responsibility (being his own boss) and staying on track.What we can expect to see from Humans of Agriculture in the next 12 months including: employees, co-hosts, upping the game with video content, Careers in Agriculture podcast and platforms and continuing to empower people within the agriculture industry.And a huge thank you to all of you for tuning in, the journey's really only just getting started!

In this podcast episode, host Oli Le Lievre chats with Ben Dwyer, who has been influential in shaping businesses and people within the Australian Agricultural industry for more than 30 years.Ben is an extremely down-to-earth person, with a passion for raising cattle and building a good team culture who also holds the position of Chief Operating Officer of Agribusiness for Harvest Road.In 2023, we released a video as part of our This Is Aussie Ag Series, and got to spend time with Ben and the broader team as we explored their Beef, Horticulture and Aquaculture operations.In this conversation, Oli and Ben cover a range of topics including questions and advice on business, agriculture, people, leadership and just general life.Just some of the things Ben covers in the chat:On being an introvert and how he works with it (he found it easier to hang out animals than people as a kid)His progression through the agriculture industry from station hand to where he is now“If you do everything right all the time, you don't really learn anything”The importance of personal development and understanding yourself before you can understand othersBeing competitive and continuously challenging yourself to be betterThat being the "strong silent type" isn’t always helpful in team environments

Tim Jarvis is an adventurer, explorer, environmental scientist, documentary filmmaker and global speaker.In February of 2023, Host Oli Le Lievre had the chance to sit down with Tim at EvokeAg, a global Agrifood Tech event that was held in Adelaide. What was fascinating about Tim was his approach to use storytelling from his first hand experiences in some of the most remote and isolated parts of the world to convey important messages about the environment and climate change to people and organisations all around the world.As part of all the other things he does, he also does a lot of work around climate change and sustainability… which coincidently has BUCKET LOADS to do with Ag🌾🧑‍🔬🐂.In our latest pod🎧, we have a chat with Tim about how:-Getting lost at an adventure camp in Malaysia as a 12-year-old led to realising that having confidence to do something = achieving great things.-“Self-delusion is a useful attribute”, sometimes you gotta break down the big challenge into small do-able bits (hence we've put this in dot points).-He’s seen the shift from denial about climate change, to denial of our contribution to climate change to a level of panic about climate change-He doesn’t really like being called an environmentalist because it puts up barriers in peoples minds.-He wants to work with people so they benefit from their businesses, while also looking out for the longevity of the planet🌍 for future generations 👨‍👩‍👦.

So far this year we've been fortunate to speak with incredible athlete, Nedd Brockmann who we've already released and coming up in the next few episodes, Adventurer Tim Jarvis.However, most of the rockstars we speak to are after the event, this time, we sit down with Agribusiness Lawyer Trent Thorne in the lead up to his expedition to summit Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.Now, Trent is incredibly Humble about this and we find that extraordinary, so we wanted to find out what the preparation has been like and what is his mindset like as he heads into the unknown where only a touch over 6,000 people (on this planet of 8 billion) have been before him and of that only 11,346  Follow us to stay up to date and see all our contentInstagram @Humansofagriculture_Facebook Humans of AgricultureLinkedIn - Humans of Agriculture

While we were at the Australian Dairy conference, our host: Oli Le Lievre, had the chance to sit down with Stephen Fisher to hear his story. At the age of 16 Stephen turned down an opportunity to return to the family farm, some 20 years later Stephen decided it was time to make a return to farming and took numerous opportunities in share farming before realising the opportunity he could have in taking back farm ownership and growing the wealth and opportunity for those in his local community through agriculture investment. 

Welcome back to the Humans of Agriculture podcast, this week host Oli Le Lievre sits down with the one half of the Four Daughters. Bonnie and Molly Penfold are back in the family beef business and their brand, Four Daughters.In this episode, we chat about both of their early influences in and around agriculture, the support and encouragement from their parents for each of them to pursue a career outside of agriculture, what they learnt from their time as guest podcast hosts and the challenges and opportunities in running a direct to consumer meat business.Read the fullstory on HumansofAgriculture.com

Candid and open, Sallie Jones isn't afraid of telling her story. She's another of our powerhouse Women in Ag for the month of March, and if you're familiar at all with her story - maybe you buy Gippsland Jersey milk, or you've had one of their famous milkshakes, or maybe you're part of Women in Gippsland - then you know what we're talking about.But if Sallie Jones is a new name for you, she's a farmer's daughter, a farmer, an innovator, a mum, a mental health advocate, and a leader. In 2016, her dad took his own life. Through the grief, Sallie wanted to honour the legacy her dad had built, even though at the time, the industry was entering a dairy crisis. Gippsland Jersey was born a few months later in partnership with another generational dairy farmer, Steve Ronalds. Gippsland Jersey is an ode to supporting local producers and creating premium products, and it is a result of the community that rally behind them, because they can see just how passionate Sallie is.She's been on one hell of a ride so far, and we can wait for you to hear all about it.In this conversation, Sallie discusses:Her journey since her father's deathWhat was it like growing up in Lakes Entrance?Studying PR at University and her time working at a PR Agency in MelbourneHow Gippsland Jersey was startedThe ups and downs of owning a businessThe role of women in the agriculture industryThis episode contains themes of suicide and mental health, please reach out to Lifeline, This Is A Conversation Starter or someone you trust if you need help. Lifeline: 13 11 14TIACS: 0488 846 988Women in Agriculture Live Podcast in partnership with Nutrien Ag SolutionsGet your tickets here 

We are back, and in this episode of This is Aussie Ag we are heading from conception to consumption in Western Australia. We’re here to meet the team to understand the role of people within their vertically integrated gate to plate beef business, an established and growing aquaculture brand and emerging horticulture operations. Watch here: This is Aussie Ag - Harvest Road Group00:00 Introduction00:42 Mark Wiedermann01:11 Who is Harvest Road02:30 Minderoo Station05:30 Ben Dwyer06:52 Building team culture at Harvest Road07:50 The Minderoo livestock team08:48 Brickhouse Station Horticulture11:10 Koojan Downs Feeding Facility13:07 Livestock Supply chain movements14:45 Harvey Beef18:25 Blair Stubna19:58 Aquaculture operation in Albany21:16 Justin Welsh 22:16 Carnarvon Oyster Nursery23:53 Jobs in Aquaculture 24:36 Carbon Neutral Sustainable Aquaculture26:04 Paul Slaughter, CEO Harvest Road27:29 Summary of the episode

On Day 2 of the Australian Dairy Conference in Tasmania this year, Oli sat down with Nedd Brockmann. This podcast is a live recording of that chat.In 2022, Nedd cemented his legend status by running from Perth to Bondi in 47 days, and not only that, but he raised $2.5 million for homeless charity We Are Mobilise.This conversation at the Australian Dairy Conference was all about getting excited by what's possible, and who better to be inspired by than Nedd Brockmann himself. In this conversation, Nedd talks us through:Why he’s only taking cold showers in 2023What it was like growing up on a cattle farmHow many kilometres of fencing he put up on his gap year on the family farmWhat is his why?50 marathons in 50 daysThe reality of trying to beat the record for days taken to run across the width of AustraliaThe team he had around him on his run and how valuable their support was, even on the hardest daysPhysical or mental pain, what’s worse?The resilience of the agriculture industry What does he say to himself in the mirror every day?