The Regenerative Journey | Episode 29 | Mitch & Nina Bray

In this episode, Charlie interviews regen farming's powerhouse couple, Mitch & Nina Bray. Charlie caught up with Mitch and Nina at their Noosa Hinterland farm midway through an Introduction to Biodynamics workshop that they were hosting. It was a lively conversation and is in fact the 'first' couple Charlie has interviewed for the podcast. Prior to meeting Mitch and Nina had led interesting and quite different lives. On meeting their pathways transected and their regenerative journey together began.

Transcript

Mother Nature is the most amazing thing that exists and we get to live and work in it every day.

So instead of going out there and thinking that you're constantly at war,

You go out there and you actually just love and appreciate the farm that you've got.

And you just try everything that you do.

You try and,

Like you do with kids,

You try and feed them well and just raise them up rather than pushing it down,

Suppressing it.

That was Nina Bray and you're listening to The Regenerative Journey.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and internationally and their continuing connection to country,

Culture,

Community,

Land,

Sea and sky.

And we pay our respects to elders past,

Present and emerging.

G'day,

I'm your host Charlie Arnott,

An eighth-generational Australian regenerative farmer.

And in this podcast series,

I'll be diving deep and exploring my guests' unique perspectives on the world so you can apply their experience and knowledge to cultivate your own transition to a more regenerative way of life.

Welcome to The Regenerative Journey with your host Charlie Arnott.

G'day,

This week's interview is with Mitch and Nina Bray,

Graduates of our biodynamic course,

One of them from 2018.

And what's fascinating,

One of the many things that's fascinating about these guys is the way they've integrated biodynamics wholly and solely into their organic cropping practices,

Which for me is fascinating because many of the requests I get for information is how do we actually,

You know,

Farm more regeneratively,

How do we crop more regeneratively,

I should say.

How do we take chemicals out and what do we replace them with and how do we maintain the sound financials and economics in that sort of space.

So that's what we talk about a lot.

We talk about Mitch's health scare that certainly,

You know,

Was contributed to his regenerative journey.

Relocating to the coast,

Why they do that,

Some of the enterprises,

You know,

The intricacies of transitioning and it's a fascinating chat.

Love these guys,

They are really standout practitioners of biodynamics and organics and they're just so energetic and so positive and always got wonderful ideas that I just can't wait to follow.

And just before we jump into the interview,

I just want to let you know and remind you that we will be,

Hamish Mackay and I will be down in South Australia with all those wonderful croweders down there at Barossa.

The Barossa Valley on the 3rd and 4th of May at the Alkina Wine Estate there were Dan and Amelia and all those wonderful people.

Now just to make a note of that,

We are just talking about how biodynamics applies to wine and viticulture.

It is about horticulture,

It's about broad acreage,

It's about small scale garden,

It's whatever you want to,

However you want to apply biodynamics to your world and your life.

So there on the 3rd and 4th of May in the Barossa Valley at the Alkina Wine Estate and on the 6th and 7th of May,

That's later in that same week at McLaren Vale,

Gemtree Wines there with Melissa and Michael who produce some amazing wines as does the Alkina Estate.

So just to reinforce that,

You don't have to be a wine grower,

You might want to be a grape eater,

But not a wine grower or a wine maker to come to these courses down there in South Australia,

They are open to everyone.

So spread the news far and wide,

We'd love to see you there.

Tickets available on charliearnett.

Com.

Au and get all the details and tickets there.

Love to see you down in South Australia,

Cannot wait to get down there and haven't been there for a while so looking forward to it.

So I hope you too enjoy as much as I did this interview with Mitch and Nina Bray.

Neen's,

Mitch,

Welcome to the regenerative journey.

We're watching Hamish Mackay driving here and the dog bark.

As we sit out looking across your 400 acres,

In what valley are we in?

We're in the Sunshine Coast region but what valley are we in?

We're in the Noosa hinterland.

Is this a particular valley though?

Is this like the,

I don't know,

The forbidden valley?

No,

It's just on the edge of the hinterland,

So there's mountains over there,

That's the ridge and we're sort of down on the flats and Lake Kitharabah is not too far away and then double island past that.

And we're just in the northern side of Noosa,

So for those who know Noosa is regionally well known in this part of the world and we're sort of looking like north,

Northwest,

Northeast.

Kin Kin.

Kin,

Towards Kin Kin,

Yeah,

Out that way.

So guys thank you very much for your time.

We've just done day one of our two day introduction to biodynamics course.

In your shed,

I've got to say,

You have set a new standard in hosting of courses.

Well clearly,

Okay,

Nina I should be thanking then.

Nina,

Definitely.

It is so professional and I was actually thinking I might take you to the next round of courses just to help set up.

No,

It's really,

We've got 30 enthusiastic people and your organic group,

You've got a little organic group which we can talk about a bit later on.

No,

I'm clicking my pen.

We'll get to that too because I think that in itself is a really fascinating little thing that you guys are involved in.

I've got,

This is a bit of an experiment,

Listeners.

I've got a couple,

Two people who happen to be a couple.

For the first time I usually interview individuals but I thought that you've got such a compelling joint story that I really wanted to drill down.

Is that echo-y?

It's not too bad,

Yeah.

On the veranda,

The Italian bachelor's veranda I believe.

This is when you bought this place.

Now the podcast is called The Regenerative Journey for a Reason.

I want to dig into your regenerative journeys,

These individual ones I guess to a point and then you've been doing some amazing things.

You are essentially cropping,

You've got cattle,

You've got some amazing projects on the go.

Why are we here?

Why are we on this bit of land in this part of the world?

You two?

Well,

We purchased the beach farm which is what we call this property at Noosa in January 2019.

I guess we've got three properties that are out on the Downs and the reason why we're here is because we kind of saw the need to diversify.

Back in 2019 we just noticed that the climate had changed in our region and whether if it was going to stay that way or whether if it was a cyclical thing,

We still knew that we needed to diversify our property.

So that's sort of why we looked here.

Also Mitch is a surfer so he was keen to get somewhere near the beach.

That didn't have anything to do with it.

Nothing to do with it.

Just to sort of put that into context,

What's the differences between the property out west and here?

They're kind of like the complete opposite.

Polar opposites.

Mitch can probably – Why don't you tell us Mitch?

Don't be shy.

It's great because when you get into your farm and you've been doing it for a while in one specific place,

This is giving you challenges that are totally opposite to what you're used to.

I guess you get to a place where you get to experiment more which is cool and keep that.

Why are you able to experiment more?

Is it because you've got more rain?

More rain.

It's less land.

No,

It's less land but it's that beautiful thing from the sky that you can bank on it.

Therefore you can play around with pasture cropping and different things like that.

That presents a whole lot of different challenges I imagine.

Oh yeah,

It brings up a heap of things.

You've got to look at changing but that's part of the fun.

What are you going to do with all that grass?

That's a good problem to have.

We've got a lot of different things at Pipeline.

So Nina's – we've got our licence for hemp and all different things so we're going to try.

I think this environment,

This microclimate here is a couple of different things we can try.

What does it mean to be here?

I guess emotionally if you can be a man you mightn't have many emotions.

I don't have many.

What does it mean to be here?

You've got surf which is obviously something you like to do.

Your family's here.

You're here a portion of the time.

You've only been here for a short period of time.

So is it sort of – you happy you moved?

Is it something that's – Was it good move?

For me I think it's good because kids have settled in.

There's a really amazing community here,

Charlie.

I think that's probably the most important thing wherever you are.

Community is everything and we really feel like we've made such strong amazing friendships since we've been up here.

As you said earlier we've got an organic group so we've found some really amazing producers,

Like-minded producers that we just have this beautiful relationship with.

It's just like an open round table.

After being out on the Downs we've got some fantastic friends out there too.

But we sort of felt like we were doing a lot of the transition to organic alone and without the support of other people.

So it's an amazing environment up here.

We absolutely love it.

You found your little tribe in a way?

Absolutely.

Let's talk about tribes.

Let's go back to,

I guess,

What were you doing,

Both of you,

Before you might call you had a change in your thinking about farming?

You knew you were both – well you tell me the story.

Mitch,

Why don't we start with you.

What were you doing before to get to a point where you went,

I'm going to change?

Yeah,

So I had a background mate.

Nina and I got together in 2010,

2011 and decided we wanted to try farming.

She had a nursing and I had diesel fitting behind me before and then we said,

Yep,

We're going to give it a go,

Start a family.

So you weren't – but Nina,

You grew up on a farm?

Yep,

I grew up on a sheep farm at Milmerra and my parents have still got a dorper stud out there now.

I grew up in the shearing sheds and fencing and doing sheep work,

So I love it.

I did go to boarding school in Brisbane but Mitch and I both went to high school in Brisbane.

Then we sort of managed to find our way back out after doing the Brisbane thing for a little while and found ourselves back in a very small country town which is where we met at the local pub actually.

So you met at the pub doing different things?

You were working in town,

You were at the pub?

Yeah,

I was at the pub.

I was studying nursing at the time and I was working at the hospital also,

So Mitch walked in one day and that was the end of it.

I know.

What was Mitch doing there?

Drinking,

Not working.

Did Mitch have his chair in the corner going,

This is Mitch's chair?

No.

I am very soul playing actually.

I was diesel fitting at the time and going everywhere.

You just happened to be there doing some work,

Like contracted there?

Well I bought a little block there just out of town.

I parked it and thought I'll get to that soon.

You had it leased?

Yeah,

And when I met Neen it was time to pick it up and run with it.

My family originally comes from Quambo and we sort of moved around a fair bit off that as a young person and ended up in Brisbane.

And then yeah,

Met Neen and full steam ahead,

Give this farming a red hot crack.

Why farming?

Because you could have,

You were a diesel mechanic,

You could have kept on doing that,

Neen's could have worked in the hospitals,

You could have moved to Brisbane.

Why farming?

It was family.

Yeah,

I think we both.

.

.

You two cuddle up a bit around that microphone.

I think we both had the underlying urge of why I wanted to farm and you love farming.

I didn't ever think that I would actually end up back on the land.

And I think when I grew up,

We went through some significant drought periods and my father,

He never encouraged us,

Well he never openly encouraged us.

I think he sent us to Brisbane so we could see all these different situations and I don't think he ever expected me probably especially to end up back on the land.

But farming is,

So shortly after we,

Probably 2011,

I had Annabella,

Our first child,

So that was pretty quick for us.

And that really changed everything.

That was definitely a catalyst for change for us.

We had this conventional farm and we decided to go into farming and we went and we geared up and we bought the.

.

.

A lot of contracting.

Yeah,

Bought the big tractors and we were full black soil conventional farmers.

We had a gas rig,

We gassed everything.

So chemicals,

You were spraying.

Chemicals,

Yep,

Spraying,

Urea,

The whole shebang.

Conventional cropping.

Because that's how you did it.

I was told to do it that way.

Yeah.

Or if you talk to an agronomist or any of that mainstream,

You get in that system.

Is that what you did?

Did you go back to the farm,

Your block,

So that's when you started and then you went,

I'm going to farm,

What do I do?

And you went,

Okay,

Local agronomist.

Yep,

Yep,

Grabbed an independent agronomist.

So I'd done farming pre in between,

Out west at Round Torwood and now that way.

But yeah,

Grab the agronomist.

We got into the system.

You got to pre fertilise,

You got to spray,

You got to plant.

I guess the recipe,

The seasonal recipe.

Yeah,

Yep,

Yep.

And we started doing that.

We were working really hard,

A lot.

We had three kids.

Yeah.

We were really pushing hard because we bought another farm and then from that we bought another farm and we were contracting,

We were doing a lot of work,

We were busy.

Yeah,

And it was Mitch and I for a really long time.

So we didn't have staff,

Sorry Charlie,

Just microphone.

No,

No,

No,

It's alright.

Yeah,

We didn't have staff for a long time.

It was just Mitch and I.

I remember having children and having newborns in the car and I'd be going out and helping fill planters in the middle of the night.

Mitch worked pretty much 24 hours a day.

We'd be contracting and I'd be going out in the middle of the night to make sure,

Drop things off or whatever needs to happen.

It was a really,

Really,

Really fast period.

We grew quickly but we put the work in to do it.

Yeah.

And probably not an uncommon situation.

No,

That's what you have to do.

You're a young couple,

Kids growing up,

Decide to farm,

Whether it's on the Downs or anywhere where I guess you were essentially cropping as well.

Did you have cattle at the time?

No.

It was just cattle.

We had sheep to start with.

Oh my goodness,

I forgot about that.

And then we went to cattle because our block flooded three times and I'd re-fence three times.

Oh good.

Yeah,

We went to cattle but that was never a focus.

Our focus was because we geared up contracting to do the cropping.

So that was your focus,

Yeah.

And again,

Not an uncommon thing for the investments made,

The mortgage is probably taken out,

The expansion.

And were you under pressure externally or internally to expand?

Was it a matter of that felt like the right thing to do or you went,

No,

This is actually pushing.

We were just unstoppable.

We were pushing.

We looked at every farm that came up for sale.

We were really good at doing numbers.

We had great support through our bank manager at the time as well.

They were great and we were great at crunching numbers.

We knew what we could make out of properties.

I remember asking him,

I said,

Oh,

Don't smart farmers do off-farm investment?

He goes,

Mate,

Look at it.

Just keep doing what you're doing.

That's the investment you need to be doing.

So that's what we did.

Yeah.

Which again,

In itself wasn't probably a bad idea in terms of if it was working,

That type of approach,

Then who was going to say you got to do something else or buy property somewhere else or off-farm invest.

So kids came along.

Was there a moment when,

Was there a particular exact moment you can pinpoint or was there a series of events that led you to change from obviously that high input sort of… Neen always had an undertone of organics.

Yeah.

What did that look like?

Like the odd organic thing in the cupboard or… No,

No,

No.

We always,

We sort of,

As soon as I had children.

Well,

Okay.

So the catalyst,

I went to an obstetrician as soon as I found out I was pregnant with my first child.

We went there and he spoke about me in front of me into a dictaphone.

And it was just the most strangest conversation or situation that we'd sort of been in.

We were like,

Oh,

You know,

Young first child.

And anyway,

I found midwives and that was probably the catalyst.

So just go back to the dictaphone thing.

Was it… He was talking about me into the dictaphone while I was sitting across the table.

As if you weren't there.

Yeah,

As if I was there.

I was like number 1,

097.

And it was like,

I think I was like 15 weeks or something.

And he was like,

I think we need to book you in for a,

You know,

A cesarean.

And anyway,

We found the first private midwives,

I think,

In Australia.

They started in Toowoomba.

Amazing people.

And so I had my three children,

Three private midwives.

And that was a big catalyst for change because they really just put,

In that situation,

They put the power back in our hands and said,

This is what you need to go home and research.

Go and do it.

And then come back to me and let's have a conversation.

And as soon as I think that was just so empowering for us because we really just realized that we could choose the way that we wanted to do things.

And that happened in farming then as well.

Mitch used to spray.

We had spray rigs.

He was a spray contractor.

And I remember we just renovated our house out there and we put in all of these bifolds and these windows.

And Mitch would come along with the spray rig,

You know,

Right out the front of the house.

Oh,

It wasn't that bad.

No,

No,

No.

But he was the one who was like,

Get off the property.

You know,

I don't want you here while I'm spraying.

And so,

You know,

Children were probably the catalyst there.

We definitely both heard Undertone.

Nina,

As always,

Being female,

Is smarter than us.

No argument to you.

So I was a bit slower to pick up.

But as we were doing it,

Podcasts,

Sitting in tractors listening to different things,

You know,

And you get pulled naturally,

I think,

In different ways.

And something pops up,

You know,

That's interesting.

Listen to that.

You know,

It sort of almost pulls you to where you need to go,

I guess.

Do you remember any particular podcasts or shows or individual interviews that were significant?

And you went,

Oh,

My God,

This is.

.

.

It actually started in the financial sector with people that sort of were away from the mainstream.

And then after that,

That sort of tipped over into the farming arena.

As for people,

I can't think of the first people I went to,

But it just was a natural progression.

And the same thing with Biodynamics.

How we got there,

That was just a huge natural progression and everything fell into place.

So Nina,

We got across the line organically,

Our home farm initially.

Yeah.

And then our other two were still conventional.

Purely from the fact that we had no idea about organics and because we were pushing,

We still needed production.

We couldn't afford just a trial and error and cop that.

So we tipped our toes into home and now we've got confidence there.

Yeah,

We've been fortunate.

The economists that we work with out on the Downs,

We've had so many big table discussions with him.

He's definitely open to organics and he's really into supporting that as well.

So we have been fortunate in that way.

Mitch and I are both big researchers.

Mitch would spend hours and hours in the tractor or whatever machine he was in listening to podcasts on all sorts of different things.

But yeah,

I think 2014-15,

We went organic,

Certified organic on our home farm and we kind of just,

We just did it.

We didn't do the whole farm.

We started off with half of it and you can do that in organics and that just makes it easier.

Like Mitch said,

We still needed production.

We'd just expanded.

We needed to be able to pay the bills,

Et cetera.

It was a gradual transition into there.

Yeah.

So you could actually,

You could certify half your farm?

Yep.

And you could start there?

Yep.

Implement whatever practices you want?

Yep.

What were you,

So just on that,

Because I'm not that I'm necessarily saying that people have to get certified organic just to transition to regenerative ag type stuff.

Definitely not.

But in terms of,

You know,

What did you change?

So you were,

Again,

As you said,

Conventional cropping.

So high input,

High output.

What,

How did you,

What are dipping your toe in the water look like?

So early on,

Even before that was like Nancy said,

We've got a gas rig and the biggest thing for me was we had a flood and a paddock where I'd gassed pre plant and I could still see,

And this was a couple of seasons prior.

I could still see the furrow of the bottom of the disc,

Gas disc and hydrous running in there.

Thought,

Oh,

That's interesting.

And so we got rid of that and then we involved.

So then the dipping of the toe was probably then.

And then with the organics,

We,

It was all about tooling,

Getting the right tools for the toolbox.

And there wasn't too many people around us that we could go knock on the door.

So it was sort of trial and error.

And we still were still doing that now.

We're still trying different tooling.

Now we get to do it.

Nene's father,

He's organic,

So he's,

We're trialling together different things,

Which is good.

But yeah,

Like.

Was it,

Did you,

I mean,

It's an interesting,

I love that sort of concept of a toolbox,

You know,

Cause that's what I sort of said to farmers that like equip yourself,

You know,

Maybe empty out your old toolbox,

Your old paradigms and your old tools,

Literally the gear and the plan.

And then equip it with some new tools.

Was there anyone,

And this is,

This is a,

You know,

Interesting for me,

Really interesting because I'm not a cropper.

We don't do what you do,

Basically.

Mainly cattle and sheep and a bit of parts cropping.

But what I get,

One of the most requested things,

You know,

Questions that I get is,

How do I convert?

Well,

It's more statements,

Actually,

Like you can't,

You can't do this stuff with cropping.

How am I going to,

Yeah,

This is the thing that I'm fascinated about,

You know,

And they say,

You can't do it,

You can't do a broad acre.

How can I,

How can I,

You know,

How can I take out all the chemical?

How can I,

You know,

Throw away the gear?

How can I produce?

And then these guys aren't particularly talking about growing food.

They're still probably commodity farmers,

But they're stepping in that direction.

You know,

So that's the fascinating for me.

And I'm really relieved,

To be honest,

Because I didn't have the answers for them.

And I didn't know where to send them.

There's a couple of people I know are doing a pretty good job at it.

But what you're doing is,

Is,

Is a,

Is a reasonably,

Dare I say,

Intense way,

You know,

Like just putting in a bit of pasture crop every now and again and whatever,

Like you're doing,

You know,

Pretty tight rotations.

You've got some beautiful country when it rains.

And you,

You know,

You're in a system that's clearly working,

You know.

So that's,

So I want to dig into that a bit more for those and I,

You know,

Excuse the listeners who,

Who aren't necessarily farmers,

But I hope you can understand by listening to this that this is,

Was this not something like you're going to go and do in your backyard?

Like,

You know,

Grow a heap of pumpkins or something.

Well you could actually,

You know,

Grow a few pumpkins.

But it's more the concept of the,

There are things that people can do that are,

You know,

By changing one's mindset,

You know,

What,

What things did you change in your mind?

What did you have to change in your mind?

What paradigm did you have to break to step into organics?

Nothing.

I mean,

Yeah,

Okay.

Having a crystal clean farm that's,

Everything's dead.

So the biggest thing for us was looking at everything and saying,

Right,

You look at anhydrous,

Urea,

You knock down sprays,

Your insecticides,

Your seed coatings on your seed.

Everything's anti-life.

Anti-life.

Yeah,

It's anti-life.

It's side kill.

Yeah.

You're trying to wipe out nature.

So we just flipped that on its head and said,

Alright,

How can we work with life and give pro-life?

So whenever we did cultivations or something,

We might put out some biology as we're doing it.

Seed coatings now is pro microbiology and biodynamics.

Sprays the same.

It's all pro-life.

So it's fish emulsions,

Kelps,

Things like that.

Yeah,

The thing that we need to probably get better at is cultivation.

We're working on that.

Myronis is pretty smart there and dragging up some good old,

Old,

Old machines that probably could be re-jigged and are going to be a very good tool now.

To cultivate less or in a different way?

What do you need?

Less and not as aggressively.

So a prime example for us,

We're black soil.

We're on heavy black soil.

So we still need to store moisture for our program to work.

So our system is different compared to,

Say,

Nina's father,

Who is on lighter soil with grazing in the mix.

So his organic toolbox is different looking than ours,

But there's a couple of things we can cross over.

So for us,

Storing moisture is still an important thing.

And then once that happens,

Then the rest of it sort of falls back into the old school row cropping scenarios,

Things like that.

So how do you store moisture?

Because in the old days,

And we used to do it,

Was be a summer fallow where we would,

You know,

You don't want your hay in there growing because it's going to rob the moisture.

And of course,

What we didn't know was there was no biology in the soil left.

And when we went to plant,

We'd have to prop everything up with all these inputs.

Yeah.

So that's why we,

If we're doing cultivations and things like that,

We do use biology.

If we're knocking things,

If we know we're going to knock them around,

We put things in there to support them.

So you're still using some traditional chemicals as part of the program,

The growing?

No.

No chemicals.

No chemicals at all.

That's great.

So our organic farms,

Fully organic,

But our conventional farms.

That's right.

So this is a great thing.

You've actually got like a long-going experiment in the way,

Haven't you?

Yeah.

So our conventional farms are driven,

The fertility,

There hasn't been urea in there for four or five years.

Our starters and things like that,

We still do knockdown sprays on there,

But we use bringing things in like phylicumic,

Cumate acids that they used to use to potentize chemical.

So you use less,

But on the flip side,

It helps break down many,

It drives biology to break it down quicker.

So yeah,

There's still things we can improve.

So the organic farm,

You obviously,

To get certification,

That was a quicker process.

Like you went,

Okay,

We've got to be certified,

So we've got to actually drop things out pretty much immediately,

And cold turkey in a way.

How did that go?

It was good.

So our first organic crop was wheat,

And winter is definitely easier,

I think,

Organic than summer in our area,

Just because of the types of weeds that we have common problems with.

And yeah,

I mean,

It worked well.

We always used manure on our property,

And then we went to compost.

We did the Elaine Ingham course with the soil food web,

And we learned how to make compost and compost teas,

Which was really interesting,

And just to understand the soil more,

And that was,

Yeah,

We wanted to work with it rather than against it,

With the constant warfare.

But yeah,

Our first crop was wheat,

And I think going organic,

Especially back then,

It was really interesting when it came time to harvest and actually market the grain.

On the conventional market,

Wheat's this much.

On the organic market,

I remember calling five or six different people,

And there would be like $200 difference a tonne.

It was just kind of like the Wild West.

It was just so different to the conventional marketing.

That's changed a lot.

But a pleasant surprise.

A pleasant surprise,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

When you've got the decent,

Yeah.

And what about the yield?

I mean,

In terms of less inputs,

I guess,

From a chemical point of view,

What about was there a financially,

And I guess as you went through the years,

In year one,

Two,

Three,

Four,

And so on,

That you were sort of fine-tuning,

For those croppers thinking about,

Oh,

Well,

How am I going to drop out my chemical and maintain my yield and my quality and all that sort of stuff?

Yeah,

So our yield,

It didn't really suffer that much.

It maybe dropped a little,

But we've grown organic corn next to our conventional corns.

And it outyielded it.

Yay!

Really.

Sorgums and,

Yeah,

We've been up there.

And also on our organic farm,

We get more crops off it.

Like,

You know,

Especially in the harsh seasons,

We've had a couple of doozy years,

And we've still got something off it on our organic farm.

And what we get off,

We get paid for.

Because other people probably haven't got something off to get fuel.

Yeah,

And the commodity price is so much higher.

So it's actually worked out,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Cost of production.

And our cost of production is,

You know,

Is better.

It's not nothing,

But we're not organic farmers that don't mix puts,

You know,

We use fish hydrolysate,

We use kelp,

We obviously use a lot of biodynamics.

We have,

Our machines are all set up for liquid injection at planting.

That's a huge part for us.

You know,

If you've got liquid injection,

You can,

We make all of our own gypsy juice cocktails,

Depending on what the plant needs.

And,

Yeah,

We rely heavily on our water systems and our tractors,

Yeah.

So if the organic is going well,

The organic farm and the organic sort of certified part of the farm and the production there,

Why wouldn't you move the rest over into organics?

Or would you,

Or are you thinking about it,

Or,

You know,

Why is it different keeping it separate?

Yeah,

So,

Or is it more of an experiment?

No,

No.

So that was definitely what we wanted to do,

But the contracting sort of tied us up.

So we time pour,

I guess you could say.

We at the moment are looking at a couple of machines that would make it a little bit easier and less time pour that would be able to do that.

The other thing though too,

Charlie,

For me is bringing animals back.

You need animals in the system.

A lot of croppers don't like animals on cropping country.

But for me,

And we're not contracting on a neighbour's place,

So he does it a lot.

I was like,

Oh,

I wonder why he keeps doing this.

And just being there and working there and watching it,

He did just as well,

If not better than anyone else.

So what is it about having animals in the system?

Well,

I think they worry about having animals run over cultivation pre crop,

You're not storing enough moisture,

You're making it harder.

You're doing all this sort of thing.

But there's tools once again in the toolbox,

You can let them do their thing.

Fertilise,

Turn weeds over and all that and then run in behind them and away you go.

So they're bringing a whole different fertility cycle with them in a way.

Yeah,

Different fertility cycle.

They're also doing a good job on specific plants that you want to probably eliminate that otherwise you'll be chasing with steel or something else.

But yeah,

I think that's the other thing.

So our other farms aren't quite set up to be able to be managed with animals.

So I'd like it.

Yeah,

They have to have animals on it for us to be organic.

That's almost like that's one of the tools that's in the organic toolbox.

And I think another reason why they're not the other two properties aren't organic is because we've grown cotton on them.

They've both currently got cotton planted.

It's a controversial subject and I'm very aware of that.

But we have grown cotton for years now.

And it's interesting being part of the cotton industry is very well set up.

And we do it well.

Mitch has dropped the urea and he's doing huge amounts of folios on them.

He took out the Australian dry land cotton in 2018 for the highest yielding.

Was it like a world record or something?

Come on.

Pump up your tires.

No,

It's the Australian dry land cotton record.

Oh no,

It was in the universe.

Oh yeah,

It was cosmos.

It was best ever.

So just so I'm clear on that.

So it was a,

You took out that award,

Best dry land cotton farmer or crop and 11.

8 last seven bales yielding.

So that's good.

Yeah,

That's pretty good.

And that is using,

So what would a,

If a conventional cotton farmer heard that and then,

And you told them what you did to grow to do it,

Like the imports,

What would they say?

As in what did you do?

Like you were using the what,

Fish emulsions and natural fish and natural that.

So we,

So at the start it was quite a wet season.

It was waterlogged.

So we were right,

We needed to really pull this plant assisted out of this situation.

So we were just pushing your kelps and your fishes and all that sort of thing to try and stimulate biology to get air in the root system going.

And then there was Loveland,

Which is a part of the Lamma Ranch.

They are doing work into that area,

The biology sector as well.

Like Bayer and everyone else now is catching on to,

We need these guys to work for us.

There's something in this biology stuff.

That's right.

So we were trialling some of their stuff,

Which I believe in a couple of other people in the Downs see a result.

So what they,

What anyone who uses compost and manure,

These biological sort of inputs,

Like break that plant available down and make it,

It's almost like a servant to the root system.

You know,

Like here it is,

Take it and therefore you get a response.

So yeah,

We were pushing it.

And my thing is small amounts more often if you're going with the season.

And that's what we did.

We spent a lot of money on that crop,

Probably another half of what a general cotton crop would cost us per hectare,

Because we just kept going with it and feeding,

Trying to feed it as it requires any extra excess that it didn't have.

But yeah,

So I think we were getting pretty close to like our fertility program and all that is pretty close.

That's not an issue for us now,

Which is good.

We can sleep well at night.

As in you've got a pretty good sort of robust system.

We have a good toolbox of our inputs that we can use if we require them.

And so that's not the hard part.

And I think that,

You know,

When you go into organics from conventional and you make that step,

That's the thing that you worry about the most.

You're like,

Well,

Hang on,

Am I going to plant seeds and they're not going to come up because they don't get,

You know,

They don't have the urea or.

.

.

Not going to yield.

No,

They're not going to yield.

But that is actually not a thing.

Yeah.

It's a real paradigm to break,

Isn't it?

To put your faith in the biology,

I guess,

Put your faith in nature.

Absolutely.

The natural process is that you are giving a bit of a kick along,

A bit of fish,

You know,

A bit of kelp for the right reasons.

Sort of in a way that,

As you say,

Is really interesting that you're doing it in the little bits more often,

You know.

It's a sort of a slow release feed,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Less more often is much better.

And I think also,

You know,

We sit down with our agronomist at the start of a season and we go,

Well,

This is what we're going to plant.

What are the potential problems?

And you can,

You know,

Just know what to treat it with from the start.

And having that really helps because you don't want to get into the middle of a crop cycle and go,

We've got this huge problem and we don't know how to deal with it.

I mean,

We still need,

You know,

We still need our crops to grow and we still need to be able to harvest and perform.

So,

You know,

That really helps as well.

What would you say to,

Okay,

Another quick question.

What are you growing?

Like,

Just to give us a sense of,

You know,

What are the crops?

What are the things you're producing out there and here?

Just to give people a sense of,

Okay,

This all sounds nice,

But like,

What are we seeing from the result of all this cool stuff?

Right.

So on our organic farm,

We grow everything just like the conventional ones,

Anything from soy,

Smungs,

Sorghum,

Corn,

Wheat,

Barley,

Millet,

Whatever is a good agronomic fit as well.

That's a big thing you need to.

.

.

We do a lot of legumes as well.

Yeah.

So in our wheat,

We'll plant a bit of vetch,

Undersalt light.

There is a thing called relay cropping that I'm keen to look at maybe.

Relo?

Relay.

Relay.

So it's say,

Say you've got a wheat crop coming through and then at a certain stage,

Maybe just for head emergence or something,

You run through some soybeans underneath it while the wheat is still growing.

It's still there.

And you'll harvest it and the soybeans are already sort of up and coming.

On the way.

Yeah,

Right.

So you get in a symbiotic relationship there,

Driving it.

Totally.

Yeah,

Your nitrogen as well.

Yeah.

I guess that's probably a good time to give it a boost at that,

Do you?

Or coming out and emergence,

Yeah,

And then you're setting your protein up and all that.

So yeah,

There's a couple of different things,

But we'll grow anything.

Cotton.

I'd love to try some organic cotton if we get the opportunity.

If you can get the seed.

Yeah.

And for those,

I guess,

Croppers who,

Or people listening here,

You know,

Maybe conventional croppers or even dabbling in it,

What would you say is some of the things,

Again,

They'd have to change up here,

You know,

Paradigms to break or things to even focus on,

You know.

And there's things that they would have to stop doing and they probably know what that is.

Or maybe identify what would they stop doing?

What would they start doing?

Generally.

Like I said,

The hardest thing is expecting a clean slate.

Weeds are,

And not even weeds,

Plants are good because you want your IPMs working.

So your,

My agronomist loves his IPMs.

So he loves- IPMs.

For those beneficial- Integrative pest management.

Yeah,

So your beneficial pests.

Like keeping everyone in balance and cheap.

So you have those,

Like at the moment,

At the moment we've got a,

I've got a plot.

That we're trialling for pasture cropping out there.

But it's perfect in the summer because it's full of lucerne and sorghum and chicory and all these different species that are flowering and now our- Beneficials.

Beneficials are there,

You know,

Like next to our soybeans so that we've got a soybean crop next to them.

So I think the biggest thing is thinking,

Expecting everything to be perfectly clean.

I'd love to start planting,

Now with GPS,

Planting some flower rose or something like that,

You know,

Like in between.

Trap crops or something.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Using sunflowers and things like that.

And just different things.

Because you've got to remember,

Once the crop's done,

We like to bring our animals in there anyway.

So it's for the little guys and the big guys.

So what else would they need to,

Again,

The croppers,

You know,

Focus on?

Or change,

So not having a nice neat sort of dead farm.

Well,

I think so.

We have trees on all of our properties,

Which sets us apart from a lot of people in our area.

Most people like to flatten every gum because they steal the moisture.

And,

You know,

That's really important,

I think,

For the integrated pest management,

You know,

Having a habitat for your natives.

And I think also,

You know,

Mitch said before,

Just switching your mind from anti-life to pro-life.

So even if you,

You know,

We don't have,

You know,

We don't get our seed,

We get our seed all bare.

So it's not coated in a fungicide or pesticide or whatever they put on it.

And,

You know,

That's one basic change.

And we switch that up with using seed coating of,

You know,

Biodynamic preps and molasses,

You know,

Other things.

Yeah,

I think just changing,

Like working,

We live in this incredible,

Like Mother Nature is the most amazing thing that exists.

And we get to live and work in it every day,

You know.

So instead of going out there and thinking that you're on,

You're constantly at war,

You go out there and you actually just love and appreciate,

You know,

The farm that you've got.

And you just try everything that you do,

You try and like you do with kids,

You know,

You try and feed them well and just raise them up rather than,

You know,

Pushing it down,

Suppressing it,

You know.

Nurture.

Yeah,

Nurture.

And there are tools,

I mean,

There are tools,

You know,

With weeds,

Obviously weeds are a huge thing.

We have an inter-row cultivator,

You know,

You can use that.

There are ways and means around it.

It's not perfect situation,

But we have a pretty,

I don't think it's dirty,

Our organic farm's not dirty.

But like it's a problem,

When we cultivate,

That's a prime opportunity for giving plants what they need.

So we weed,

Band,

Spray as we go through.

And yes,

We've cultivated,

But a lot of that stuff's also going to generate biology deeper underneath that band that we've just disturbed.

So just on that one,

Excuse me,

Back to weeds,

You know,

Again,

In a conventional situation,

You know,

Weeds are the enemy.

We want monocrops because we just don't want the drama of robbing moisture or nutrients or having to,

When we harvest,

Having to clean it and that sort of thing.

I mean,

How's your paradigms changed about weeds?

You sort of tapped into it a bit there.

But what would you say to croppers that,

You know,

Just go,

Oh my God,

I can't get my head around,

You know,

Two things growing my paddock?

Yeah,

So we're actually,

The next thing we're going to look at doing is doing multi,

Because people like multi-species,

We're looking at hopefully supplying multi-species.

So you can have four or five different things growing and we'll just go in and take that out as a.

.

.

As it is organically,

However,

We don't want weeds in our crops.

They are a pain.

I mean,

They do exist,

But we try and keep our crops as clean as possible.

And,

You know,

That's meant that sort of in the last 18 or in the last 12 months,

We've now split our property up into different paddocks because we did have problem areas.

So now,

You know,

Where we have,

You know,

We have Johnson grass out there,

So we've got one patch that's really bad for Johnson's grass.

So we're managing that differently now.

So it doesn't go into a summer crop cycle.

You know,

There are really basic things and ways that you can manage it.

But it just means that you have to look at the farm a bit differently,

You know,

So we've split up our paddocks now.

We worked with our agronomists to do that and just to get our problem areas and so we can manage them differently.

Which is a great point because,

You know,

Again,

Getting back to recipes and going,

I've got,

You know,

So many thousands of acres and this is the recipe I'm going to apply to this 5000 acres.

Within that 5000 acres,

There can be many different soil types,

Undulations,

All sorts of things.

And I think it's a really important point that,

You know,

Sort of identifying different styles of management,

Appropriate management for different areas,

You know.

And then the question is,

Well,

Why?

Well,

Why?

Because you want a particular outcome.

And sometimes that comes with,

I want an outcome for that area because I want it.

And then actually letting go of that and going,

Actually,

I need to step back from being so attached to the outcome because that area is never going to produce that.

That area is much better suited to something else.

And yeah,

I think also,

You know,

We're,

People that go out and wake up every day at war with weeds.

I mean,

We're on floodplain.

We're never not going to have a weed burden.

Like,

You know,

It's not a war you're going to win.

Exactly.

Like,

Why would you dedicate your life to going?

How long did it take you to work that out?

Yeah.

Because it took me a long time.

Seriously.

It's just.

.

.

The best thing about the weeds is we get to bring some nice land back in,

I guess,

Too,

Because they're a great weed targetter.

Sheep.

Yeah,

Totally.

So having the sheep,

The cattle.

We have fenced our organic home farm three times and it's been washed away by floods.

So that makes sheep a little less,

You know,

Attractive.

But they're such a good tool.

You can run sheep on a hot,

One hot single wire.

You've got to train them,

Right?

You've got to train them.

You don't need to train them.

I've got to train my cows at the moment,

Too.

They're getting a bit naughty.

Yeah.

We did have cows out on our organic farm as well.

And our cows haven't had any vet cams for six years either,

Which I think is,

You know,

On the downs it was probably a bit easier.

We moved them up during the drought to the beach farm.

So they're here now and they're a black Angus.

So that's something that a lot of people said we couldn't do and we've managed to do it organically.

And it took a bit of time and a bit of nurturing,

But it can be done.

You know,

These things,

They all can be done.

Just on that one,

Because we were talking about it yesterday,

You know,

As you said,

People said you can't do it.

You know,

Don't be bloody bringing those western cattle down here because it won't work.

Because there is tick and there's what?

Fly.

Fly and they're not used to that.

You know,

What was,

I guess,

What were some of the things you do to combat that or to make that transition easier for them and actually help them adapt as it were?

Yeah.

So we,

I think,

You know,

We started off,

You know,

As soon as they got off the truck,

You know,

They got rescue remedy.

They obviously went into quarantine because we were organic up here.

So rescue remedy being homeopathic?

Homeopathic,

Yeah.

I want to get back to that.

We use a lot of homeopathics with our cows.

We trough dose.

It's super easy.

And if there's one that's looking a bit off in the paddock,

I literally have,

You know,

Spray bottles and I have them on the jet.

Squirty bit,

Yeah.

And I squirt it on their nose as I'm driving around checking them and that's it.

It's done.

Who makes those homeopathics?

I have,

I've got them from a place in New Zealand called Semillamum because I studied homeopathy for humans.

So I had access to that.

There are a few people that do agro homeopathy,

I'm sure,

In Australia.

I know that there's a couple that do vet.

But yeah,

We,

I've sort of made up my own remedies and I use that a lot for three days because we have buffalo fly here.

We've really had to do a targeted approach with ticks and buffalo fly.

We use a combination of everything.

Fly trap,

We've got,

Yeah,

Bosbak and dengue farm stall.

Yeah,

They're from,

Yeah.

What is that?

The Bosbak,

So that's the dermataceous earth that they go in.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So diatomaceous earth.

And bit of sulphur.

So we saw that,

So basically diatomaceous earth in a hessian bag that sort of hangs vertically and they sort of rub up on that.

Yep,

They go powder themselves.

They go powder themselves,

Which is fascinating,

Isn't it?

They know,

Because they don't have to do that.

You know,

You don't like spring that on them,

They go,

Oh,

I'm going to,

I need a dose.

They realise the benefit from it.

Yeah.

Yeah,

They love it.

So we do that.

We also,

When we purchase the beach farm,

It has a cow shower,

Which is a race,

You know,

With all of the different nozzles and we use that a lot.

So.

What are you putting on them for that?

Well,

We use salt.

We use saline and essential oils,

Which is.

Himalayan rock salt?

Yeah,

Pretty much.

Pretty much.

And it just,

It must change the pH of their skin.

When we first got here,

We used a really oily based shower,

But we just found that it almost slicked them too much and trapped the heat into them.

So we've just gone back to,

We've,

Yeah,

We're trialling at the moment,

Which is working quite well,

Just using,

Yeah,

Salt.

Really?

So they get a salt shower?

Salt,

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's,

You run through the yards to do that specifically?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

And that's something you do every what?

Every now and again?

Yeah,

Every,

Yeah.

And,

You know,

Obviously we.

In peak season,

Obviously.

When we got here,

We didn't,

There hadn't been stock on this property for quite a while,

So we didn't have any dung beetles either.

So a dung beetle population is amazing now.

How did you get,

Because I went to pick up some shit yesterday and put the shovel under one and all there was left was a cap.

Yes.

Yeah,

Exactly.

They're amazing.

I love them.

How do you think you got them to come back?

We didn't do.

We were freaking out because it took a good,

What,

Four months?

Five months?

And we thought,

Well,

We're going to have to buy in millions of these things.

Yeah.

And we tried to buy them in and they're really hard to come by in Australia.

And it.

John Fian.

You know John Fian?

Yeah,

I think I spoke to him,

But at the time there was a back,

Is he from Dung Weedles Australia or something?

Matured,

I'll put in the show notes,

But he's from Canberra down that way.

He's probably the Mr.

He is Mr.

Dung Weedles.

Yeah.

I spoke to him and he was like,

Look,

We've got a,

We've got a bit of a backlog at the moment.

So,

But we just,

We put our cows,

You know,

Brought our cows up here and they just came back.

We didn't do anything.

Obviously,

Apart from not using any sort of systemic vet cams that were going to harm them.

And,

You know,

They're just so active now.

You know,

You go out there a couple of days later and all you've got is,

You know,

A cap on the top with a bit of dirt on the top.

Don't be lying in the paddock pretending to be a cow shit because they'll take you away.

Exactly.

And this was,

This was conventionally run before you guys got hit?

The farm?

No,

It wasn't.

Was it,

Was organic,

Well,

Not,

Well,

Naturally run,

Was it?

Absolutely.

The lady who owned,

Yeah,

The lady who owned this property,

I'm not sure if we're allowed to say who it was.

Are we allowed to do that?

She did a very good job.

She did an amazing job.

She poured a lot of money into,

This was all cane property and she certainly spent a lot of money on soil health and fertility.

So.

She did well.

She did really well.

Was that one of the reasons why you bought it?

Because it had already had a,

Like a,

It had a background or it's like there's already a bit of a headstart in the getting rid of chemical type of thing?

It's just the actual farm itself.

I don't think that was a deciding factor.

And it's,

We didn't purchase it certified.

Unfortunately,

It had been on the market for quite a while and they had used Roundup on some of the fences.

So we're still in conversion now.

So it didn't speed the process up for us.

But the farm is,

It's quite an amazing farm for the area.

It's 400 acres.

It's flat and it drains well.

And you know,

In the Noosa hinterland,

It's quite hard to find that.

And so close to the beach.

Yeah.

And also being able to try to crop,

Play around with cropping on it.

Yeah,

You've got that,

You've got that ability.

Any other sort of interesting things you guys do,

Whether out west or here that's,

You know,

In that homeopathic type of thing?

I mean,

I guess your involvement with Byron Amex.

Let's talk about that.

You know,

You came to a course.

2018.

2018 at the farm.

At the farm.

At Byron.

So I can't remember,

Was that in spring or autumn?

Hang on.

I think,

Yeah.

So we,

We sort of maybe missed the fact that Mitch got quite sick in 2018.

Let's talk about that.

Okay,

Talk about that.

He looks,

He looks right now.

Yeah,

He's so healthy now.

This is the most amazing thing.

So.

Tell us about that.

Yeah,

So,

Lead up,

We were pushing so hard,

We were busy.

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Harvest.

Yeah.

And yeah,

I had a bit of a reset.

It was a perfect thing,

Actually.

It was a,

Not just a stroke as such,

But a restriction.

And I lost my left side and ability to pronounce words and things like that.

When you say restriction,

What are you talking about?

No,

It wasn't a clot.

He was just saying that he had an occlusion.

Sorry,

It wasn't a clot stroke.

So for those who aren't doctors,

What does that mean?

Okay,

It just means that,

Yeah,

He,

Yeah.

Come on,

Nurse.

Yeah,

He,

He just,

He,

He stopped blood flow into a part of his brain.

Well,

That's what happened.

He was stressed.

And so,

We had all these great organic ideas and we'd started this certification,

Obviously.

Our property would have been fully certified in 2018 there.

But,

You know,

With the amount of stress and with the amount of growth that we had done,

We weren't necessarily,

Our children led a very organic lifestyle,

But Mitch and I,

You know,

We lived off coffee and,

You know,

And our place was,

You know,

We had a lot of people that,

You know,

Used to come and have a drink on our deck,

You know.

So we certainly weren't living our best organic lifestyles.

And we were working,

Mitch was working very solidly,

Sort of around the clock quite a bit.

So we were harvesting.

Mitch was on the chaser bin,

Came off,

Just started raining.

Everyone,

We had our harvest team,

Which is,

You know,

Probably about 15 people,

Turn up to have beers on the deck and Mitch grabbed a beer and,

Yeah,

Kind of felt funny,

Came inside and,

Yeah,

Lost his left side.

Went to hospital,

You know,

Did the whole shebang.

That's how suddenly it happened.

But,

You know,

He literally got off the chaser bin.

And that's how quickly life can,

I guess,

Completely change.

How was that for you,

Nina?

Like,

You know,

Busy time of year and,

Until you got off the chaser bin because the harvest had just finished?

Yeah,

It was just started raining.

No,

It hadn't just finished.

You're having a break because of the rain.

Yeah.

So how was that,

Nina,

Do you,

You know,

That's a big,

Oh my God,

What's going on?

Yeah,

It's huge.

And I guess being a nurse,

You had your suspicions as to what happened?

I did.

Although the hospital,

He turned up there and the hospital said that he was dehydrated and I was like,

Guys,

Come on,

Seriously?

Is that what you're saying to Mitch?

Oh,

You're just dehydrated,

You'll be alright?

I was going,

I'm only dehydrated,

Don't worry.

It's alright.

Yeah.

I'm thinking,

Jesus,

This is not good.

Yeah,

Your left side's just gone.

It's like,

Mmm,

That's not dehydration.

No,

Not dehydration.

And yeah,

You just,

Mitch was not ever going to have a reset without getting hit.

Like you don't take,

You weren't going to stop this one,

Were you?

It was a freight train.

Like I said,

It was the perfect thing for the great,

I'm grateful for it now because we were almost where we were meant to be doing and this sort of just gave us that little hit.

And then we went to the doctors.

The way I got on to actual biodynamics was a great doctor said,

Mate,

Biochemically you're perfect.

You're 35.

This is a bit bizarre,

You know?

And he said,

How about you go have a look at a bit of biodynamic,

Uh,

Steiner,

Steiner work.

I said,

Okay,

I'm open to anything right now.

This is after a little bit of a recovery though.

Yeah,

This is after recovery because the doctors would never,

Could never tell me why.

And anyway,

We were finally at the bottom of it.

And this,

And so we did that.

We went and came to you guys,

You and Hamish.

Yeah,

The farm.

So was that your first sort of foray into biodynamics?

Like when,

Oh,

Google biodynamics,

All these blokes are doing a course,

Let's go and do it.

Well,

Yeah,

I was always into homeopathy and so I was always told by homeopaths that I'd sort of spoken to that biodynamics is,

Cause I always said,

I want to use homeopathy on the farm.

And they said,

Look,

Do biodynamics.

You know,

That's,

That's,

You know,

The agricultural version.

And,

Yeah,

So that's sort of,

I'd always had an interest in,

Yeah,

In it.

But yeah,

No,

They were really interesting times.

So it's Mitch's recovery.

He was sort of in,

In Bedford,

Couldn't do much for three months and it sort of took us about,

Refused to take any medications either.

He did have high cholesterol at the time.

He changed his diet and got retested in three months and his cholesterol was 100% better.

So we've got people coming in for the biomet course.

Good guard dogs.

Who's that?

Yeah,

So we worked really hard and we did everything and Mitch did everything naturally for 12 months and he is in better health than he ever has been now,

Which is amazing.

And what was the,

What did the,

What,

What direction did the biodynamic send you?

What,

What,

What did you take away from,

From that,

That two day course?

You know,

How has that sort of set you up or changed your farming or life or whatever?

Let's dig into that.

So,

So doing the agricultural side of it was great and it was bringing some more pieces of the puzzle together to make that easier.

But the philosophy side of it just,

Yeah,

It sort of really,

Really helped.

Hamish actually said something yesterday.

He,

He,

You know,

Well,

I did a similar thing,

Went through an Anglican school and failed and didn't,

Got ahead of all this information that I had no idea inkling about.

And then the biodynamic sort of brought life to that and then it sort of put it in its place where it went,

Oh,

Right,

That's,

You know,

Like the stuff you picked up as you're growing up.

How did it do that?

What,

What was the,

Can you sort of explain how that happened?

Like what,

What,

What was put into place or was it?

Just,

Just things like it,

I don't know about other people,

Myself,

Like you go to those schools,

You get your religion thrown down your throat,

You're supposed to be this,

You're supposed to be that.

And then biodynamic sort of,

For me,

In the,

As I said,

The farming side brought into that sort of box that living everything's life,

It's,

Everything's alive.

It's,

It's,

There's a reason for it and it's a precursor for you can tell something's going to happen behind it.

And in,

In,

In my life,

It put a lot of the,

The religious and everything we learnt from school into perspective too for me.

And instead of me just parking in the box going,

Oh,

Well,

I don't really understand,

I don't like it,

It got thrown down my throat.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

I'm going to go back into that and have a look and,

And,

And,

You know,

Explore or experiment with it.

I think the big difference that I've certainly experienced is,

You know,

At school it was religion and outside of that and through,

You know,

Biodynamics,

It's,

It's a,

It's more of a spiritual,

Which is,

You know,

A word that gets thrown around a lot,

But it's a much more deeper,

You know,

A bit more focused on the soul and the,

And the spirit as opposed to ritual of going and talking to some bloke upstairs who made everything,

You know,

Which is really out of context and serves a whole lot of other different agendas I,

I,

I feel.

Nines,

Did you,

Were you having an angle on it?

I think,

So that,

That first two-day course that we did at the farm was mind-blowing for me and I think,

You know,

Having been great researchers,

Just having Hamish explain the philosophy behind the force of life was amazing,

You know,

And that,

It just,

When we walked away from that course,

We looked at our properties and,

And the farms.

Completely differently.

We just,

Yeah,

And it's almost like it becomes,

You know,

It's an energetic,

It's,

It's,

It's palpable,

You know,

You can kind of feel the life force and you can,

And,

You know,

And that's one thing that we really noticed from using biodynamics and we use them across all of our properties,

Conventional and organic,

Is the vigor.

It's the,

It's just vibrant.

It makes,

It makes your farms vibrant,

You know,

Our seeds jump out of the ground,

You know,

And we can see that because we do contracting as well.

So we might,

You know,

Plant the exact same crop,

You know,

On our neighbour's property and our,

It's just,

It's there,

It's,

It's ready for life.

It's,

It's beautiful.

I get goosebumps thinking about it,

You know,

And yeah,

I think,

You know,

Biodynamics,

It is,

It's a philosophy,

But it's a way of life.

You can't unsee it once you've seen it,

You know,

And I think it's,

It's such a beautiful,

Such a beautiful way to live,

You know,

And to farm.

Do you ever get the urge to like sneak a bit of biodynamics into when you do contracting and go,

Oh,

I'm just going to give our mates a nice blow of coffee?

We were told not to do that.

I was told by you and Ava Shirley not to do that.

I'm not suggesting,

That was a test,

That was a test.

Well,

I've done well,

I haven't done it.

Unless there's some residue left in the nose tank on the tractor.

Accidentally.

You said you sort of,

I think you said you see your farm differently,

Apart from like,

I guess,

Seeing the vitality and there's,

You know,

Results in,

I guess,

Yield or,

You know,

Comparing it to,

You know,

As you just said,

You know,

Next door to yours and,

But is there any other,

You know,

Again,

For people thinking about potentially doing the,

Doing our course,

You know,

What would,

What would they potentially see on their farms or what,

What,

I'm trying to sort of get some words around it.

I think it's just about,

You know,

Aligning ourselves with our place and,

You know,

And just getting in touch.

Weeds aren't weeds anymore.

No,

That's not,

Well,

That's one thing.

I mean,

I think,

I think also,

You know,

Using,

Utilising the calendar,

You know,

We utilise the biodynamic calendar now and observation.

You actually start,

I think,

You know,

Back in the 80s or 90s,

It used to be called natural resource monitoring.

You know,

People used to go out and look at their farms and that's kind of what we do.

And,

You know,

Hamish was great when we first did the course to say,

Go out and see what's happening and then come back and see if it's relatable.

And I remember waking up one morning and taking a stroll on the farm and everything was flowering.

And I literally went back to the calendar and it was a flower day and it was just ridiculous to see how in tune your farm is with the biodynamic calendar.

And then,

You know,

Getting yourself into that place and just recognising the small things.

I mean,

There's so much change that you can see.

Whenever we put out,

Whenever I do my little around the house biodynamic preps,

You know,

Our cows will come from fences and fences and they will turn up outside the house.

Like they just come and graze on the front lawn.

It's so funny.

You know,

They know.

So you think they get a sense of this and good stuff happening over here?

Absolutely.

Were you saying the other day neighbours turn up,

Cattle turn up?

Our neighbours,

Yeah,

Cattle from a couple of kilometres away have turned up.

We've heard about six different NIS tag cattle come in here and.

.

.

From somewhere.

Yeah,

From different places.

Which is not unusual because we always tell the story and it was actually told at one of our courses that by a woman,

I think it was Central Coast,

New South Wales,

And a cattle truck had turned over on the highway.

And I think a lot had been killed,

Some had to be destroyed and some had escaped.

I think there was half a dozen that escaped.

And she,

I can't remember if it was her place or someone she knew,

There was half a dozen of these cattle that had actually survived and escaped turned up at her place.

And it was like two,

Three,

Five kilometres away of all the places they could have gone.

And she only had like two acres and they just turned up in her backyard and she was using preps,

Biodynamics.

Animals are pretty intelligent things.

They know what they need to be healthy and survive.

I remember in America,

I saw the corn cob.

Someone had an organic corn,

Or one just been a generic corn cob and a GMO corn cob.

And the GMO corn cob,

The birds didn't attack it.

It was the other one that was eaten before they went to the.

.

.

They were going,

What's this foreign crazy alien thing?

Yeah,

It was just an interesting thing that one of the farmers did up there.

I guess some farmers go,

Well,

That's great.

I don't want birds eating my corn.

They're forgetting that something has to eat that at some point.

You're generally asked.

Talking about food growing for people,

What else are you guys doing here?

Because we were talking yesterday about some crops and you've got some,

You know,

Some plans in terms of your cattle and that sort of thing.

Can you tell us about it?

Or is that a secret?

No,

No,

Nothing's a secret with us.

So the best thing about here is we're stepping into the hort area now from just the broad acre and row cropping.

So we did pumpkins last season and we've had great.

.

.

Feedback?

Feedback on it.

So,

Yeah,

We're going to expand in that and try some sweet potatoes,

Sweet corn and just dabble a little bit.

Yeah,

Just to.

.

.

We like to think that whatever we grow,

Someone's going to be healthier from eating it,

Not the other way.

It's almost a medicinal.

.

.

So that's probably.

.

.

This is probably aligning with our morals as in a human consumption side of things.

Does that feel like a responsibility,

Someone?

Definitely.

I mean,

Everyone wants to do.

.

.

Everyone wants to help people.

I mean,

That's the foundation of being human,

Isn't it?

You know,

I think that's another thing also with doing the organics and the biodynamics.

Biodynamics is about community.

It's about getting together.

It's about working together.

And that's the beauty of it.

We're not here just for ourselves and I think that's what we sort of come down to.

And last year when we did our pumpkin crop,

We took them off and we cured them in the sun,

Which is not something that.

.

.

It took time.

It took effort.

But it's something that we did and our product was really amazing from it.

And just going that extra bit rather than just packing them into a box and putting them into a dark place,

Making sure that it's done properly and done to the best of our ability so we know that whoever's going to eat it,

It's going to be full of flavor and delicious and well for them,

Good for them,

Biodynamics.

You're going to hear a few cars coming in now for the day two of our BD workshop here.

Just getting back to biodynamics,

Just to give people a sense of how you've incorporated into cropping.

There's a couple of the preparations that you guys use.

Give people a sort of sense of how you use it.

Do you put it out onto crops before you sow in crops type of thing?

Do you use the soil preparations and the atmospherics as well?

Yep.

So we do our composts,

Perhaps in our compost when we have compost.

We do in our fish or kelp.

And then so like I was saying,

If we're cultivating and it's an opportunity,

We'll put some brewed biology that we do with our biodynamics down pre-crop.

And then as we plant,

We seed dress and then the ground preps down,

The earth preps down when we plant.

And yeah,

We seed dress,

We seed dress down the tube,

Liquid inject.

And then as we go over either,

We put our 501,

Like I use 501.

The 501 being the atmospheric,

How do you use that?

At what stage?

What are you trying to do by using that one?

Insects.

It helps with the plants,

Sugar and insect protection and general health.

So it's a bit like a multiple.

If you're coming,

Getting sick,

People will take echinacea or something.

Just trying to be there in front of that and assist where we can.

When we're cultivating,

We also ban spray on.

So if there's an opportunity there that arises,

We'll do it then.

And then talking to Hamish with organics,

Bringing in crops for harvesting,

There's a potential there to utilize some of the preps to maybe desiccate and uniform as well.

So we're going to play around with that.

Frost tolerance.

He was talking about yesterday that that was an interesting thing I never thought about.

So we're going to definitely try that.

Basically giving plants a two to four degree extra tolerance for frost.

Yeah.

And I think also,

You know,

With biodynamics,

We haven't had to change anything to use it on any of our farms,

Really.

You know,

That's probably,

There's nothing too scary about it.

The kids love playing,

Don't they?

The kids love playing it.

In the flow form.

Yes,

The flow form.

Get a good bathe in it.

Yes,

They do.

They walk out the end of the ground a foot,

You know,

Wide-hole.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

So we just put it out with everything.

And,

You know,

We like our tractors out west are all set up for liquid injection.

So once you have a front tank on,

You can literally get like a just the nozzle at the back,

The boomless nozzle.

And it's 44,

You know,

Like it's pretty easy to rig up.

And it doesn't have to be expensive either.

You know,

I'm always,

You know,

Everything's got to be done,

You know,

At a lower cost if possible.

And yeah,

So I mean,

It's pretty.

So for people listening and croppers and the like,

It's not,

To be fair to say,

It's not a big impost in terms of the gear you need,

The change of practice.

There's a degree of understanding of potentially when,

You know,

When appropriate time or the best time.

But it's not like a,

Oh my God,

I've just got to turn my production system on its head to use.

No,

You don't have to be a pure.

I mean,

We don't believe you have to be a purist,

You know,

We get it out and we get it on.

And sometimes it's unconventional.

And Tim,

Our agronomist,

I don't know how you'd say it,

But he'd always tell me farming was always attention to detail and timing.

Yes.

That's a trick.

Our agronomist has been working with us for 10 years now and he's so,

He's,

Yeah,

We're still waiting for him to turn up in a caftan one day.

He's amazing.

He actually is amazing.

He's not,

You know,

He's not your run of the mill.

Small people.

They didn't like the look of that.

We'd better wrap up pretty quick,

Smart.

Another question,

Just in terms of your organic group,

I think that's fascinating.

You've got a number of your organic group here attending the course.

So thank you for geeing them up and twisting their arms to get here.

Tell me why,

Why have you done that?

What are the benefits of your little group?

Explain what is it?

Yeah,

Okay.

So our group can.

.

.

And of merry men and women.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Noosa Hinterland and Merry Valley is really lucky.

We have a farm store here called Candanga Farm Store and Tim and Amber run it.

They believe that food can be produced without chemicals.

And they were the catalyst when we moved here and they found out they were like,

We've got this organic group.

So it's a very,

It's small.

And we did that sort of for a reason,

Just because everyone's time poor.

And when you become part of a large group,

It kind of dilutes the need for you to be there.

Our group is all about keeping each other accountable.

And also it provides us the opportunity to visit everyone's farm so we can then actually be of value and try and have a bit of a roundtable discussion about any concerns or any issues that we're coming into contact with.

It is the most amazing thing.

After we've done this,

We'll go around and every month we'll do a cow pat pit at everyone's property.

Just being able to provide that value.

It's so easy.

We have great morning teas,

Great conversation.

We've got some really big personalities in there.

We've got an amazing biologist.

We've got.

.

.

Homeopath,

We've got Tim and Amber.

They've got great exposure.

We've got an amazing avocado,

Organic avocado,

Organic lime growers.

It's huge diversity.

We all do different things.

But we all know that with our knowledge,

We can sort of solve problems together and we're much better.

I think it's a bit like me tonight.

I was saying last night,

Together we can do anything,

But apart we can't achieve much.

That's very much what we're about.

Grab that mic,

Mitch.

Don't be shy.

More opinions the better,

Isn't it?

More what?

Opinions the better.

I think just the sharing of opinions and the throwing them,

Putting them on the table.

In a group of people who are on the same page,

Then there's no offence taken if that opinion isn't picked up and embraced.

It's really about.

.

.

It's nothing personal.

It's just like,

You know what,

That's not necessarily appropriate for my thing or whatever else,

But more heads the better.

As long as it doesn't get so big as you say it needs and get gregarious and needs some sort of governance around it and that sort of rubbish.

It's organic literally,

The way it rolls.

How many people in the group?

What's the nice tidy number that you're finding?

It's probably about nine or something,

Ten.

So it's one farm visit a year,

Essentially?

Yeah.

We're just like a bunch of mates.

We love getting together.

We go to a Candanga farm store.

They've got a cafe attached to the farm store.

It's pretty nice.

We can go there,

Have a coffee.

It's just fun.

It's bringing the fun back into farming.

That's where it's at.

A bit of culture too.

Good social interaction.

We're all different ages as well.

That's great.

I think we'd better wrap it up guys,

Because I'm just conscious.

We've got more people rolling in.

We've got stuff to probably,

We dug out,

Calvin,

Your concentrate pit last night.

So that's done.

That's cool.

We're going to fill that up today.

It's the fanciest one we've ever had here too.

It is.

Thanks Charlie.

No,

Well,

That's fine.

Look,

It's all about just grabbing the resources available.

I noticed my daughter took a great photo of you and I digging while Charlie was just standing.

Someone has to be the overseer of those sort of projects.

So I think that I could chat for much longer because I really dig what you guys are doing.

You know,

You're really inspiring and there's the cropping side of it,

Which I'm again,

Fascinated with.

And I think there's so much more to talk about there because I think that's one of the missing links.

I think the grazing stuff that's called organics or biodynamics or regenerative ag is there's a lot of people doing really good stuff.

And you can read books about it.

You can watch videos and the whole thing.

The cropping thing,

That's a much bigger unknown.

And that's where there's a lot more at stake in some ways because it's,

You know,

There are inputs that need to be bought and applied and there's timing involved.

And then there's all those things and there's cost and then there's the outcome of all I'm going to stuff it up and is this going to kill it?

Is it,

You know,

There's so many,

By its very nature,

There's more variables and more layers of understanding.

But I think what I sense from you guys and what I understand,

What I see and just knowing you guys,

You know,

It's nothing's perfect.

I'm not saying you guys have found the perfect answer.

I think the lovely thing is that you're actually experimenting.

You've been courageous to do that.

You're really breaking new ground,

You know,

In what you're doing.

And you're not just,

You know,

You're not commodity farmers anymore.

You know,

You're selling pumpkins to people.

You're,

You know,

You're growing food.

We're growing seeds as well and not just feed grains and things like that.

And you're actually trying to get away from as many feed grains as possible,

Really.

Yeah.

We're sort of trying to get back more into seeds and legumes.

But the thing is,

I always say,

You know,

We are always open to chat.

And if anyone wants to get in touch,

You know,

We are on Facebook and Instagram and,

You know,

We're not,

We don't keep our cards close to our chest.

We think that the world can benefit from,

And you know,

If commodity prices change because a lot of people get into the organic market,

You know,

That's fine.

We're going to deal with that.

It's not,

I'm not concerned,

We're not concerned about that.

We want to see as many people going into regenerative farming,

You know,

Dropping out the urea,

The things that we don't actually need.

And we've proven that we,

You know,

There are some things that you can just 100% get rid of without changing much.

So,

Yeah,

You know,

Get in touch.

And new people bring new ideas too.

Absolutely.

Yeah,

Totally.

That we don't even think about.

That's right.

I mean,

It sometimes can be,

It can be innocent questions or naive questions that can actually,

To a professional or experienced person go,

Oh my God,

I never even thought of that.

You know,

It's a clear set of eyes and a whole different perspective on it.

So,

Well,

I am totally up for supporting anything you guys are doing in the out west here.

I know that,

Well,

You guys have a website,

Bray Farms,

You know,

And you're doing some really cool stuff.

There's some little extra bits in there that if you go to the website,

You'll suss out what the guys are up to.

A few sort of plans in terms of more food you're going to be providing.

You have so big plans.

Yeah,

Not all of them can be shared just yet.

But,

Yeah,

I've got some big things in the pipeline.

Yeah,

So it's really exciting.

And again,

You know,

It's going,

I'm glad you're not worried about people catching up with you because no one's going to catch up with you,

I don't think.

In terms of commodity prices or going,

Oh no,

You know,

Like you guys are,

You're a couple of steps ahead of the pack.

It's not about being competitive.

It's just about being progressive and you guys are really doing it.

So thank you so much.

I'm really looking forward,

I can't tell you how excited I am to be here and you're hosting the fact you came to our course a couple of years ago.

And,

You know,

What I see it has done for you,

You're already on the path anyway,

Which is fantastic.

And then jumping into biodynamics and it's clearly utilisation in lots of different facets of what you're doing.

It really warms my heart because it's the practical application and it's the very visual results and the very tangible results.

And there's also the less tangible results that I see as a really good example of what can be done with it,

You know,

When it's embraced as you guys have.

Definitely.

Yeah,

We love it.

Well,

We love you too.

And we're going to have to wrap it up because we've got day two.

And we've been at it for a while now and I can't wait to pump this one out.

And I'm just going to make,

I just hope and I pray that we can get as many croppers to listen to this,

Not to sort of identify what they should be doing,

But just to give them,

It's a bit like the opinion.

Put it on the table and see what happens and sort of think about how you can change your,

Potentially,

You know,

Paradigms and the way you do things.

To do a,

Dare I say,

A better job and changing KPIs,

You know,

Like conventional,

You know,

I guess maybe back then your KPIs were probably very economically based and maybe your own health wasn't a KPI and maybe some other ecological things weren't KPIs.

Dare I say now,

I reckon your KPIs are a bit different.

Yeah,

Totally different.

And I think also,

You know,

I think the biggest thing at the start of our journey compared to now was the fact that I was such a purist at the start of the journey,

You know,

And I wanted everything to be perfect and it stopped me from doing anything,

You know.

But now it's like,

You've just got to get it.

Life's,

You know,

Life's a bit chaotic sometimes and you've just got to get it done.

And,

You know,

It's worked out really well.

But you don't have to have all of your ducks in a line to start this stuff,

You know,

It's pretty simple.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

Give it a shot.

As we say,

80% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Absolutely.

Thanks very much for what you do too,

John.

Yeah.

That's a pleasure,

Mate.

It's a real joy doing this stuff,

Knowing that it's embraced and picked up and applied.

That's the important thing.

As Scotty.

.

.

Drives the gate up.

.

.

.

Finishes off the interview with the noise of the gate up.

Can I just say,

Just a quick,

Before we do take off,

People,

The value of people.

You've got some really amazing people working for you.

You know,

Scotty's fantastic and he told me his little story there yesterday.

Christina is amazing.

She's everywhere doing everything,

Like.

.

.

She's everything.

I have to say,

You know,

It's a credit to you guys for clearly attracting those sort of people.

Yeah.

Any parting thoughts about that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're human.

Is it important to have nice people?

It's just so important to have nice people.

Sharing the same.

Absolutely.

And sharing the same values.

And that's why these guys are here,

You know,

Doing the course.

They're really important and their opinion's really important.

And yeah,

We just want to nurture them and.

.

.

Agriculture needs more and more people too,

Yeah.

And whatever you want to be,

You can be in an agriculture.

You know,

Food's amazing.

It's such a good industry to be in.

And I support anyone to come into agriculture.

I think it's amazing.

I mean,

Even someone in the backyard can call themselves a little farmer.

They're in agriculture.

Absolutely.

They're growing food and they're caring for their backyard,

Their environment,

The birds in there.

Being sustainable,

Yep.

The grass,

The carrots,

The whatever else.

Definitely.

Absolutely.

Nice one,

Guys.

We better get wrapped up.

Thank you.

Thanks,

Charlie.

Catch up with you very soon.

Can't wait to get this one out.

See you,

Mate.

Thank you.

There you go,

On the veranda of their house overlooking their wonderful farm there in the Sunshine Coast.

Up there near Kin Kin.

So much good stuff there and I really hope that was of interest to farmers out there who are wondering,

How can we actually use this stuff in a cropping situation?

Because they are doing a really good job at that and they're just delightful people.

Talk about delightful people.

My next guest next week is Neil Perry,

None other than world famous chef.

He was just wonderful catching up with Neil.

He was a very,

Very busy man.

He very kindly gave me some time there upstairs in one of the private rooms at Rockpool Bar and Grill in Sydney.

We talked all sorts of things.

Fascinating because I just had no idea that Neil's regenerative journey started when he was very young.

Why not listen to the episode to find out why and what I mean.

But yeah,

Very generous with his time,

Very generous with his helping of others as well.

And we talk about that in the interview.

So look,

I hope you're really looking forward to as much as I am,

Neil Perry's interview next week.

This podcast is produced by Rhys Jones at Yeager Media.

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