GROUNDED Live - 2026: Vince Heffernan & Lachie Barclay - The Outsiders

Welcome to a new season of GROUNDED Live. This season features presentations recorded at GROUNDED Festival 2026, held over two memorable days on Yan Yan Gurt West Farm in Victoria, Australia. Each episode captures the ideas, stories and practical knowledge shared by the farmers, researchers, chefs, practitioners and thinkers who came together to explore healthier landscapes, healthier food systems and healthier communities.

In this conversation, Vince Heffernan and Lachie Barclay reflect on what it's like to challenge convention in agriculture. Coming from different generations and different farming systems, they share the experience of being early adopters, the cultural barriers they've encountered and why they believe the future belongs to those willing to think differently. 

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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:06

I'm Matthew Evans and I'm the founder and curator of the Grounded Festival. And what follows is the Grounded Podcast. Live on the dive unedited. And I hope you enjoy it. And I brought him up because I left his attitude. It's a little bit left of field. And how he looks at how he can build resilience within his landscape without having to buy extra land. Now it is called stacking enterprises with Gavin Fisher.

SPEAKER_09 1:04

This session is called Outsiders. And we've got Vin Teffen and Lockie Barclay here to um to share over the next hour. My name is Robert Pekin. I'm an ex a former dairy farmer from on the other side of Kolak, a little place called Larpent, where I um attempted a bunch of things to go uh down this regenerative pathway a couple of years ago, uh, but unfortunately went mad and um uh and uh lost the farm. Um but uh I now do a lot of work on the other side of the farm gate, working with farmers to um uh try and match the heavy lifting that farmers, these in particular these regen farmers do, to match them, get them a better price. Um and uh uh basically on the easier side of things. So um this morning I'll get my computer so I can introduce uh before I get started. Who who went to either Lockheed or Vince's session yesterday? Okay, just two of you? Great. Okay, well no, there's a couple more there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who went to Lockheed's session? Who went to Vince's session? Right, fantastic. Okay, well we'll get them to do an overview um and a recap. Hope you don't mind. Cool. Okay, great. Um let's uh also just find out who are farmers in the room. Ruckloads, okay. Who's um on the um like um technical expert for farmers working with farmers on this on this journey? Soil scientists, uh land care operators, okay. The people who didn't put their hands up, where are you from? What do you do? In between.

SPEAKER_07 2:41

Okay, okay, working on the other side of the farm gate, great. Who else? What do you do? Lab technician. Soil. Right, okay. Oh, fantastic, great, great. Annie, she's uh in that's right.

SPEAKER_09 3:02

We'll cover a fair bit a fair bit of that in this session here. Okay, well, without further ado, what we'll do is we'll spend five or seven minutes with each of the two farmers. Lockie, Lockie Barclays from um Cressy, or in between Cressy and Baker. Biak and Invalid, that's right. Yes, more Back than um uh than Cressy. Um and uh Vince is in New South Wales. We'll just get a bit of time to introduce their farm, what they farm, how they farm, um, for five or seven minutes to give a recap of of their operations, and then um we'll go into uh their challenges being you know um doing on this journey, um then we'll open up a QA around about 20, 25 minutes in and make it really interactive. So I'll um oh you're gonna f you're gonna start first, Lockie. Right up. You've given him the beautiful okay, Lockie Barclay, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_10 3:58

Thanks, Rob, and uh yeah, thanks for all coming along today.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

But um, yeah, so we uh I'm a fourth generation um back on our family farm. We're farming just uh just shy of 5,000 hectares um across sort of five farms um running uh Angus Angus and uh F1 Wagyu cattle. Um and some sheep and doing a little bit of cropping as well. So um I suppose uh our our history uh in this space of regenerative agriculture started uh about 30 years ago. Will Dexter, who's our current livestock manager and my father, um did a uh did a grazing for profit course and uh came home from that thinking they've got to change uh the way we're doing things. Um so we went culled turkey and dropped all um synthetic chemicals and fertilizers out of our system, uh split up paddocks that were you know 100 hectares, brought them back to sort of you know anywhere from five hectares to to 15, 20 hectares, um, and all just wagon wheel designs, you know, two two wire electric fences and and central watering points. Um so yeah, so so on on the back of that, we've yeah, for 30 years haven't used any um any synthetic chemicals or fertilizers um or you know even lime lime and gypsum across across our country. So um yeah, um and I suppose I've yeah I've I've come home and inherited all all dad and Will's hard work over the time and um yeah we're we're really invested in it. We're we uh always looking at new technologies and stuff. We um Neils is here today um from the soil key um pathway, so we've we've invested in one of them and um just using as many tools as we can to to feed our soils, which are then growing our our pastures and and our cattle. Um yeah, so it's uh it's it's exciting to to see that there's a bit more um enthusiasm in this space. And I mean back back when we started it wasn't you know, there was no buzzwords around it, it wasn't regenerative. We were just looking at better ways to farm, more more sustainable ways to um to be able to hand on our land better to the next generation than when we took it on. So yeah. Um that's about that's about me.

SPEAKER_10 6:33

No, not an uh we dr well only when they need it, yeah, maybe once once a year. We ain't weighing a cattle. Yeah, yeah, mainly.

SPEAKER_07 6:47

Greetings, um, I'm Vince.

SPEAKER_08 6:50

I'm um my family's been on this farm for six generations, so it's uh the farm's called Morelands. And I I always have to say this. So the website's www.morlandslam.com.au. We deliver Australia wide. So I'm not telling you because uh I just I want you to go and buy some bloody lamb. That's why I'm telling you. So morlandslam.com.au. Um, and I'll say that another three times before I'm finished. So don't don't fret. Um I I spent some time off the farm. Uh I was keen to go go go farming, spent a bit of time immediately after school on the farm, uh, left at the age of 20 and uh returned when I was 37, almost 38. Uh so after two gap decades, I also went to university and did a course on ecological agriculture, principally to learn about biodynamics. There was a unit in this degree run by the University of Sydney on biodynamics, and I wanted to know what the hell this sort of stuff was. And um uh in the process I became really aware of uh environment and uh ecosystems and ecological practices. And it started me on a on a path towards trying to repair the farm and create what had been a very nuded space in terms of uh the native ecosystem to make it a more functional ecosystem. So when I talk about a functional ecosystem, uh because of set stocking, all of we've got a lot of creeks and rivers, and the sheep had constant access to those. So there's no reeds in those areas, they were just sort of drains, not dissimilar to some of the photos I've seen of places down here, um, pre-planting. And so these were all fenced off, they were rehabilitated, and a lot of the reeds came up, so things like Cambungi, Phragmites, uh, ribbon grass, uh a lot of the aquatic plants. Um and we saw things change. So the sort of things that changed was if you know about cumbungi and phragmites, they've got like a biofilm on the bottom of them. So the the frogs uh don't lay two eggs, they lay like 600 eggs or a thousand eggs. So you get a heap of tadpoles, which are like the krill of the freshwater system. But as the dirty water goes past those that biofilm on the base of these reeds, it catches the silk, and then the tadpoles eat the silk and fatten up and all these other things, turtles and birds and fish and snakes eat the tadpoles. So they're they're you know, you've got this really diverse uh range of things happening in the waterways. And so I could see that if we could restore some balance in the system and fix some of these things up that weren't right, that we'd be we'd have some success. So that started with the riparian zones uh and has now sort of overtaken my my habit of life in the sense that we're trying to re-establish foxgum grassy woodlands across the as much of the farm as we can. Uh it's about 3,000 acres and we were 1,200 hectares. And so, you know, I I think I get frustrated that the rate of progress isn't great enough, but you know, it took five generations to get it where it is, and it's gonna take more than one half of our lifetime to fix it up. So um uh yeah, and and and we produce land, so I'm a text a Texel sheep. And um I I think there was always this perception that you can either produce really you can be a really productive farmer producing uh a good product or uh a particularly you know high productivity, clean sort of product, or you can be uh doing really good stuff for the environment. And I'm I'm I'm dedicated trying to show that you can you know you can eat and chew gum. You can do both. And uh again, I I feel like I'm a little way down that track, but the r the reality is our our Lambs won awards is very popular. Uh we sell it for a premium uh and we're achieving some incredible things in terms of what we're doing with um a whole host of species. So I'll probably bore you with some of those details in a little next little bit. So just hang on to your seats.

SPEAKER_09 11:00

Thanks, Vince. Um Lockie, uh you didn't mention uh that, or just tell us a bit more about um the progress you took over from your dad and um Will and the pro where you've taken the farm or how that journey, I mean that would have been amazing to have that sort of support. A lot of farmers who started like Vince. Vince, you you've got a paddock on your place. What's it called? You better you better share that story.

SPEAKER_08 11:29

So in the late 60s, there was this little startup company, uh chemical company in in America was trialing a new ag chemical, and they weren't going to put it out on a paddock in America, so they convinced this poor, uneducated farmer to put it out on his farm, which was dad. And uh that chemical was a thing called glyphosate uh or roundup. And um, I still remember these Monsanto execs landing on a Pan Am uh 747 at Sydney, and then didn't get off the tarmac, went from the plane onto a two-seater plane, flew down home, saw where it had been sprayed across a paddock at home, where dad had organized for it to be sprayed, and uh then flew back and got on another flight home again. And so that was really the start of glyphosate in the world. And so I'm probably the only organic plant on the planet with a paddock called Monsanto. Great story. And I'm I don't want that repeated.

SPEAKER_09 12:25

I really and I didn't want to it you know it goes to the point, you know, um uh you started, you know, against that model. Um but going back to Lockheed, Lockie, you didn't have that sort of rough start where you had to go, you know, well, what am I doing from scratch? You had Will and your dad. Tell us about that and and how that was was what whatever it was for you, uh I'm imagining supportive, and then where you've taken it since in the last 10 years or so.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yeah, so I suppose, you know, um it's the way we've done things is is what we've always done for my life, like on five when we sort of started started down this path. Um uh so yeah, the bones of it were already there. It's it's it's it's a thing that just is constantly evolving. There's no there's no rule book, there's no instructions of of how to do things, um, but we're all always challenging, you know, uh and looking at different ideas and and things. So I suppose um one of the big things that since I've been home is we're we're using a lot of worm juice in our systems now. Um and uh yeah, so we're producing worm juice on farm, we're buying in, you know, because we can't we can produce 10 to 15,000 litres a year on farm. Um but just the shift we've seen in extra production just simply by uh one application of worm juice across across plants is amazing. Um so I think that's a that's a big, big part of where we're gonna drive our business forward. Um just looking at you know these um these alternatives to you know to to to increase our production um but while while staying away from the synthetics. Um but yeah a lot of trial and error, it doesn't happen overnight. You know, we're probably we've been in it the best part of 30 years and um you know we we're probably only starting to see the spoils now to be honest, in terms of you know, we've planted 300,000 trees over the farm in in that 30 year period, and you know, it takes a while to get them established and and really humming and get that biodiversity through the farms. But um the soil key renovated a big part of what we're trying to trying to do. So we invested in that about four years ago. Um and yeah, so we've got we've got a lot of our country is um you know Polaris dominant, so we're just trying to get as many species in through those pastures to to to feed the soil, which which in turn, you know, grows more feed. So um that's been massive working with Neils and and that their crew just to to um yeah get that system happening. Um, you know, we've probably since we bought it the the seasons haven't gone with us in terms of getting um all the seeds to germinate and and whatever, but just the system of of aerating um these heavily polaris, heavy polaris pastures, and they're just so root-bound and um you know getting the air down and that and then the how you know any rain we get is just being able to get down to those roots. So we're finding the response after a rain compared to where we haven't been with the soil key, uh, is just you know, probably 200% better m more more production out of those plants. So um, yeah, so that they're probably the two most exciting things that we've introduced sort of in in my time being back on the farm. Um but yeah, constantly looking at, you know, different things. I suppose the other big part of it is you know that you can collect a lot more data to to validate yourself. Um, you know, we've got a we've got a uh Optiway um that we can we can get real-time weights on our cattle without having to bring them to the yard. So we're we're constantly, you know, uh monitoring and and picking up something before it's too late in terms of you know, if there's a worm burden or or the pasture is underperforming, we can sort of move the cattle before before you actually see it in the in the condition of the cattle. Um so that sort of stuff's pretty pretty cool, and you know, the technology part of it it's it's is moving so rapidly. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 16:56

Yeah, great. Vince, for yourself, the last five years, where where where what are you what are you seeing that's really um energizing you? What are you seeing in terms of um just your own personal journey in the last five to ten years? What are you starting to do?

SPEAKER_08 17:11

I think we're starting to see some of the fruits of the the work in the sense that it it's a different paradigm that that I guess I I have to maybe where I was and where say my neighbors are at. And so what what that means is that we're and I often use two species of plants to explain this, and so just bear with me while I go through these. So Alacazarina, does people know what Alocazarina is? It's not casurina, but it's a it's a different type of plant that looks a bit like it. And it was very prevalent in our in our landscape, and it's not there now. And the reason it's not there now is it's a bloody good timber, so it was used very early on by the first people there, first settlers, uh white fellow settlers. And um it's also it burns. If you've ever I I lived with an open fire for a long period of time, and open fires produce an enormous amount of ash, and it it burns away to almost no ash. So it's that hue butte, you know. I don't have to go and empty the ashes every night, you know, uh type thing. So it uh and it was also a plant that had evolved with indigenous people using cool burning because it builds up this heap of needles sort of underneath the thing. So when you didn't have the cool burning happening, but then you got hot fires, it just blew the trees apart. So it disappeared from the landscape. But it's absolutely imperative for one species of bird called the glossy black cockatoo. They can't eat anything else than that. They spend up to 14 hours a day standing on one foot holding the seeds with the others and opening them up and getting something about the size of a poppy seed out. And these these are about sort of uh glass-sized cockatoos, and um anyhow, that they're in danger because we've got rid of the alocajarinas. So the only real reason to go and plant alocazarinas on a farm is because you've got this eco-focus at the center of what your decision making is, where you say, okay, I'm gonna go and plant that because I'm gonna help the glossy back cockatoo potentially. You know, I've never seen one on the farm, but I'll keep building build it and I'll come type stuff. And um, but there's no real benefit in planting that over something else, you know, bluegum or you know, maybe out of pine, God knows. But um and then I I go to another plant species, and I can convince any farmer to go and plant basaria. So hands up, anyone who doesn't know what basaria is, don't know, right? So quite a few people. So it's some, it's a it's a bush that's about one and a half, two and a half meters high, uh, very spiny, native, native, evergreen, and it's got these three super benefits for humans, for for us. The first is it's uh really good, it's encouraged by the uh the CFA to to plant it because it catches sparks. So if you've got a like on our where we are, the fires all come from the northwest. So you plant it along the northwest, catch sparks, stop, you know, um a fire getting carried further ahead. So fire protected. Secondly, it's the host plant for Hymenoptera. Hymenoptera are wasps, everyone knows that, of course. And uh wasps are the main insect predator in the system. So more important than birds, more important than birds and bats put together. And bear in mind the microbats eat one and a half times their body weight in bats in insects every night. So you think how heavy you are, and imagine you ate one and a half times your own body weight in food a night, you'd be really giving it to it, wouldn't you? So these bats have got a really high metabolism, and but they're really you know, bats are really important, birds are really important, but these wasps are so much more important than those put together. And of course, we've taken these out of the system, these uh Basaria, they were really common. And the third thing is that they flower on the longest day of the year. So we you know, I uh I'm uh a born-again atheist, but I grew up in a Catholic family, and uh you go into midnight mass and uh you'd see these flowering bushes on the side of the road, because it's the only place that they were left. And uh so we used to call them the Christmas bushes because you'd see they'd actually flowered two days earlier on the pagan feast rather than on the Catholic feast. But hey, uh don't worry about that. But the seeds would appear a couple of months later because if they're flowering in in late December, the seeds appear around you know Easter time. And at that time in the in the in the landscape, it's often dry, we're waiting for an autumn break, sheep sometimes are a little bit stressed, and all of a sudden you've got this tiny amount of um really high nutrient density feed available for the animals. It's uh they're about 30 or 40 percent protein, the the the the um the the visaria seeds, and and the sheep thrive on them, they love them. And so, you know, I I tell that to any farm, they say, Oh, I want a few of those, you know, give me a few of those. And that's because we're sort of human centric in our in what we do, or my neighbors are human centric. Is it good for the sheep? Is it good for the farmer? We want it. If it doesn't Have a benefit for me, then no, no, it's not important. So I think our paradigm, the way that we see the world, has shifted from being that egocentric sort of decision making through to one where we're ecocentric. We look at what's needed. And I see that when a disaster falls, we've had a few flood events. And the first thing we did was we went out and we did stuff for the environment rather than stuff for the farmer. Um, so yeah, uh and and more importantly, I'm starting to see our clients. So we've got a client base of about 1,700 people who buy we sell direct because I've got the shits with Walworths. Just that's a longer story, but just the shits with them, big time. And so we we sell direct, mainly because I've got I wouldn't care if I lost money, I'd be, I wouldn't use the supermarkets. And I'm I'm 14 years, three months and 28 days since I last, so I'm a bit like a reformed alcoholic. I've I'm not gonna go back there and I'm sworn off them and I'm hanging in there. But uh we're finding our clients want to engage with us too, and that's the big thing. There is a there is a mind shift that's happening at a different level. It's not just not just me. Not just me.

SPEAKER_09 23:10

Fantastic. Thanks, Vince. Um we didn't lock you, just uh touch on w where you sell to and how you sell. Do you sell through commodity markets or have you got something a bit different?

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Uh uh yeah, we've got um a lot of repeat um and return clients that come back and buy cattle off us. Um but yeah, through uh you know, a lot of our um F1 cattle and and steer angust and stuff go go um to repeat buying feedlots, yeah. Um mainly. And then our lambs um yeah, sort of direct to meatworks. Um at this point in time.

SPEAKER_09 23:46

And your crops?

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Uh crops, yeah, just but I mean we're we're it we use a fair bit um just for supplementary feeding, but um, you know, to where where we're based is you know, we're close to dairy market, so we've got that market, but you know, otherwise export. Um yeah, yeah, got it up.

SPEAKER_07 24:07

Um now we're gonna switch the um the uh useful information.

SPEAKER_09 24:16

Um so we'll just switch to uh mindset, um frame of mind as you've gone on this journey. Uh maybe touch on low points, something that's happened that's really sort of tested you. Um and and how do you maintain a positive mindset when you're still viewed as a bit of a bit of a weirdo, a bit a bit of a nut job.

SPEAKER_07 24:47

Um it's been a it's been an interesting journey.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

I mean, like I grow I grew up and that's all I knew, but you know, all your mates are doing conventional farming and spreading spreading fertilizer like it's going out of fashion. And you know, so it's not something that you you know for probably a lot of years you you didn't want to delve into it much because you'd get ridiculed and you know people would sort of judge you a little bit going, you know, put a tin hat on, mate, like you're a little bit different. But um yeah, so we we I think the big thing with it is we believed in the system, we saw it worked, and um, you know, it's it's not it's not easy in terms of it, you know, you don't get that return probably in the first few years of of setting up the system, but um you've just got to be believe in your methodology and your and your system and um and you know uh and and continue on the journey and it's a lot of trial and error and and probably at times it feels like more error than than uh than anything. But um yeah, you start seeing the wins and and and that's the the rewarding part. And I suppose for me, since I being home, the the real rewarding part is now the same people that used to ridicule you and go, you know, you're mad. Um one one way or another, whether it's because you know uh markets are starting to talk about it, banks are starting to talk about it, but they're the ones now coming back and saying, you know, how can we implement some of this into our business? Um and I think as farmers, I said yesterday, you know, a lot of farmers they want the best for for their you know, for their business and stay sustainable and whatever, and they're doing parts of regenerative agriculture, they're just not putting it all together. Um and yeah, so I think that's the real reward that I'm seeing now is you know, there's more and more people starting to talk about uh talk about being more sustainable and looking at these alternatives. Um and you know, what what suits our farm what probably won't suit Vince's farm or or or even the neighbour's farm. Every system, every farm, every landscape is different. But um, yeah, you know, you if you can come to these sorts of things and and pick up one or two things to take home, well um, you know, it's all it's all a positive direction, I think.

SPEAKER_09 27:16

And uh last year winning the uh Victorian Farm of the Year, that must have been amazing.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yeah, I mean that was uh that was you know something that was a bit bit bit left left afield getting getting nominated for that. But I think um, you know, that's uh you know it's nice to have a bit of recognition for all the hard work that you know Will and Will and Data put in mainly and um yeah, so you know, and to get to get sort of what we're doing out in the spotlight is um yeah, pretty cool thing.

SPEAKER_09 27:50

Well done, mate.

SPEAKER_08 27:51

Uh Vince, yourself, what your um mental journey, how do you how do you how have you dealt with you know the judgment and I don't know whether you should go to my mental state of not a good picture, but yeah. It's uh I I think it's interesting because you you are on the fringe and they they they call it not the leading edge, but the bleeding edge, because you're sort of out there doing stuff, you know, uh as a pioneer, really, in in some respects. But the reality is that I'm standing on the shoulders of a whole host of other people. There's a guy called Alan Drews at Ard Lethan, and uh he's probably dead because but uh I saw him a couple of decades ago, and his son Neil has a um a mill at June and he produces licorice called uh green grove licorice, so organic licorice, and he's so uh his dad grew grew organic spilt, but he was doing that back in the 50s. His old man was organic in the 50s, and he was organic because of his religious beliefs. He was a big um reader of the Bible, and he felt that you know you shouldn't be putting fertilizer out or or chemicals out, and so but he was just doing it, and then he'd drive his truck with this organic grain on it down to the local silo and it'd go on the conveyor built in with everybody else's. He wasn't getting paid a premium, he was just doing it because he felt it was the right thing to do, and so it was a long time. And so I I guess it I see people like that, and I I feel like I've got to be braver, you know, I've just got to be less focused on trying to make people happy or make them feel comfortable. And if I make them feel uncomfortable, bugger me, you know, bad luck. And away we go. And I think you just sometimes you just try and work on one person at a time. You you just tell a story. So my my favorite one right now is photosynthesis, which is seems like such an obvious one, but you know, I just tell the story that we're on grass here in front of us and everywhere, and photosynthesis is the process while we sunlight comes in, plant breathes in uh air, including carbon dioxide, they use the uh the chlorophyll, I think it is, and the energy from the sun to split that into carbon and oxygen, oxygens breathed out. And when I was in year seven or year eight, they told us that the carbon was used in that plant. So if it was uh it had flowers, it was used in the flowers. If it's a tree, it was used in making the the tree trunk, you know, and it was in the the leaves or the the blades of grass and the roots. Whereas people like Elaine Ingham have taught us that in grasslands, 48% of that carbon gets pushed outside the plant as as soil exudates, you know, and so these this this carbon gets that gets pushed out is there to feed the microorganisms. And so then you need to know that when you see a sheep in a paddock or a cow in a paddock, that there's 13 times the weight of that sheep or that cow in microorganisms under the ground. So that's a vast amount. If you imagine 13 sheep suddenly underneath that sheep, it's a bloody big weight, you know. And once you say that to people, then they're driving around and they suddenly see a mob of a thousand sheep and they're trying to imagine what 13,000 sheep under the ground might look like, and they start to realize that we're so busy worried about the bloody sheep on top of the ground, and we need to focus more on those ones underneath. But though that that that that that those simple sugars that get pushed out really easily get converted into carbon dioxide again because they're six carbon atoms joined with one little join between them all, and so they're really easily converted back to carbon dioxide. But if you've got that soil microorganisms all present, so it's mainly fungi and it's mainly bacteria, but then there's a predator layer that sits above that, the protozoa, so amoeba ciliate flagellates, and it's them that consume those. And every time that happens, it's it's like a what we call in ecology a trophic layer. So everyone knows what a trophic layer is, where you've got, you know, an insect gets eaten by a frog, and then a snake eats the frog, and then a cooker burr eats the snake. You know, they're all trophic layers. But in in the soil, instead of being four organisms, one eating what one eating the other, there's a thousand organisms. So that that that goes through these really, really long chains. And when we start doing the chemical farming, and I'll point off into the distance because there's nowhere near here, but that chemical or modern farming, you bugger up, you lose that biodiversity in the soil, and you can't do those chains. But what happens with the carbon in those places is it goes from being these really simple carbons into these vastly more complex uh secondary and then eventually tertiary carbon structures. And people, you know, that that by this stage their eyes are starting to glaze over because they think, what the hell are you talking about? But I I try and give it, you know, if you can imagine six bricks in a row is a simple sugar joined, you know, one to the other, whereas these tertiary carbon structures might have 600,000 carbon atoms joined together, and they're joined sort of in three or four different ways. So they've got all these joints, so they're infinitely more stable. And they're the places where that that pull in these other cations, you know, you in terms of your phosphorus, your zinc, your calcium, and so forth, and they keep them in a plant available form that's not water soluble, so they're not leached out of the ground. And so good farmers build these big tertiary structures, and they do it because they're rotational grazing, they're doing it because they're ejecting the the last 50 years of chemical and and uh anyway. So I tell that story, and people take that away, and then sometimes they come back to me and sometimes they you know they think and you start the process, but you could just do it one person at a time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 33:30

I I mean, I'm I'm excited. I remember when I first did my first uh ecology, uh it was a dairy farmers, we we put it together, we brought a brought a fellow down, this is in 1994, to do a uh dairy farmers and managers ecological farming course. And I remember looking at the um the antagonisms of all the different soil microbes and the soil uh chemicals, and I was, you know, this hadn't been taught to me. Um and what what I'm hearing there, and and and maybe lock it yourself, is is this this journey, unlocking this sort of biological, ecological um sophistication is just a it you you can get enthralled by by the opportunity that it presents for you. You do you have the same sort of you know, like in terms of, you know, you can sort of look at um the naysayers and get get sort of swallowed in that, or you can look at this sort of opportunity in farming in such a sophisticated way.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Yeah, and I think, you know, uh like uh I remember as a kid you'd follow Will and Dad around and they'd be you know looking at the manure of of of cattle and you know looking digging up soil and smelling it and stuff, and you think, you know, has this guy gone crazy or what? But um I think it's the the holistic thing of just the whole ecosystem. We don't look at at any sort of uh any plant on on our farm as a weed, you know. There's there's a there's a place for all these different species, and um, you know, whether the cattle eat them or not, you know, it it can create a habitat or something would live off off that that what people call weed. So um yeah, uh it that just a more biodiversity and and whatever you can have on your farm is you know not only good for the environment, but it's it's good for good for your mind and your and your soul. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 35:23

Yeah, wonderful. Um I'll just do a a poll now because there's pit loads of farmers in the room. So um those that think because I heard a great statistic from the Kiwi Dairy Farmers today, um, which I'll raise after this, but he but um in uh nitrogen in the air, who put your hand up if you think it's uh less than 20% in in the atmosphere that we that's right here that uh that we breathe in and breathe out. Who thinks it's let's put your hand up if you think it's less than 20% of nitrogen in the air? Um less than 50%? Uh yeah, right. One less than less than 77%? Above 77%. Woo-hoo, we've got a bloody educated drive here. So 78% of the air is nitrogen. And the greatest thing today, the New Zealand Kiwi farmer said that um the slime on a worm, and he's got he he's focused on these worms, that um anyway he said the slime on a worm is 48% nitrogen. Isn't that an amazing you know statistic?

SPEAKER_08 36:25

So the thing I love about nitrogen. So sorry to jump on uh I'm not sentence snipping there, but uh the the carbon to nitrogen ratio of that that fungi and bacteria is one to one. And the protozoa have a carbon to nitrogen ratio of five to one. So if you can imagine protozoa or amoeba or something swallowing some bacteria, if they swallow five bacteria, they take the carbon from all of them, but they only need the nitrogen from one of them. So they poop the nitrogen to use a really technical term out of the the other four. So if you've got protozoa in your soil, you are never ever short of nitrogen. You are never short of nitrogen. So you have uh a lush amount of nitrogen in your soil. So all you have to do is fix your soil biology to have ample nitrogen at any point in time.

SPEAKER_09 37:16

Yeah, it's amazing. Right, yo, um time for QA. Um we've got a microphone over here. Uh, if you've been prepping your questions, um uh go for it. Who have we got a question from?

SPEAKER_04 37:28

Uh Tony Thompson's my name from Burke, up in Western New South Wales, so slightly different environment to what we're dealing with here. Um but you know, very interesting stuff and great to see the work that you're doing. In you know, I came down here trying to understand soil carbon a little better and just understand the opportunities that might be in that space. And um interested that you guys who are doing such great work and obviously sequestering carbon, but I didn't hear anyone talk about uh a soil carbon project, and I'm in interested to know why that that may be something that you haven't taken on, um, because it appears to me to be an opportunity that uh farmers like yourselves should be able to benefit from.

SPEAKER_08 38:11

Okay. D do you know my brother, Gary, lives out at Wanaring? Okay, never mind. Well, we we're identical twins, but uh he's 14 years older than me, and uh and he weighs about 140 kilos on a good day, and uh and anyway, but some people know him out there. Um so it's a it's a good question, and we're undertaking uh uh trying to get registered for a CR with the CR carbon the clean energy regulator for uh for a planting project, but that's carbon with trees and others involved with uh him or her or whatever it's called projects out there, yeah. But um the soil is a is a good one, and a lot of our soils have already got carbon in them, but there's a lot more opportunity. But the process of actually getting registered is is just just sort of does my head in, and I'm reasonably okay with complexity, but it is a it is a tough business. But it absolutely, absolutely should be. Most Australian soils were somewhere between 7 and 15 percent uh carbon, uh and now are under 1% ag land. So there's a huge opportunity for us all to benefit from sequestering the carbon because we benefit from it. We end up with better cation exchange capacity, more fertile soils, but uh soils that absorb water, that better infiltration rate, all of those benefits, but we can also get paid, paid for it. So we we have to do it, but it's it's not easy, and that's why there's a lot of snake oil salesmen. I shouldn't say that, no. There's a lot of people out there who taking a percentage for organizing it because it is a bloody process to get it done, you know. It's uh it's a lot of work. And I I I think that that's the biggest problem is that barrier to entry is just the complexity and the cost in getting projects registered and then capitalizing on them. But um I'm not sure about out in your part of the world how that goes. Oh, I I think I I think I was talking to Adriana uh yeah, yeah, and she told me that's right, you you're a friend of mine, and she said I needed about 500 hectares to make it work issued from from memory where we are, and so we can potentially do that, but you you've got to plot every tree, you've got to plot every every um it's so much tough to write down because you they if they give you a point and that's over the top of a trough or a shed or a pipe in the ground, then that you're meant to drill to the millimeter on that spot. So you've got to have all of that stuff plotted out. So it's a bloody big job getting it all prepared.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

But yeah, I suppose from our from our business point of view, we were very close to signing up to a project about four or five years ago. Um and in the time where we were doing all the background research and and due diligence on it, um, just the the metrics and uh methodology of of how it was measured was changing constantly, you know. Um and and so we we we got sort of scared you're signing up to a contract for a hundred years and and and they actually didn't know what we were signing up for, so how we're meant to have any any faith in it. But um personally, you know, this is my opinion and and and it may uh may spark debate, but personally I think it I can see a world where um you know we're gonna need to have our own keep those carbon credits to to gain market access. Um that's that's my personal take on it, and uh I think uh it's it's important to know your baseline um and and have those records, but yeah, I I just got a hundred years of a long time and I I wasn't prepared to sign up back then.

SPEAKER_06 42:16

Uh Mark from Badella here, uh fellow Weirdo. Um great presentation, uh covered some great points. Uh look, I too have had plenty of these uh, you know, put your tinfoil hat on kind of conversations with uh both peers, people I respect, and people I have challenged challenging conversations with. Um, you know, we're moving into a space where you know this kind of stuff's more and more relevant and we're in the box seat to uh you know deliver these things that we've learnt. Uh in your experiences, what's been uh the biggest kind of breakthrough and you know, the method of conversation, you know, and and and sharing this in your experience?

SPEAKER_08 42:56

But I think don't ch challenge them to bring a bottle of OP rum and meet me in the pub uh car park, you know, and let's sort it this out. But you've you've just got to keep going back to them with data and facts and and just you know, if they say there's no climate change, just say, okay, we'll hop onto this website, have a read of this, you know, and then say, Oh, it's only done on concrete or something, you know, and and and there's a refutation for anything to do with with with climate change. And um if they want to know how things work, just keep keep talking, keep letting them know what the possibilities are, uh what the benefits are, and and don't don't yeah, I I think I think there's people in land care we used to have a graph that had, I think, motivation and ability or something like that. And there's people in one quadrant who are never ever going to do anything. And I used to you know spend too much of a time trying to convince people to go and get off the backside and do something. And you're better off focusing on the other, you know, 80 plus per percent of the population. So Uh someone talked about peer group pressure will be what what drives people. And I think that, you know, things like land care itself was all about peer group pressure, you know, when it started. It was uh it wasn't necessarily that people desperately want to go out and plant natives, but they saw all the other people that they knew doing it, or a majority of them, and there was this pressure to get involved. So um I I think that we just have to keep having the conversations. Um I've got a friend who when he introduces me to speak, he says this is Vincent. He's um he's involved in this freaked out hippie chip with how he describes biodynamics. And uh, you know, uh uh there was a time where I wanted to arc up and you know put him right and I I just you know, you just uh suggest that you haven't got your tie-dye t-shirt with you and you've grown your hair since the last full moon and um you know I'm not I'm not nude because it's not midnight and move on. So um what what do you do?

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Yeah, I think it's um it is. It's not you just gotta be careful that you're not sort of being too out there and and whatever, but you know, I think uh Vince said, like the the the data validation part of it now is is a lot easier to explain what you're doing. Like I had uh uh last spring I had a group of really conventional top cropping farmers come around on a bus and come around to uh you know and do a tour around the farm and and uh you know they've got a spreading up to half a ton of urea on their crops, you know, a hectare a year. And and I started talking to them about the results we're seeing in just a s single application of worm juice on our crops. And I would have had, you know, there were there was 20, 20 blokes on the bus, and at least six of them rang me the next day and said, can we come and have a look what you you know at your farms and that? So you know, it's and that wasn't, you know, I wasn't sprooking what we're doing. I was uh we're we're an open book, you know, we've got no secrets to hide. So it's just inviting them in if they want to, if they want to find out more, they'll come to you. And if they don't, well, so be it. But you keep on your journey and yeah.

SPEAKER_08 46:15

Yeah, I I just gonna say that there was a researcher called John Phillips at La Trobe University. So I'm not big on Victoria, but somewhere in Victoria, and he did a paired study looking at water infiltration rates. So water infiltration rates are invariably reflect soil structure, so how much carbon you've got in the soil and what the structure is, the ability for that water to go in. And he looked at biodynamic farms and conventional farms. So I often quote that because he found that a biodynamic farm and a neighboring conventional farm, that the biodynamic farms on average had 13 times the rate of water infiltration on those farms as opposed to the conventional farms next door. So they were able to capture that water. What they did with it was up to them, but you know, it just it's just one point of difference. But it it might be enough to make people think. So you just gotta keep giving them something to go away and chew on draw or hello.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Um Athena from Winchell Sea. Um, if we go back a little bit to the transition from conventional farming to regenerative, um, can you talk a little bit more about whether I know that Lockie, you mentioned you went cold turkey, or at least your father and Will did, um the transition and how the soil or the earth recovered and if there was a lag period and how you sort of dealt with that in both mindset and also what you applied to the soil.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Yeah, so um I mean I was I was young, but uh from what we what I've seen, what I saw and what talking to Will and Dad, you know, it wasn't it wasn't a quick fix, you know. Obviously you you've got to build up that soil biology, you know, up after you take away these synthetics. So um yeah, it it it was a slow burn and at times you question whether we were on the right path. But um over time you just sort of gradually saw that um you know the landscape was looking healthier, the plants were responding and holding on and long uh holding on longer, and you know, in turn the the the livestock were looking healthier and happier, you know. Um just allowing, you know, going from that set stocking method of you know grazing grazing it all down to an inch of its life to to giving it adequate rest times and um you know we're constantly adapted our grazing methods and um you know we're we're not going back every every graze and like doing the same thing, taking it back to the same level, we're going back in, you know, um one and smashing it down one one graze and then give it a good rest, and then the next time we might just be in there for you know a day or so or two days and then and then move them on. It just depends, you know, w at what stage of that growing season it is. But yeah, you don't see the the effects of this this system uh straight away, that's for sure. It's uh yeah, sometimes it's a fair bit of self-doubt and whatever. But um, yeah, once once it starts humming, it's you know, it's rewarding. And I think I think you know, you as farmers, you we can get hung up in all the benchmarking data and you know, oh they they're getting X amount of tons per hectare or or whatever, but it'll it we we should be quoting it in gross margins. Um, you know, like from a cropping perspective, you know, you get all your mates, oh yeah, no, we're getting eight tonnes of wheat and whatever, and I'm like, well, yeah, you might be getting eight ton of wheat, but how much is that eight tonne costing you? And uh so I think you know, you the whole system, you've got to be comfortable in it, b be profitable in it. Otherwise, you know, you you fall out the back door pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

Um I noticed difference straight away with it all. Um we had merino sheep, so they used to die a little bit. Um then Richard Richard knew that I was really keen on cattle when I first arrived there. So he sort of backed me in and Richard uh locky's dad. Yeah. And um, and so we set about setting all the fences. So we spent all the money that we would have spent on fertiliser and obviously spraying thistles and all that sort of thing, just on fencing and and water. Um and we set it all up, not knowing much. Like we had a we had a textbook from the RCS course and whatever, um, and set it up how we best thought, and there was a few problems like animals busting through tapes and all that sort of thing. And we've just sort of refined it over the years and just sort of actually just created paddocks, and waters aren't that expensive, troughs aren't that expensive. Um and uh it's just evolved right through. Um and and I saw changes because we did plant a lot of trees and flowering shrubs and that sort of thing. Um, a lot more sort of insects and uh and animals coming back into the system. It was pretty sterile at one stage. You can imagine plains with no trees and just phalaris growing. Um it's a lot more life being brought back, so it's a nice environment to work. And lock used to help us a lot when our kids I I'll just quickly answer that.

SPEAKER_08 51:42

So I I I remember my father was still on the farm until about 2004, so only there on the farm for a couple of years. And I I wouldn't say he was uh a vocal vocal um uh uh opponent of what I was doing. He was really supportive in the sense of do what you want to do type thing. Uh but he did say to me at one stage, I'd you know, it was early days, and I'd done something in the paddock directly behind where his chooks were at home, and so he'd go down and let the chooks out every morning. And he said to me, he said, you know, I'd obviously been putting out biodynamic preps on that paddock, and it had a very different structure to the plants, and uh he could see growth there. And he said, you know, there's something, there's something in this. And it's uh it might sound like not a great sort of comment, but it for me it was very gratifying because this was a man who'd followed the consultants who'd told him the you use Colin Sice's words, the moron approach, more more fertilizer, more chemical, the moron approach. And uh so he was from that part of town, if you like. And so for him to say that there's something in this was was very gratifying. But it is hard those first few years. And for me, I think uh unfortunately we stayed in sheep, we weren't smart enough to get out and that cattle. But uh I um I think the hardest thing is getting rid of the genetics that aren't adapted to a non-chemical world, because a lot of the genetics, particularly in sheep, are uh you prop them up by giving them dentures, chemical drenches all the time. And then when you whip the crutch out from underneath them, funnily enough, they fall flat on their faces. And merinos have got a you know a fully signed death certificate when they're born. But but even even crossbred sheep don't like, you know, that don't like worms. And so um you've just got to keep being being absolutely you know ruthless with culling, and you're taking sort of 40% of your breeding stock every year until you get cheap that have got a good immune system. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Oh, goody, thank you. Um when any of the weirdos here, I always think, and you're battling against it. I'm one too, but I always remember something that Albert Einstein said great spirits will always encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds. So just don't worry about them. But my question is at what stage did your ecological literacy start expanding? And with that expansion of vocabulary and words, were you able to think of more and bigger and different ideas about your land, your place, what was happening there, and then what could happen, because you had new words in your vocabularies to describe it or imagine it.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

Yeah, so I I mean I'm I'm no scientist or whatever, but you know, you you do um you know it you're always learning things about about the biology and psychology of our system. So you know, I um I I think if you get the the the basic understanding of it all and then start building on it and and knowing what can actually work for you, what can feed your system. Um, you know, for us it's it's all about trying to um feed our system using the plants and and getting species in there and really, you know having as many species as we can, um, you know, to feed the soil, then in turn, you know, it's feed for the cattle. But um I don't know if that really answers your question, but uh yeah, I'm no scientist and I I uh understand the the the basis of how it all works, so it's then how can we challenge that system by you know using worm juices or whatever it is to to get it really humming. Yeah, and I suppose you know for me I'll I grew up with it, um, but it's not something you go to uni to you know, i in in my like in a in a farm management uh course or a uh you know, you you it it hasn't well in my time it wasn't taught, so yeah, you know, it's uh yeah, but definitely definitely changed and it's changing within my peers now too. They're starting to understand a bit, you know, and and unfortunately probably part of that is due to the fact that you know uh they're being forced to change in one way or another, whether it's red tape or you know, um you know access to to synthetics. But um yeah, um it it I think it there's plenty more to play out and it's exciting for for us weirdos to uh to have you know to be at the forefront, I suppose.

SPEAKER_08 57:01

Yeah, look, I I think all our dreams can come true if we've got the courage to pursue them. And uh and and I often I don't I'm gonna invoke Ned Kelly here because I'm in Victoria. And uh I I think if you could go back, I don't know, 300, 400 years and talk to one of your ancestors, that they would be have a Ned Kelly view of the world. And before you start to think that they're they're Irish and you're Maltese or Egyptian or something else, what I'm talking about is Ned Kelly had this hat with a with this little thin visor. And so he could see sort of to the top of the next hill, and he could see small stuff to the point where his eyesight could see small stuff, and he looked up and he could see stars, and that was that was what he knew. So it was what he could experience it that way. And we're in a very different spot. You know, we we know that those stars are billions of kilometers away, light years away. Uh, we know what they are, and we know all sorts of things about what's in the soil. I'm talking about protozoa. I've never seen a protozoa with my eyes. I've seen it with an electron microscope up at uh the University in Lismore. But you you you you these aren't things that my ancestors could ever have had. And so we don't have those visors that that narrow our view. But a lot of our neighbors, uh uh, the other farmers, are still seeing things through this narrowness, blinkered, maybe. And so when you talk to them about soil, they think that soil is accounting. They they think that their accountant and their agronomist is the same person just with with uh different officers. You know, that if you if your phosphorus levels are low, then like a bank, you go and throw a bit more in and you top it up and away you go. They have no sense of that 13 times the body weight of their sheep and cattle living under the ground. So we have to find the ways to talk about what we've got and where we can go.

SPEAKER_09 59:00

Thanks. Thanks, Vince. Um, to finish off with, if you don't mind us extending the session a little bit more, I'll finish on a high note because uh um I've been working with a group of farmers up in the trap rock plains to increase their woody boss woody box brush lands. Um they all all they had to get was two metres high and at least 20% of the property. Um, and uh we went and visited them. And uh these are hardcore, the trap rock plains. Who's who knows about the trap rock plains? It's it's it's pretty tough country, and the farmers are pretty tough and pretty conventional. And these farmers, uh, when we visited, so they had um, you know, more coals, more koalas, um, less impact from frost, uh, native grasses, the the the weed that would get in through the sheep's skin and into the wool, um, just didn't just weren't around anymore, just all sorts of things. And um, but they wouldn't, you know, they they were sort of uh uh on this journey of ecological literacy, and they said to um, and I said to what how would you describe yourself as farmers? Two brothers they were. And they both turned around. I was with um um Warty, and Warty had never asked this question because he was there with them at the start, and they both described themselves as now um happy landscape farmers. Wardie fell over. He couldn't believe these hardcore farmers uh through this through this aspect. So I'd love to just finish off with the well-being aspect. You know, how does this make you farming in this way?

SPEAKER_08 1:00:22

What, you know, what's what's the we've got a project with Warty, uh Carbon Farmers. Uh what is it called? Regen Farmers Mutual, yeah. Okay. So but um look, uh uh I I've I've had I've had issues with mental health. I I think it's important to put my hand up and acknowledge that. And those people who heard me talking about my mother would say, oh, it's genetic, and no, no, no, no. It's not all genetic, it's a bit of mine as well. But I I think that there's something really reassuring about being able to walk out where you've made a difference in the landscape, see these changes, suddenly see birds arrive, see animals there that weren't there before, see health in the soil and healthy sheep, and um and it makes a difference in your world. And I I think it probably keeps me alive, you know. So um uh I can't I can't I can't stress that enough. It's a bit hard to put a number on or to to to quantify, but it's definitely uh it's a different way. I feel like I belong, I I belong to the country rather than the country belongs to me, and uh that I play my role there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Yeah, and I think um, you know, on that, like every part of our farm, you know, you get a diff this different aspect. Like back in back before we started planting trees and that, it was, you know, it was just a bare landscape more or less with a few cypress cypress hedges. And um, you know, so we've just gone through two of our probably worst years on record in terms of um uh the dry and and uh in our area. And you know, yep, while the pastures weren't green and whatever, you still had the the the life in the trees are green, the trees and the bird life and that sort of stuff. So, you know, it is it's definitely a lot nicer place to to be than just an open plane of you know where the wind's blowing dust across the across the plains and whatever.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:20

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

Um yeah, I mean uh I I get a lot of enjoyment driving around, whether it's dry or or or wet. So um just a quick one. If anyone's interested in this seeing the soil key, just a reminder, at two o'clock there's going to be a demonstration up the hill. Um pretty cool, uh cool to think to have a look at.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:40

So um thanks. Put your hands together for for vintage locking. That was absolutely tremendous. Thanks so much, Colin.