GROUNDED Live
GROUNDED Festival is a cross between a farming conference and a food festival, held in a different farm location every year, so each festival is a unique, unmissable event celebrating local expertise and culture with an inspiring line up of speakers.
With multiple stages running concurrently, it combines science and technology with ancient wisdom, provides a respectful place for lively discussion, an audience as interesting as the speakers and an excellent menu of local food, drinks and music, all on a beautiful, regeneratively-managed farm.
Each year we record presentations and make them available, free for all, as a podcast called GROUNDED Live. We hope you enjoy the conversations.
GROUNDED Live
GROUNDED Live - 2025: David Pollock & Will Bignell - Farm Succession from Two Angles
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In this episode of GROUNDED Live, we share another unedited session recorded at GROUNDED Festival 2025, on farm in Bridgetown, Western Australia.
When we think about farms, we often picture family operations passed carefully from one generation to the next — knowledge, land and stories carried forward over decades. It’s a powerful idea. But it also raises one of the most complex and emotionally charged questions in agriculture: succession.
In this session, we bring together two farmers from very different landscapes and life circumstances to explore what succession actually looks like in practice.
David Pollock farms some of the toughest country in Australia, in the rangelands north-east of Geraldton in Western Australia. Will Bignell runs a mixed cropping and grazing operation in Tasmania’s Central Highlands — a very different environment, with a very different set of pressures and possibilities.
Together, they talk honestly about succession from multiple angles:
- What does it look like when you have children?
- What happens when you don’t?
- How do values, viability, land health and family dynamics intersect?
- And how do you plan for the future when there’s no single “right” pathway?
It’s a grounded, practical and deeply human conversation about continuity, change and responsibility — one that will resonate with anyone thinking about the long-term future of their farm.
Settle in and enjoy this session with Will Bignell and David Pollock on GROUNDED Live.
GROUNDED Festival is a cross between a farming conference and a food festival, held on a different farm each year. Every festival is unique, celebrating the people, landscapes and food of its host region through an inspiring line-up of speakers, local producers and hands-on learning.
With multiple stages running concurrently, GROUNDED brings together science and technology, ancient wisdom and fresh thinking. It provides a respectful place for lively discussion, an audience as interesting as the speakers, and an excellent menu of local food, drinks and music, all on a beautiful, regeneratively managed farm.
Each year, we record many of the presentations and make them freely available as the GROUNDED Live podcast. We hope you enjoy the conversations.
Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy this episode, we'd love to welcome you to a future GROUNDED Festival.