We first spoke about how we came to regenerative farming, as we have been following these practices since before regen farming was a thing. I grew up on a farm not far from our property, agriculture is in my blood and always knew that it would be the path I would pursue. I married the boy next door, well a few properties down (though it still counts), and we were incredibly privileged to have the process of succession to enable us to start our journey. Bryan’s father died when he was quite young, which presented us the opportunity of time, to be able to think about how we wanted Meramie to run long-term. In the mid-90’s when we had our first child, we started looking at the bigger picture, thinking about his succession and what we wanted our property and business to look like 30 years on, what we would be leaving behind. So, we went searching for alternatives, luckily for us one of our neighbours and good friend had just done a course with Terry McCosker’s, GFP (Grazing for Profit), and suggested we give it a try as it was right up our alley. It ticked all our boxes; minimal inputs, building our landscapes, looking after our soils, providing a space we’d want to raise our children on and the time to do so.

Sally-Anne and I also spoke about changing the narrative of the “hard done by farmer.” When done right, agriculture can be profitable and a viable living. We want our young people to know that this can be a satisfying career path. From the outside looking in farming does look so pre-determined by external factors (rain, dry spells, fires, plagues etc). Though that doesn’t have to be the case, farming doesn’t have to be reactive, we set plans months in advance. It can be quite technical – we can look out our Autumn rainfall and know if we will have enough pasture feed to get through Winter.  Because we have been following regenerative practices for 30 years this is not new to us, we are constantly de-stocking and restocking our sheep and cattle, knowing how much grass we have ahead of us, making plans. A lot of farmers choose to do things differently to us and are much more hesitant to destock in the dry spells and choose to purchase feed for them and hold out for rain. We love our stock and are very emotionally attached, but know they are not irreplaceable. We would never want them to suffer and know prioritising animal welfare over sentimentality is the way to go. We also know that our Sommerlad chickens are designed for tough Australian conditions and will thrive in all different seasons. So, we know that when done right we can have a steady cash-flow from this enterprise without having to compromise any of our values or animal welfare. It was one of the reasons we started doing poultry in the first place.