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We're going behind the scenes to see and understand modern agriculture, because no matter whether you're in it or not, you probably don't know all the pieces to just how incredible, diverse and multi-layered agriculture is. We do this by uncovering the real stories, experiences and voices of modern agriculture.
Oli Le Lievre 0:00
Welcome back to the humans of agriculture podcast today we've got someone who quite a few people in industry would be familiar with a specialist have done a Nuffield Scholarship. She's the CEO of Nuffield, Australia and Nuffield globally. Jody Radcliffe, looking at your career, you've done quite a few different things you've, you've really focused in and around the chicken meat industry, a lot of fun factors will go in that you can speak Japanese and fluently. And that was how you managed to become the foundation host for the Global Focus programme in Japan. And I think, for us, God, humans about how we became involved as, as part of this exposure that I had for years known and seen people who have done Nuffield scholarships, and then the opportunity chatting through different scholars to go well, what about if we just grab a handful of scholars from over the years and share their stories, and I think they've been some of our best performing episodes. It's amazing. The likes of Fritz Bolton and his life up in Canada are how that's connected people. There has been a real focus, and I guess tie back to Zimbabwe, so we're going a little bit away here. But how did you get involved in Nuffield?
Speaker 1 1:02
Thanks, Ali. I'm pleased to finally pin me down to do this. I got involved with mafia because Wayne and I were family. So when it's my husband, I tend to reference him quite a bit. Because we do things together, including that field. And we were farming out a chicken farm, we were going to go through the process of succession with Wayne's mum and dad. And the bank manager that we had at the time, who was our other bank manager said, Have you ever heard of Nuffield? And I hadn't, and looked it up. And the kids were little. We've got three kids who are now 3229 and 26. So time flies, I thought there's no way I could do enough here with the the kids being little and leaving wine at home with farm and the kids. So I shelved the idea, but just thought it was so so interesting. And then about must have been nine years later, Jim gelt who was CEO of of Nuffield, Australia at the time, turned up at our chicken growers conference, which was every two years, and I was introduced to him so because by that time, I was doing a lot of work with the chicken Growers Association. And I said, Ah, Nuffield, you know, I learned about that from Robert 10 years ago. And he said, Well, it's never too late. I said, I'm too old. He said, No, here we go. So I did, I had to go. And by then the kids were teenagers. So they were able to kind of look after themselves, and certainly look after wine for me. And he goes, What are you doing? What I said, don't worry. I like it. It's fine. And of course, then I did, which could have blown me over knock me down with a feather so to speak.
Oli Le Lievre 2:32
He told me a few weeks, fine, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 2:34
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of spouses saying that. And
Oli Le Lievre 2:38
a lovely time to school holidays or something?
Speaker 1 2:40
You know, it is, it's a lot. We know that it's a lot to go away from your farm and your family and your business for, for what is in total, somewhere between 14 and 16 weeks don't have to do it all at once, which is great. But it forces you to think about what you're doing and why you're doing it, which is it's a double edged sword. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's not so good. And
Oli Le Lievre 3:01
I think so in Sarah CVS episode, she talked about how it actually set our business up for the future of where it would be in a few years because it taught her that she couldn't do everything day to day and she actually had to delegate and manage people, and all that sort of kind of like an accelerated, I guess, process to future proofing your business as well.
Speaker 1 3:17
Absolutely. We sort of already had a bit of that philosophy with the Chalk Farm. So we were broiler chicken growers. And we did go through secession with one's own dad. So we've had it for a long time. And we always felt as the same for all farms. If you're still at home, you worry. Or you're thinking about your business a whole time. It's only when you get away that you've got a bit of space, mentally, either to get away or to think about your business and so nothing that's one of the tenants of nothing and you've got to get away to learn more about what you do at home.
Oli Le Lievre 3:48
Totally. It's the same with any business. Let's jump back early is Jody, tell me a little bit about if you think back to your earliest memory of agriculture, what is it and why is this industry so important to
Speaker 1 3:59
earliest memory of agriculture is feeding pedicabs on past dairy farm. I had a dairy farm just on the Queensland New South Wales border. He was at Kalani and my dad grew up there one of six and that was always with family holidays where we didn't live there because dad had joined a DPI so the Department of Primary Industries in Queensland when he got out of getting the Ag college, so we've moved around the state of Queensland. And when I was young, we lived on a little pig farm out there Kingaroy because that was extension officer for pig and poultry. He actually liked pigs a lot more than poultry. And then ironically, I married a chuck farmer, which kinda was a little weird to begin with. So that's one of my earliest memories. So that would always be at home at the dairy farm helping out it was only a small dairy and there was never enough there to split between all the brothers so dad went off and made his own way in agriculture. And I guess that was also a philosophy that we carried through to our kids so none of our kids are farming with us. Now we've said to them, you can find your own way in the world. And if you want to be farmers, we'll talk about it sometime in the future. That time hasn't come yet. I don't know if it's coming or not. But yeah, so that was sort of my earliest memory of egg. I met him and I was pretty young and he's third generation took farmers so his grandfather had emigrated out from Wales and had a small poultry farm and abattoir on the southside of Brisbane, back in the day, we read Lambay, which was kind of country back then. Then his dad had had a trade. And then when Wayne was 13, got back into chickens. So actually went on a family holiday to Victoria visited cousins who had a Chalk Farm, came back to Queensland and applied to to get a broiler licence, which is kind of how you do it in the broiler industry can't just start a farm, you've got to have a contract. So that was when Wayne was 13. I met Wayne when he was 18. We grew up together essentially on the chicken farm while I was studying at uni, I studied psych, and Japanese. So by that stage, I lived in Japan for 12 months after high school. And for a long time, it was just a bit of a party trick, really not all that useful. I did a bit of teaching while the kids were little after school tuition in Japanese, and then did my Nuffield and it kind of all Yeah, it came together. It's crazy. Why'd
Oli Le Lievre 6:18
you end up in Japan? What was it that drew that? Well, the
Speaker 1 6:21
reason I ended up in Japan was at the time, mum and dad were in North Queensland. So dad was working on the curio research station up on the table and mum and dad is still up there. They just love North Queensland. And I was at a local high school effort and high and it's had a really big rotary exchange programme. The year before I went, the girl in town went to Finland. And I was adamant I want to go to Finland because apparently it's one of the world's hardest languages to learn. I just wanted to go somewhere that didn't speak English identitarian all through school, because up there, there's a big Italian population. And my time wasn't too bad. But I didn't get my first choice of Finland. I got my second choice of Japan. And third choice was Brazil. Excellent. So yeah, I ended up in Japan, I'd done six weeks of lessons before I left. And this is back. We're going back aways, because I'm 57 now so it's actually 40 years ago. It was before it was before Google long way before Google, it was before electronic dictionaries. So I was homesick, you know in a homestay and we would just literally sit around the table for dinner, flicking through the dictionary trying to work out what it was we were trying to say. So the first three months was really, really tough. But it's the best way to learn. So yeah, I was determined to learn another language because it just fascinates me that people can. Because language is so much caught up in the culture replays. If you if you don't know a bit of the language, you can understand the culture.
Oli Le Lievre 7:42
Yeah. And I've found getting away from well, I just feel so when I've gone on holidays or looking for kind of a cultural expense. If you go to English speaking countries, it's really hard. Like, it's so easy to feel like, oh, maybe I'm just in another part of home. When I went to Japan earlier this year, it was like, wow, okay, the culture shocks there. You are like the little fish again?
Speaker 1 8:04
Yeah, I just noticed that actually in South America. So why don't I just come back from travelling with the scholars. So we've had the contemporary scholars conference in Brazil. And then after that, we went down to Argentina to see a scholar, and then over to Chile to catch up with all the Chilean scholars. And it was back to hang on a minute, I can't understand anything that these people are saying. And does anybody speak English? Like you just get so lazy in Europe now that everybody can speak English? And it's, it's bad for us because we do get lazy. And you're right. We don't experience that culture shock as much as we used to, and, and even Japan, in the 10 years that we've been going there now. So this is actually our 10th year of taking the scholars. So we've worked out it's over 100 scholars from six or seven different countries, I reckon, back 10 years ago, the amount of English that was spoken just on the street and in the shops was far less than now. Great for the Japanese, but it's progress. I shouldn't complain. It's actually good. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 9:02
You talk about I guess, understanding the language. I can not speak in the language. My last name is French. And that's about as far as I get into speaking any other language
Speaker 1 9:10
I just didn't Well can pronounce your last name? Well, I
Oli Le Lievre 9:14
don't even think we've pronounced it properly. I think it's Lily have but we say leave. But foods, the other thing which is so intertwined, and so different, and also identifies with culture, like what has that opportunity to travel and tie it back into that Japanese experience? Did you did you see agriculture and that influence colour popping up? Yeah,
Speaker 1 9:33
I suppose I should explain a little bit because I've been in Japan, and then did my Nuffield scholarship and then said to Jim, when I presented in Tasmania in 2014, so Exactly 10 years ago. So why don't we take the scholars to Japan, it's our biggest trading partner. Our agriculture is so important to them, and then to their food culture, because they're using our commodities in their foods. And he said, Well, we don't have anybody that could take a tour. Could you take a tour? And at that stage, I lived Leaney nothing about Japanese agriculture. So why did I back have a serviette? At lunch that day we wrote down sucker comes from Rice wagyu Fisher sashimi. So we wrote down all these foods that are so sort of iconic to Japan, which ties into agriculture. Because the other thing I like to say is culture is in the word agriculture. He say, you can't disconnect the two. And, and it's really great to see over the years that we are making much better progress in connecting food to agriculture, which didn't used to happen, particularly here in Australia, we're still so much of a commodity producer that, you know, I remember when when I travelled on my GFP. So my global focus programme, which was in 2013, one of the producers on the tour said, Well, this is great, we're seeing all this value adding and niche marketing, but we're too far away from our markets, you know, you look at our contemporary scholars conference was in Guelph, which is just up near the Canadian border near Toronto, and their market within two hours takes in New York. So they've got a market of like 25 million people within two hours of them. So within two hours of me, I'm lucky where we are, we've got Brisbane, but you think of all the farms in Australia, two hours from which we might have a market of what 1000 People is very different. So we've always thought, Okay, we've you know, commodity based, we've got to produce, as well as we can like it sufficiently we can and look to the world to be our market, in that sense has been great for us because we are very much export orientated. And we understand the importance of trade. But in some ways, it's sort of blinded us to what we can do locally. So local food systems and low food miles. And those types of concepts have been a bit slow. I think for Australia.
Oli Le Lievre 11:49
You I think that's a challenge for us, isn't it because at the end of the day, like with this, someone was talking about recently, and they weren't referring to Australia as a country that referred to Australia as a continent just because of on this continent, we have 25 million people. But on this content we continent, we're mad at like 55% of it is managed through agriculture, like it's, it's huge. And it's so different and unique to other parts of the world, because the populations are just huge.
Speaker 1 12:15
Yeah, that's right. And if you think about the numbers of environments that we're managing, under that 55% In other countries, they would be whole different countries. So you might have the country of North Queensland, we've wanted to secede for a long time. That's Tropical Agriculture. And that's so different to Victorian dairy, which would be another country in Europe, for sure. Go look at the size of Europe, compared to Australia. How many times does Europe fit into Australia? Quite a few. Yeah,
Oli Le Lievre 12:42
absolutely. Well, let's focus on your career, yours. And why inside? And then I think let's jump into the novel. So for you guys, 27 years running the broiler business, you raise the family? Look, what was that industry? Like? And I guess it's one, which has been, I'd say fairly, probably misunderstood by people. But it has, it's it's one of these industries from a protein that has just kept accelerating in terms of human consumption.
Speaker 1 13:07
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of good things about the broiler industry. And there's a lot of things that aren't so great. And we'd been out long enough. So we've been in it for quite some time. And then we decided that in order to really understand the industry, we needed to get involved in the associations that were working in the industry, because it's, it's a vertically integrated industry. So the only part and the world over it's virtually identical, the only part of the chain that is usually often sometimes independent is the grower portion of it. So the companies will own the breeder stock, they'll own the hatcheries. And then the chickens come to the growers. And then at the other end, the companies will supply the labour to catch the chickens, and then the abbatoirs, they'll also own the feed mills, generally speaking, and the supply chain, then, you know, goes off. So it was kind of it used to just be like, we'll do our job. And don't worry about the rest. That works if everybody's kind of on the same page. But like a lot of agriculture very much where a price taker, the thing that made it more difficulty is that the processes know the inputs into the system. And so the price is very much controlled, and they're not in it to be altruistic. So they're not in it to make sure the girl was making as much profit as possible. It's the capitalist system. So the processes are to make as much profit as they can and further down the chain, the supermarkets in it to make as much profit as they can and that's getting a lot of interest at the moment. The good things about that is that it's very much it's very attractive to bankers who are going to lend you money because it's a capital intensive system. So broilers are grown in sheds very similar again the world over in terms of size and, and the technology that's in them, but it's capital intensive that we borrowers are responsible for that. They're also responsible for the inputs, electricity, gas, labour, water, as well. So there's a lot of things that that you're beholden to. And for that reason can be difficult to feel like you've got a bit of ownership of your destiny. So yeah, so when I got involved with the industry, by the time we left the industry, which is 2016, I'd been a delegate for about 10 years, or delegate for the chicken Growers Association in Queensland and then had ended up as President of the Australian gene Growers Association. And it was a lot of work. But but you know, I did it because I was interested in the industry, I wanted to see the growers do well. But by the time we'd finished, the reason that we got out of the industry, it was, it was just it was too much for both of us. We'd gotten to the stage where in agriculture, you always worry about things worry about the weather with chickens, you worry about extreme heat. And we were always worried about water as well, because we weren't on a town water supply. So we were always hoping the next cyclone was going to roll through Southeast Queensland to fill up the dams. And we'd seen Wayne's dad go through it years before we it mentally, he couldn't cope anymore with farming. And it was to do with water stress, the thing that he was fixated on was whether we were going to have enough water to continue the farm. And we've grown the farm over the years, we've put that you put everything in place that you can to mitigate any things that might go wrong. But we got to the stage where I can see it, I could see that the mental stress of working with the growers and taking on their problems. And then for weighing the mental stress of worrying about the birds and the heat in the water was getting to both of us. And when one strong and the others not you can help each other. But when both of us were feeling it for different reasons. It was yeah, it was really hard. And we were in fee negotiations with our processor. And 10 days for Christmas in 2016. It must have been someone from our processor rang and said that they wouldn't be renewing our contract. So we were in a situation where suddenly what I was doing with the chicken Growers Association, in representing the growers was directly affecting our farming future. And that was just awful. They called up and change their mind two days for Christmas. But we'd sold within six months, it was just too much. So you know, that was the really bad thing about the industry. From our point of view, we just didn't want to be in it anymore. And by then I'd done my Nuffield, I probably had sort of, I guess, more understanding of agriculture as a whole. Because I think when I went away on my Nuffield, I knew a bit about Chuck's been not much about anything else. And doing enough yield makes you think about the big picture and, and your place in it and what you want to do with your life.
Oli Le Lievre 17:51
Thank you so much for sharing. And I'm interested like because because you talked about, I guess that the industry role, like giving back to the industry was actually detrimental to the family business. And I guess I look at some of my mates and things like that. And I kind of go well, like there's this bigger conversation, which is affecting and impacting your future, but you're so tied into your day to day that you're not actually having an opportunity to influence that or impact that. And maybe you're not even privy to the information that's kind of coming from that. So from where you sit, what is the role? And how does that differ? And can they kind of coexist? Or do they kind of sit on opposite ends of the scale? No,
Speaker 1 18:29
no, they should coexist? Absolutely. It was just that, you know, that particular scenario for us was negative, but it doesn't always have to be negative. And the reason we got into that representational space, because when was the delegate for I was and then I took it on, was that we wanted to know more about our industry. And the only way you can know more is get outside your own farm gate. And that's where industry rolls and then also advocacy roles. Because when I did the time of doing my Nuffield was actually the time when RSPCA was moving into the chicken industry as in the processes of the retailers had decided that RSPCA was going to be a good thing for the industry. And then the processes took it on. But then it was the farmers that had to implement the changes to the to the sheds. And then you know, there was a whole third party audit system that got put in place for us. So there were all those things that were happening at the time. And the only way for us to understand that better was actually to be involved with it. So you know those things should absolutely happen. And it means that when you're in a room and my current bugbears, we should be doing this garden globally. If you're in a room of global policymakers, there is nothing better than you being able to speak from your personal experience in farming for them to sit up and listen. It doesn't happen overnight. There's nothing also worse than policy because it's a big machine and the cogs turn very very slowly. But farmers are the ones that should be there and and affecting policy. Yeah,
Oli Le Lievre 19:58
I guess one other so it's something that I guess I've become a little bit curious. Well, yeah curious about. We did a video last year where we actually went with RSPCA to go and have a look at what the differences are like what when you go behind higher animal welfare chicken family, what does it look like from freerange versus Barbara is and I think it was so interesting for me to look at, I'll say free range probably from my perception as a consumer wasn't as good as what I thought it was. And bomb Rage was actually really impressive, like the sophistication and how they were able to run that was really interesting, with hindsight have have systems like that RSPCA P has been good for the sector. Or
Speaker 1 20:37
with hindsight, I would say the RSPCA regulations or guidelines or guidelines, because they were voluntary. The guidelines weren't as big as the changes we thought they were going to be. There was some cost involved some capital costs, and the process didn't help us with that with our process it did anyway. So I guess for me, the lesson out of that was actually the change is always scary. And it doesn't have to be, because it wasn't as difficult as we thought it was going to be. And it didn't make as much of a difference as we thought it was going to both to, to our farm management and then to the animal welfare of the chuck. Because animal welfare of chickens is very, very good anyway, we always say that if we weren't doing a good job, we wouldn't be making money. And that argument is, is a good argument. The trouble is it doesn't hold water for animal activists, it's not enough to say that, look, if the birds weren't healthy or happy in inverted commas, you know, we wouldn't be making as much income as we should, that doesn't work. So you've still got to prove that the animal is is doing well. But because the system is vertically integrated, and the growers are very much part of a system, and you know, we have service people, we have veterinarians, we have a broiler manual that's, you know, this thick, all of that was already in place. So there was not a lot that was going wrong. Of course, in any industry, you're going to have the outliers, and there's always going to be someone at the bottom of the average, that's how averages work, you're going to have a top and a bottom. And the aim is to bring everybody out. The trouble is when you bring everybody up, it just lifts above everybody else, so that it's a constant process of improvement. And that's a good thing. Overall, it just means you can't ever rest on your laurels constantly doing better. In the chicken industry, we always thought that that meant in terms of inputs and input costs, it was always a race to the bottom, we're trying to, you know, cut, cut, cut, cut. I mean, really, it's the same for any agriculture you that's all you can do, you can't often control the price that you're getting at the end, you've got to control the inputs at the start.
Oli Le Lievre 22:46
So you're not focused on consumer perceptions and pressures facing the poultry industry. How did the global perspective I guess, shape and influence what you're seeing kind of back home and then now as well, like in terms of how you look at whether it's the poultry industry or just agriculture generally, it
Speaker 1 23:03
shaped it massively because when I started my topic when I went to Nuffield for my interview was not was nothing to do with consumer perceptions. It was actually I was interested in a better bedding material in the chicken sheds. So we were using sawdust or wood shavings depending on prices. Well, wood shavings in particular is not very absorbent. Wood sawdust is not absorbent shavings in so, you know, I was looking for something that was more absorbent. But turns out that I've figured out pretty quickly after I got my knife out, I thought, Okay, I'm gonna study this, it's whatever you can find that's cost effective to get your farm. And because wood shavings is a high volume product, but low weight, it's really difficult to transport. Well, not difficult. It's expensive to transport. So there was my topic gone. But by the time that I've done my CSM, or contemporary scholars conference on them on global focus programme, so much of what we were seeing was similar, like farmers around the world, we're all complaining about the same things, which is people don't understand what we do. That's a constant conversation still happens now. And sometimes I think, Oh, God, it made absolutely no difference what I studied. But that's not true. It's a constant conversation. And as the world continues, we are getting less and less close to agriculture. So it makes perfect sense that we're still talking about the fact that people don't understand what we do. And we have to do a better job of telling our story. That's, that's par for the course. So yeah, so it was by going around and looking at global agriculture that I changed what I wanted to do my topic on, and as I said, that was an RSPCA was just coming in. So to me, it was vitally important that consumers understood what we were doing, and how do we how do we do that? How
Oli Le Lievre 24:44
often does that happen in our field where people come in with a topic and I think that's probably maybe like, coming with an assumption and then bang, with a little bit of perspective, shift.
Speaker 1 24:56
Happens a lot. It doesn't happen all the time that the topic completely changes But it certainly happens that the topic and what you thought within that topic that you're going to focus on, that changes for sure. The other thing that happens is you learn so much more that you go, Oh, I really want to, you know, go down this path, which is fine. But at the end of the day, we do want to report so to show something, the culmination of what you've done so, so that report is actually such a tiny part of what it is that you learn on your Nuffield, because you learn so much about yourself. It's a personal development thing, because as I said earlier, you know, you, you get that big picture thinking that you can't get staying at home. But you learn really interesting stuff about little bits and pieces, like, you know, you might just be in a dairy farm, but you're looking at the way they roster their staff that you can use for your chicken farm, for example. So there's little things like that, that are never going to make it into your report, but make you a better business person and a better farmer at the end of the day. So yeah, if you knew everything about your topic, you don't need enough yield. Now, the fact that it changes is totally understandable. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 26:00
For people who haven't tuned into our Nuffield series, and and I guess what we've done with shared storage before we haven't actually spelled it out for people. Can you just give us like, what is the elevator pitch? Like if someone says, What is Nuffield Australia? What is Nuffield globally and biases exist? What is it?
Unknown Speaker 26:16
It's incredibly hard to explain in
Oli Le Lievre 26:19
like humans of agriculture to Yeah.
Speaker 1 26:23
Oh, well, it opens a conversation, doesn't it? So that's a good thing. But what Nafion is, it's a programme that offers scholarships to farmers, primary producers, to study abroad, a topic that they're interested in and passionate about. Part of the study is individual. So you go and you study the thing that you're interested in. But the other part of it, that's just as important is group travel that Nuffield organises and that is to give you an overview of global agriculture and give you an understanding that you didn't have about the systems that are absolutely global in agriculture. So there's two parts to a Nuffield scholarship. And they're both as important as each other. And the other piece that's important is that we are a charity. So we have a charitable purpose. And that purpose is to give our farming scholars a global network of agriculturalists that they can call on. And we do that through our sponsorship. So we have sponsors for each of our scholars, we have general investors in the programme as well. And they're philanthropists and corporates and industry bodies that believe that the best way to provide long term change is to invest in people. This is true. I mean, it all starts with with the mom and the dad and the Son and the daughter farming. Absolutely.
Oli Le Lievre 27:39
Now, the thing that I guess I'm interested in as well, when it comes to Nuffield is that balance, and you've probably talked well touched on it there, you've got this, this global piece of agriculture, every single person every single day, is reliant on agriculture. And globally, we see, depending on the stat somewhere between 30 and 40% of the world's population are deriving their livelihood from agriculture. So what's the balance of the conversations going? Okay? This is the big picture thinkers, the role of agriculture globally, and maybe quite philosophically versus what it looks like down at the nitty gritty on the ground. Yeah,
Speaker 1 28:15
and that's maybe thinking aloud here. But that's maybe why some people are hesitant to apply for a scholarship, they're going wall, how's it going to help my business going and finding out what they're doing? You know, and what, but it is marrying the two. And I think one of our, one of our values is lifelong learning, you shouldn't ever, as I said earlier, rest on your laurels will think that you've got your business exactly right. And you don't know what you don't know. So it's learning yet just opening your mind to all sorts of things and learning all sorts of things. And some of those things going to be useful, some not so much. But you don't know that until you've learned.
Oli Le Lievre 28:53
Yeah, no, totally. Because I think and why I asked that question is because when I was over in Perth, where I had the chance to kind of sit in on those presentations, which I think is something which so many people would benefit from being privy to, but like I was sitting there and and then I guess off the back of it, having met other scholars and people through the network globally has been really cool. But you've got people who are looking at how does the narrative we tell as an agricultural industry shape, what actually happens for our sector? And then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got someone going well, how does underground irrigation impact my growing efficiency on a Victorian horticulture operation? And I think that's that balance of going local, and global. But I think that's the the ecosystem isn't you need both to coexist to build a prosperous sector?
Speaker 1 29:34
Yeah, I think so. And the sector is huge. You just said, yeah, 30 or 40% of the world's population is is gaining a livelihood out of agriculture. So it's not that here, but the sector is huge, and it touches so many lives. So it's actually a massive sector to get your head around. But I remember when I was presented, which was in Toowoomba, in 2012. In September, we were listening to the scholar presentations of those that Just finished a report and blew me away how interesting that were. There was Dave from South Australia was talking about the date industry. And then the one that I remember the most, and I can recite the title of it, because it was just so interesting was race around yo, from South, also from South Australia, and it was wild depredation of Patagonian toothfish fields. And just go, why? What are all those words, and it was just such an interesting presentation that I knew nothing about. But it was learning about, okay, if you're going down to, you know, knee hurt Island down in the Antarctic, and you're going to be putting out long lines for Patagonian toothfish, which is sea bass, the whales know that you're there, and they just pick them off, like cherries off the long lines. And recent gone, you know, we've gone to Alaska, Uganda, Norway, gone all over the world, where they also fish for Patagonian toothfish, to figure out how you're going to outsmart the whales, because the whales are always gonna be there. There's nothing you do about that. So it's really interesting. So, you know, that hasn't helped me at all. But gee, I'd talk about that a lot. Because it's just so interesting. For
Oli Le Lievre 31:02
us. It's faster and your imagination starts to run wild.
Unknown Speaker 31:06
Yeah, yeah, for sure. With the
Oli Le Lievre 31:09
topics, do you see them evolve? Like over time, like, have you have we gone from we started talking about this year, and now we're there? Or are they cyclical, like a fashion trend?
Speaker 1 31:20
Well, there's probably also, there is some that are cyclical, particularly I think production topics tend to come around. But we're seeing a lot more commonly purposefully from our point of view, as well. But also more interest in the scholars, certainly region A and production techniques that are moving away from my suppose high input systems, and then also a lot in resilience as sustainability. And we've been very happy to have five future drought funds funded scholars this year, and we will have another five next year. And those scholars looking particularly at drought. And I've been spending a lot of time looking at where in the world, we can look at drought with our scholars, because all our scholars are having that sort of overview of how do we cope with drought because it's coming into what's coming. It's just looking at where are the worst parts of the world experienced drought and how they're dealing with it. It's going to be really great this year for the scholars. Yeah, that'd
Oli Le Lievre 32:22
be fascinating. The other thing, I guess, that it's dispelling the myth of that it's not just for farmers. And traditionally, that's where Nuffield started, but it has actually evolved and I guess, become modern and contemporary to the way agriculture is viewed today.
Speaker 1 32:35
Yeah, that's very interesting, because we have Nuffield organisations, and we select scholars from 14 countries around the world. Started in the UK, the guy was Lord Nuffield, who is William Morris. And just yesterday, I was looking at a car, it's got the MG badge on the back, I'm gonna, because Morris garages is mg is William Morris, and he's Lord Nuffield. So he's not as well known outside agricultural circles. But that's the guy. So what he did was he got on a boat because he wanted to build cars. He'd been building bicycles and motorbikes and he wanted to build cars. So going on a boat went over to see Henry Ford in 1913. Because the best way to go and learn something is to go and see the guys that are doing it well. So we started with that. So now in all the countries that we have Nuffield scholars, Australia is the only Nuffield country that has continued to have this real focus on primary producers. And up until four or five years ago, we were only selecting scholars that were in primary production, and you had to prove that half of your income was coming from primary production. We've changed that a little bit because we acknowledge that behind the farm gate is only one part of it. And there's so much more so many more facets to modern agriculture, that it will benefit Nuffield scholars from knowing about so within the Nuffield scholar cohort from any country, if you've got some money from the UK, that's the supermarket head supermarket buyer for Tesco that we had a few years ago, that person is going to give you so much insight into how they're looking at products that you as a farmer can learn from. So yeah, so So now what we say is roughly 20% of our scholarships that will give here in Australia are from those that are post farm gate.
Oli Le Lievre 34:17
Yeah, gotcha. So I can apply. And I don't know if I've ever spoken to you about this, but I applied for Churchill a few years ago, because I'm Yeah, obviously, anyone who knows me knows where my passions lie is really in how do we communicate what happens in in agriculture, but I applied for a Churchill because and you can tell me whether it has applicability to enough field or not, because what I wanted to look at was how to how do organisations use storytelling to shape society's norms? And so I wanted to look at what house has Disney use storytelling to actually allow us to understand context in our society today, but through fictional kind of storytelling, how to add of that students through sport, etc. And that was probably like the types of organisations I wanted to learn from to go, Well, how do we grab that and bring that back into agriculture? And is that something like a story like that or a topic like that that could be applied to Nuffield? Or is that kind of where the differences exist?
Speaker 1 35:13
It's so hard to say it depends what you do in the interview doesn't know so so just to explain sort of the the syntax of the system that we use, applications are open. Now they're open until the 31st of May. And you apply through the website. So it's a written application. But even before you apply, we are collecting email addresses and phone numbers. And our state committees actually give you a call, say, Hey, I see that you're interested in applying for an appeal, and talk about what it is that you do what it is that you think you want to study with the Nuffield. So there's a first drafting aid. And then there's the written application. And obviously, there's lots of questions there. What you know, what do you do now? What is it that you want to study? Why is that topic important to industry? And we always bring it back to industry, because our sponsors are part of industry. And we want to see what the payback is to agriculture as a whole. Because if it just benefits your business, that's great. But it's not part of the greater good, which we talked about before, you know, who should be making industry change? It's Nuffield scholars. So there's a written application. And then if you're chosen for an interview, there's a state interview. So all our states have volunteer committees of alumni. And you go through that process, if you get through that process, you get to Nationals. So there's a lot of drafting gets along the way to get those 20 Odd scholarships at the end. So some of the people to get Nuffield scholarships are so impressive, you just think, wow, these people are amazing. And impostor syndrome happens all the time. But we use that to our advantage. Because at the contemporary scholars conference, we always say the knowledge is in the room, you know, talk to each other, and you're already learning, even if you haven't gone out and visited, you know, farms and businesses, you're learning from each other. But coming back to the communication piece, it's absolutely vital that agriculture tells our story and does it in a way that resonates, it's not enough to just complain and say, people don't understand what we do. Or it's not enough to just say, Hey, I'm a beef cattle farmer, which we are here. And this is what we do, you've got to tie it back to something that's actually interesting. We shouldn't think that we have to bash people over the head with the story of agriculture, if that doesn't resonate with them. And to go back to your examples of Disney and that it has, it's it's almost marketing by osmosis, because what you're actually doing is changing the culture through that communication. And if the word culture is in agriculture, it's the type of thing we should be doing as well. I'm halfway through all three quarters way through Sapiens, the book Sapiens, which is not the it's probably nearly 10 years now. But I'm finally getting around. That's my new year's resolution is to read more. And yeah, those those big concepts of culture, and what what influences culture, a lot of what's in that book. It's very interesting stuff. Pretty big picture. It
Oli Le Lievre 38:05
is it is, well, we don't always come up with book recommendations or podcast recommendations. But right now, what are you listening to? Obviously, besides humans of agriculture, what do you listen to podcasts wise? And maybe what are the types of books you read? Aside from sapiens?
Speaker 1 38:19
Yeah, yeah, well, if you'd asked me six months ago, it would have been fairly limited, but I've taken my own advice of lifelong learning and going actually, you know, it's not enough to just be down in the weeds of Nuffield every day, I need to do something for me. So yeah, so I've been reading a lot, mostly management books, actually, which can be interesting, not so much. I read Bob Iger is biography, actually, which is laughter. Yeah, I really enjoyed that really interesting and makes you think about Disney, and what they're doing. And he's back in the news this week, actually. So things like his autobiography, generally, I don't like biographies and Sapiens, at the moment, I'm going to read a recommendation next by one of our Nuffield Brazil counterparts, and that's collapse, which is about how societies collapse. I think that'll be a good one. In terms of podcasts, it's really easy. I listened to the rest is history, which I really enjoy, because no offence to podcasters out there. But I don't like podcasts that the podcast has talked too much. I like to hear the stories in the rest of history that all they do is talk they very rarely have guests, but they don't talk about themselves. They talk about the topic. So that's I guess the difference. So not very angulated actually, which is good. Yeah, well, yeah. Again, I think you don't know what you don't know. And it just improves your overall concept of business because family is a business so you you should never discount what you can learn in businesses that might be outside agriculture, and bring it back into agriculture. I guess that's, that's my philosophy.
Oli Le Lievre 39:51
For sure. Now, oh, God, I've found today's chat. Incredible. Thank you so much for taking the time and I think I just really want to say thank you to you Nuffield, Australia for supporting humans of agriculture and letting us have access to a few of your scholars to uncover I guess, who they are, and what has led them into their scholarship and kind of what impact they're making on industry today. So thank you as well.
Speaker 1 40:12
Yeah, from my point of view, it's a great partnership, because humans are there is so positive and Nuffield Australia and Nuffield international such a positive organisation. So the difference for me, you know, being in the chicken industry where it was really getting me down, and I was very negative, I was taking on the worries of the world. Nuffield is lightened day to that because it's also positive. We're all learning and we're all improving and we're all learning interesting stuff that we take back to our businesses and that's the reason I love it. Tragic.
Oli Le Lievre 40:41
So exciting. Thanks, daddy.
Unknown Speaker 40:46
Welcome. Thanks for having me.
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