Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have
Neroli Brennan: a good yarn about ag life with producers who are
Neroli Brennan: having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers
Neroli Brennan: in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements,
Neroli Brennan: making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get
Neroli Brennan: a laugh out of some of their stories, and also
Neroli Brennan: pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your
Neroli Brennan: host Neroli Brennan. Today, we're having a yarn with Joe Fleming.
Neroli Brennan: Joe farms alongside his family at Ulah, a 10, 000 hectare mixed
Neroli Brennan: farming property, just west of Walgett in north- west New
Neroli Brennan: South Wales. With some opportunity irrigated cotton, cattle trading, and
Neroli Brennan: reducement also featuring when the season allows. In today's episode,
Neroli Brennan: we hear that as well as farming, Joe is pretty
Neroli Brennan: handy with a welder, and runs his own engineering workshop
Neroli Brennan: on farm called Evolve Ag. His latest venture has been
Neroli Brennan: into the manufacturing of machinery, and in particular, crimpers. You'll
Neroli Brennan: hear Joe explain how these innovative tools can help farmers
Neroli Brennan: manage weeds without disturbing the soil, providing benefits for both
Neroli Brennan: pastures and cropping country. Joe also shares with us his
Neroli Brennan: family's succession journey, and how difficult a process it can be.
Neroli Brennan: He discusses it from his perspective, and how it's important
Neroli Brennan: to remember the privilege of being in the situation where
Neroli Brennan: inheriting a farm is a possibility. Local Land Services mixed
Neroli Brennan: farming advisor, Rohan Leach, sat down with Joe to find
Neroli Brennan: out more about the future opportunities he sees in agriculture today.
Rohan Leach: G'day listeners. Today, I'm with Joe Fleming near Walgett. Welcome
Rohan Leach: to the Seeds for Success podcast, mate.
Joe Fleming: Oh, what a pleasure, Ro. Thanks for having me, mate.
Rohan Leach: Can you start off by giving me an overview of
Rohan Leach: your business here at Ulah?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, mate, so I guess there's two sides of it. Our business is up on the farm
Joe Fleming: west of Walgett. We started Evolve Engineering five years ago off
Joe Fleming: the back of Ulah Engineering, which is an engineering business
Joe Fleming: I started probably 10 years ago. Then that, for lack
Joe Fleming: of a better word, evolved into something bigger and better. And then the other
Joe Fleming: half of the business, I guess, is our family business being at Ulah,
Joe Fleming: which I'm fifth generation, we are out on farm.
Rohan Leach: Give me a bit of a run down of Ulah.
Rohan Leach: What sort of hectares, business type, enterprises, those sorts of things?
Joe Fleming: Ulah's around 10,000 hectares, give or take a bit. We're mixed farming, and
Joe Fleming: try and keep a bit of variety around that with
Joe Fleming: different streams and avenues of income, I guess. We're around 3,
Joe Fleming: 300 hectares of dry land or cropping, which we mix
Joe Fleming: between mostly wheat and chickpeas. We find that there's going
Joe Fleming: to be a forced fallow in there, one way or
Joe Fleming: the other around that rotation. But we have done some
Joe Fleming: summer cropping before in the dry land sense of things with
Joe Fleming: dry land cotton, and fava beans. Well, that's a little
Joe Fleming: more winter as well, but we sort of have played
Joe Fleming: around with a few things. Then, we've got 400 hectares, or around that,
Joe Fleming: of irrigation that's on unregulated river catchment, so that's sort
Joe Fleming: of more opportunistic flow, so we can't order any water down,
Joe Fleming: or anything. It's sort of more what falls in the catchment,
Joe Fleming: and what's buzzing past us to meet thresholds. Fairly rigorous
Joe Fleming: thresholds have to be met in order for us to
Joe Fleming: take that water.
Rohan Leach: And with that water, you sort of pump out into on-
Rohan Leach: farm storage, and then water from there?
Joe Fleming: Yep. We sort of try and reserve that country for
Joe Fleming: cotton in the irrigation, but it's also opportunistic as well. We
Joe Fleming: do grow winter crops, depending on the water availability. What
Joe Fleming: we've got there is the general thought process, is if we
Joe Fleming: don't use it, we lose it. So, we've sort of
Joe Fleming: got to be able to move that around as well. So,
Joe Fleming: we do plant chickpeas or wheat in the irrigation as well
Joe Fleming: as an opportunity thing. And then the rest is grazing,
Joe Fleming: so we're just working out a bit more water. Or water's
Joe Fleming: pretty good, so we're probably more so fencing. We've got a bit of a
Joe Fleming: scatter of grazing around the place, but there's plenty of
Joe Fleming: opportunity there in that space as well. We don't have
Joe Fleming: a nucleus herd anymore, but we have been looking at reducement and
Joe Fleming: into trading. Whatever's going, really. So, that's probably to meet
Joe Fleming: the theme of west of Walgett, it is opportunistic farming
Joe Fleming: out here too, so that pretty much sums up the
Joe Fleming: enterprise , yeah.
Rohan Leach: So, all cattle on the grazing, or is there sheep
Rohan Leach: as well?
Joe Fleming: My old man sold. We were, for the most part
Joe Fleming: of Ulah's life, was a stud. Well, Merino stud and Merino's
Joe Fleming: breeding program. But my old man sold all of our
Joe Fleming: sheep in 1991, on my first birthday, and we haven't
Joe Fleming: actually stepped back into the sheep side of things. We
Joe Fleming: have traded a few lambs here and there, but it's
Joe Fleming: something that he lost interest in and sort of more
Joe Fleming: so focused on.
Rohan Leach: Selling all the sheep on your first birthday, mate, that's
Rohan Leach: a pretty ominous sign, or maybe auspicious. It means that
Rohan Leach: you probably didn't grow up learning how to dag fly-
Rohan Leach: blown sheep.
Joe Fleming: Yeah, mate. Look, talk to a few people. I mean,
Joe Fleming: you're either on one side of the fence or the other.
Joe Fleming: You either love it or you hate it. But I've yet
Joe Fleming: to figure out if it's probably the best birthday gift
Joe Fleming: that he's ever given me. But it could quite potentially be.
Joe Fleming: But some people would argue that. My father- in- law
Joe Fleming: would argue that after the day he dies.
Rohan Leach: So, the balance of the grazing country, what sort of
Rohan Leach: pasture species, or what's that look like?
Joe Fleming: What I've learned over the last four years in developing our other business, or
Joe Fleming: my business, I say, Evolve, is working out really that west of Walgett here, and around a lot
Joe Fleming: of Walgett, we've got a really high protein seed base
Joe Fleming: embedded out here. It doesn't really call for much need
Joe Fleming: for boost, or pasture improvement at all. It's heavily breeder
Joe Fleming: country here. And left alone, and without sort of stimulating
Joe Fleming: that, that sort of term too is higher protein herbage. That's the
Joe Fleming: word I'm looking for. There's a lot of herbage, but to
Joe Fleming: stimulate that pasture, I guess, you can really try and
Joe Fleming: push into there. Well, you can sort of access the seed
Joe Fleming: base that is there naturally, and that's quite a lot
Joe Fleming: of good grasses and good herbage mixture that can really
Joe Fleming: be beneficial for any type of enterprise, if you are
Joe Fleming: breeding or if you are trading cattle. It's just sort of
Joe Fleming: more so making the most out of the opportunity for
Joe Fleming: things to grow, and jumping on it straight away. That's
Joe Fleming: why I think a lot more people out here now are moving
Joe Fleming: towards a trade, or the trade side of things, because the
Joe Fleming: drought has really tattooed the back of our minds as to what
Joe Fleming: it's like feeding for so long, and it can just be
Joe Fleming: a heartache. So, I think there's either a lot more opportunity in
Joe Fleming: that now, and people are realizing the potential in that. So,
Joe Fleming: that's what we're sort of trying to work towards. There's
Joe Fleming: a lot of infrastructure that goes with that as well,
Joe Fleming: so you'd have to set up to be able to
Joe Fleming: spell paddocks correctly, and water stock efficiently. So, there's a
Joe Fleming: lot that goes with that, but I think that's what we're trying
Joe Fleming: to move towards to now.
Rohan Leach: So, a lot of infrastructure still to go in. What
Rohan Leach: does that look like for the next 12 months?
Joe Fleming: We're just about to start exclusion fencing. Well, it's been
Joe Fleming: in the wishlist for a while now. It's a very expensive process.
Joe Fleming: We're actually, I've got three blokes in the workshop with me.
Joe Fleming: We're setting up a trailer, a fencing trailer right now,
Joe Fleming: to just... We're going to build the exclusion fence ourselves,
Joe Fleming: I think. Comparing price-wise and time spent on it, I think that
Joe Fleming: was going to be the most efficient, effective way for
Joe Fleming: us to do it. Look, we're not flying out of
Joe Fleming: the gates and putting the whole lot up at once.
Joe Fleming: We're going to do the first six Ks, and that's
Joe Fleming: going to be our furthest most northern boundary. I won't
Joe Fleming: mention who, but one of your interviews from not that
Joe Fleming: long ago, he's put an exclusion fence that borders on
Joe Fleming: the northern part of our property. And what we found, was that
Joe Fleming: exclusion fence that he so dearly loves, is all the animals,
Joe Fleming: all the fauna that are hitting that fence, whether it
Joe Fleming: be feral or natives, are then re- diverted and come
Joe Fleming: straight into our northern boundaries. So, here we go. We're finding that there's
Joe Fleming: going to be an absolute necessity for more of the exclusion
Joe Fleming: fences go up. They've just got to keep going up, because
Joe Fleming: there is going to be a larger amount of animals
Joe Fleming: that are going to be infiltrated into the places that do not
Joe Fleming: have these as a barrier. It's a blockade. So, yeah,
Joe Fleming: that's going to be the start of our exclusion fence to the
Joe Fleming: northern side of the property, and then we're going to
Joe Fleming: slowly start wrapping around, and find what that does just
Joe Fleming: with potential of growth, et cetera. I think it's a no-brainer.
Rohan Leach: I think the return on investment from a lot of the
Rohan Leach: guys that I've spoken to, that have put them up,
Rohan Leach: it is a big input, big capital cost, but it
Rohan Leach: can generally pay back within a few years, in terms
Rohan Leach: of increased grazing and less damage to your crops. Mate,
Rohan Leach: you've talked about your other business, Evolve Ag, what is that,
Rohan Leach: and can you tell me a bit about that?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, certainly can, mate. It's been, well what, we've been
Joe Fleming: five years now, nearly four and a half years. So,
Joe Fleming: about four and a half years ago, my wife's uncle
Joe Fleming: approached me. It was the end of the drought. It was about 2019. Said that
Joe Fleming: he had interest in planting a cover crop, and he
Joe Fleming: wanted me to develop an idea around a chevron blade
Joe Fleming: barrel to then crimp that cover crop out. He just
Joe Fleming: wanted to give it a go. And look, I'd been closely following
Joe Fleming: what those techniques around, and what they were doing around America around that, and the
Joe Fleming: benefits that they were finding with cover crops. It just
Joe Fleming: sort of really didn't hit my radar that was something
Joe Fleming: that we were going to really step into. So, we made the first. Well,
Joe Fleming: I suppose we'd call the first BLADERUNNER, which we coined
Joe Fleming: them to be now in 2019. Coming into 2020, he
Joe Fleming: had a cover crop that was ready and were up to crimp. So, we
Joe Fleming: hooked into it. It did everything that we were expecting it
Joe Fleming: to do. A chevron blade barrel is, think of a round barrel,
Joe Fleming: a tubular or a cylinder, on the outside of it
Joe Fleming: you have blades, but instead of blades standing up perpendicular
Joe Fleming: to the center axis of the barrel, the blades are
Joe Fleming: actually wrapped around the barrel, so in a V, in
Joe Fleming: a formed V. So, if you imagine a blade then rotating,
Joe Fleming: if you had straight blades on the barrel, instead of
Joe Fleming: them clunking, or as it rotates one, it hits one, then the next,
Joe Fleming: you then, with them formed into a V in a chevron, you
Joe Fleming: then get the weight dispersal difference. So, the pressure starts
Joe Fleming: at the front edge of the V, and then as the barrel rotates,
Joe Fleming: that pressure splits up into two different sections, and then
Joe Fleming: works away along to the end of the barrel. So, what
Joe Fleming: you have effectively is then a lot of pressure getting
Joe Fleming: transferred from the frame and the barrel itself, to a
Joe Fleming: very small area. That's how a chevron works. You're trying
Joe Fleming: to get as much pressure on the smallest amount of
Joe Fleming: barrel or blade as possible.
Rohan Leach: So, less paddle wheel, and more impacted, more precision?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, it's precision impact really, and it's key for biomass. So, what
Joe Fleming: America or the Rodale Institute who coined or came up,
Joe Fleming: who invented, I suppose, this type of implement tooling, is
Joe Fleming: that to lay over biomass, to bruise the stem, it's
Joe Fleming: really important that in a cover cropping scenario that you're not actually laying and then
Joe Fleming: severing a stem, because then that can influence re- shooting
Joe Fleming: of that plant. We're laying over, we're bruising the stem,
Joe Fleming: and shutting off that fluid nutrient supply, or the access to
Joe Fleming: the nutrient supply from the root system to the solar panels,
Joe Fleming: or the leaf. Or the actual top of the biomass. So,
Joe Fleming: what then happens, in turn, is you can actually terminate
Joe Fleming: certain plants organically, and that's how covered cropping works. The
Joe Fleming: laying over. Well, that's how crimping covered cropping works, and
Joe Fleming: that's the positives in utilizing that biomass as ground cover,
Joe Fleming: and then as a weed suppressor. And there's a heap
Joe Fleming: of beneficials that you can find in that space by using
Joe Fleming: that cover crop, or crimping a covered crop. So, to go on from what you're
Joe Fleming: saying before where we found Gus, what we did for
Joe Fleming: Gus in his country, in his cover cropping scenario, is
Joe Fleming: exactly that. It worked. He had a mixed partial. I think it
Joe Fleming: was millet, silk sorghum, Sudanese grass, bits and pieces, whatever.
Joe Fleming: It crimped everything over. It terminated everything quite effectively over
Joe Fleming: the few days that we're trialing at his place. So,
Joe Fleming: that worked really well, but we were expecting it to work,
Joe Fleming: because the formula was sort of written for us. What
Joe Fleming: was interesting after that, was what came next, was that it
Joe Fleming: was the end of the drought, he had a lot
Joe Fleming: of rain on his country, and it was tight. It
Joe Fleming: wasn't compacted. The nutrient, or the process of the soil at that time
Joe Fleming: was spitting out nitrates. So, we were getting a lot of thistles
Joe Fleming: bursting out of the seams of the country. And he's
Joe Fleming: a cattle producer too, so we were looking for availability
Joe Fleming: of pasture, and we really needed to get, well he really needed to get cattle back on
Joe Fleming: his country, because he didn't want to sell any. They
Joe Fleming: were underweight. And what we thought we'd do, is have
Joe Fleming: a crack at putting the BLADERUNNER over these nitrates, and
Joe Fleming: seeing how if we could effectively do the same as using a cover crop scenario.
Joe Fleming: It was mostly variegated thistles at that point in time.
Joe Fleming: And we just thought, " Well, we didn't really have anything
Joe Fleming: to lose." So, we chucked it in there. That was really the start of
Joe Fleming: Evolve Engineering, was the results that we then got from
Joe Fleming: doing that. Which was effectively, we were laying over the thistles.
Joe Fleming: We were terminating the thistles organically, and then we were
Joe Fleming: allowing grasses and clovers, or medics and grasses I should say,
Joe Fleming: to grow up and then flourish. And the explosion of
Joe Fleming: those desirable pastures was something that really clicked over a
Joe Fleming: gear in my head, as to think, "Oh, wow, the potential of this.
Joe Fleming: We've just found something here that the potential of this
Joe Fleming: is huge."
Rohan Leach: So, important to point out the difference, I guess, or
Rohan Leach: is there a difference between slashing and crimping?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, very important, mate. Look, I think I get this question so much.
Joe Fleming: Of course there is. There's a huge difference between the two. It's important to note that they are
Joe Fleming: all tools in a toolbox. Farmers like to have a
Joe Fleming: lot of tools a lot of the time. But the slashing
Joe Fleming: takes a lot of horsepower. It runs down time. It's very slow
Joe Fleming: to do, and it severs everything that's in front of
Joe Fleming: you at an equal level. So, whether it's a nitrate weed,
Joe Fleming: whether it's grasses, whether it's your medics, if it's desirable
Joe Fleming: or undesirable pasture, it will cut everything back to an
Joe Fleming: even playing field. The difference, I suppose, between that and
Joe Fleming: the BLADERUNNER, is that BLADERUNNER is a lot more efficient
Joe Fleming: to get over your country. It takes very little horsepower to run.
Joe Fleming: And it will organically terminate weeds, or undesirable pasture, at
Joe Fleming: the right time of the year, or it can mulch and smash down
Joe Fleming: biomass matter that's dry and has zero or very little
Joe Fleming: protein or nutrient densities for stock. So, it then, in turn,
Joe Fleming: allows light to penetrate through a canopy, and it sort of
Joe Fleming: influences that turnover of your season, if that makes sense.
Rohan Leach: I want to expand on both those scenarios there. So,
Rohan Leach: obviously timing would be crucial. What have you found the
Rohan Leach: best timing for getting rid of, say, thistles?
Joe Fleming: I generally tell clients timing and farmers doesn't necessarily always
Joe Fleming: go hand- in-hand. It could be a preparation issue. It
Joe Fleming: could be a rain or moisture. It could be wet weather.
Joe Fleming: It could be anything. It could be your accountant's coming
Joe Fleming: on Thursday. There's not really a wrong time to do it,
Joe Fleming: if you are in the right season to do it. If
Joe Fleming: you have undesirable pasture that is impeding upon desirable pasture
Joe Fleming: because of competition, or because of sunlight, or because of moisture,
Joe Fleming: if it's taking something away from another plant that you
Joe Fleming: want to grow, then there probably isn't the wrong time
Joe Fleming: to do it. But if you do want to have
Joe Fleming: the most desirable effects, it would be at either end
Joe Fleming: of the season. So, probably with nitrate weeds, and being
Joe Fleming: something like thistles, you probably, just before flowering, some thistles
Joe Fleming: get really woody like saffron, and then mid- season would
Joe Fleming: be not that advantageous to be crimping them during mid- season,
Joe Fleming: because they are quite woody. So, you just wait for
Joe Fleming: them at the end of the season, and then smash
Joe Fleming: them down as a mature, broken down biomass. It's a
Joe Fleming: lot easier. But saffrons are probably the hardest thistle that
Joe Fleming: we take. I'm sure that's quite a generalizing. You can effectively crimp things through
Joe Fleming: most part of the season. It is a suck it and see scenario. You will find that our machinery
Joe Fleming: is a learning tool, so we don't have the answers
Joe Fleming: for everything. It is season... Well, there's so many variables
Joe Fleming: in the season, that could say, " Well, you will." But
Joe Fleming: the other side of it too, is you will get
Joe Fleming: benefits out of it whenever you do it. It's probably
Joe Fleming: more so just thinking about when you're going to get the most out of using it. And you've also
Joe Fleming: seen some pretty interesting results more recently around in your
Joe Fleming: neck of the woods, on things like roly poly, and
Joe Fleming: roly poly skeletons.
Joe Fleming: I mean roly poly being a nitrate weed too, it is really,
Joe Fleming: really reactive around our country. There is that many hundreds
Joe Fleming: of thousands of acres that is just choked down with
Joe Fleming: roly poly, and it really impedes on production to the utmost.
Joe Fleming: It's just an absolute problem. Now, the thing about that is,
Joe Fleming: it's not just that as being a problem, it's what
Joe Fleming: people do to react around those conditions, because the immediate
Joe Fleming: thing in people's head is, "Okay, we're either going to chuck a match
Joe Fleming: in it. We're going to put the Kelly chain in it. We're
Joe Fleming: going to get the stick rake. We're going to get a pinwheel. We're going to get
Joe Fleming: the prickle chain, and we're just going to try and
Joe Fleming: wipe it out." The thing to remember about that, is
Joe Fleming: that the nitrate weed is actually doing a job on your soil. So,
Joe Fleming: if you do that, if you completely wipe it out
Joe Fleming: without letting it run its course and do its thing,
Joe Fleming: is that you could trigger the exact same thing to happen,
Joe Fleming: for it to go straight back into roly poly. What
Joe Fleming: we've found with roly poly around Walgett for trials... Well, not so much trials,
Joe Fleming: is the results that we're getting around here is utilizing
Joe Fleming: the actual large biomass effect of a roly poly with
Joe Fleming: a BLADERUNNER and rolling over it and crunching it into the ground, it gives
Joe Fleming: the soil exactly what it needs.
Rohan Leach: It gives that mulching effect without actually a really high impact
Rohan Leach: on your soil?
Joe Fleming: We're still looking after that.... The topsoil, or where your
Joe Fleming: seed germinates for these nitrates, is it's in the top
Joe Fleming: 50 mil, or even less really, the top 50 mil
Joe Fleming: of your soil. So, looking after that and conditioning that soil,
Joe Fleming: for then to favor moving out of that nitrate cycle, is really,
Joe Fleming: really important. So, what we're finding around here, is cycling,
Joe Fleming: trying to instead of wiping your country out, utilizing your
Joe Fleming: biomass potential of that roly poly, crunching it down, severing it,
Joe Fleming: and then trying to cycle that country back into production,
Joe Fleming: rather than wiping it clean and hoping to the gods
Joe Fleming: that you'll just grow something good after the roly poly,
Joe Fleming: which doesn't happen very often. It's a much more efficient and
Joe Fleming: effective way to grow beneficials or productive pasture. And that's
Joe Fleming: exactly what we've seen time and time again with our machines in
Joe Fleming: this country around here. They're very, very effective there. The
Joe Fleming: next thing for us, mate, is working out its full
Joe Fleming: potential in the cropping side of things. We sell machines
Joe Fleming: into stubble retention, or light lying down stubble.
Rohan Leach: Mate, you have mentioned that you've drought, and having set
Rohan Leach: up your own business, you've been on and off farm
Rohan Leach: at various times in your stage in your development at Ulah.
Rohan Leach: I'd just like to talk a little bit about succession
Rohan Leach: and succession planning with your family. Your eyes just made
Rohan Leach: a little pop, so hopefully it's a fairly good topic
Rohan Leach: to talk about, but what's it been like for you guys?
Joe Fleming: If you're privileged enough to do it, you go through it.
Joe Fleming: But there's another thing that I'll say about it, is
Joe Fleming: that you don't do it on the weekend. It's certainly something that you
Joe Fleming: don't take home and enjoy over the weekend. It's sort
Joe Fleming: of something that's an absolute necessity. And I think the
Joe Fleming: biggest thing for us, Rohan, and where we slot into
Joe Fleming: it, is the very annoying, but very privileged thing about it, is
Joe Fleming: that we have a legacy that we want to continue on, generationally. That,
Joe Fleming: mixing legacy with business, is really, really difficult, because you
Joe Fleming: don't necessarily have your best business cap on when you're
Joe Fleming: thinking about it. It's a very fine balance between an
Joe Fleming: agricultural sector as a business, and that is something that
Joe Fleming: you want to continue on generationally. We are going through the throes
Joe Fleming: of it now, mate. It's taken us probably, when we
Joe Fleming: first started talking about, it probably to now maybe 10 years.
Joe Fleming: It's developing now to the fact that, "Okay, we have a couple
Joe Fleming: of trigger points here." My old man wants to move on,
Joe Fleming: and put down the reins. I'm ready to pick up
Joe Fleming: the reins, and move on with it. But it's just we've got to
Joe Fleming: be so careful about it. And there's a few delicate issues around
Joe Fleming: that, and the fact that you've got to make sure that everyone's looked after,
Joe Fleming: and that you can still have a successful business out the other
Joe Fleming: side of things without risking too much in between. So,
Joe Fleming: it's a very, very hard thing to get right. But I
Joe Fleming: think if... Look, not to say if I'd have my time again,
Joe Fleming: because there's no need to say that, it'd probably be
Joe Fleming: more so just be open about conversations around that. And
Joe Fleming: don't make every conversation so knuckled down and try and
Joe Fleming: work out all the world's problems at once. It's a very
Joe Fleming: slow process, so it takes a very long time to do.
Joe Fleming: We're sort of hopefully getting through to the end bit
Joe Fleming: now of transition of management, and stuff like that. So,
Joe Fleming: I'm hoping that within the next six months, my wife
Joe Fleming: and I can move back to Ulah on farm where my workshop is, and
Joe Fleming: work it side- by- side with Ulah and Evolve together. That's being
Joe Fleming: all in one.
Rohan Leach: So, are your siblings involved in the succession as well?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, look, they are. As far as the management side
Joe Fleming: of Ulah goes, not so much. Look, they've all played
Joe Fleming: a big part in Ulah and have an interest in it
Joe Fleming: as being the family home, probably. And have helped. My
Joe Fleming: younger sister, Prue has been here, and has been hands-
Joe Fleming: on quite recently. But as far as the business sense goes, Rohan,
Joe Fleming: it's probably been more so my wife and myself, and
Joe Fleming: my mum and dad looking at that. So, they're certainly involved.
Joe Fleming: But as to the point of succeeding the business on for what it is,
Joe Fleming: it's just probably more so my wife and I. That's what we're interested in doing.
Rohan Leach: So, what strategies have you taken to transition ownership over?
Joe Fleming: We're still going through the throes of this now. I
Joe Fleming: don't want to divulge too much, but look, I can
Joe Fleming: say that's probably the trickiest thing about it. It's not
Joe Fleming: something at the click of your fingers you can say, " Well, that's going to be the best scenario",
Joe Fleming: because there is always going to be something that doesn't
Joe Fleming: quite fit. It has to be quite malleable. As far
Joe Fleming: as where we sit with it, and what we're doing, we're
Joe Fleming: sort of looking at a leasing model. So, my wife
Joe Fleming: and I will lease off my three sisters, so the
Joe Fleming: property will get transferred into a trust, which is myself
Joe Fleming: and my three siblings. And then my wife and I will lease that
Joe Fleming: for a certain amount of time. But we're just trying
Joe Fleming: to stipulate now what that means for that lease period. If
Joe Fleming: people can be bought out, or if they want to
Joe Fleming: stay part of Ulah. We're just working out the throes
Joe Fleming: of that now. But I think what we have figured
Joe Fleming: out is, as a very broad brush paint over the whole lot,
Joe Fleming: is that that was going to be the best way for
Joe Fleming: us to transition in, is a lease or contractual agreement
Joe Fleming: in the form of a lease, I should say.
Rohan Leach: Mate, thanks so much for sharing that. This is probably
Rohan Leach: one of the topics that when I start to ask questions,
Rohan Leach: people start to sink down a little bit in their
Rohan Leach: chairs and not want to answer. So, definitely appreciate your
Rohan Leach: forthrightness with me.
Joe Fleming: You know why too, Rohan? I mean, it is a
Joe Fleming: sensitive topic. I can't really divulge too much, but I just
Joe Fleming: know how important it is. It is for the success of businesses
Joe Fleming: moving forward too. It's a huge part of life, and that's
Joe Fleming: where we're at. As I said, we are in a privileged position to be able to do it, and you've got to
Joe Fleming: just remember that sometimes. It's pretty hard to remember sometimes.
Rohan Leach: And I think agriculture is one of those few industries that
Rohan Leach: you're lucky enough to work with your family. Some might
Rohan Leach: say that's not so lucky, but it can be a
Rohan Leach: really good situation, where you're working on the land with
Rohan Leach: your loved ones. So, I think it is, as you said,
Rohan Leach: a privilege. Mate, I've had a great time, but just
Rohan Leach: for my final questions, I like to ask, what do
Rohan Leach: you see as the big issue in Australian ag at
Rohan Leach: the moment?
Joe Fleming: I'm not going to lie, I did know this was coming.
Joe Fleming: And I have been thinking about it too, and I
Joe Fleming: don't really want to paint myself in a cliche brush,
Joe Fleming: but I just thought there's a couple of things that sparks to mind, I think. And I do
Joe Fleming: have the privilege in my Evolve, as my other business, I've got the
Joe Fleming: privilege of talking to a lot of farmers every day. So,
Joe Fleming: I do get to have a rare insight into what
Joe Fleming: are the challenges that they're facing, and then compare that to,
Joe Fleming: I suppose, what, which I think the challenges are for myself.
Joe Fleming: But I think that it comes back to productivity, and
Joe Fleming: what you expect to get out of your farm, or what you
Joe Fleming: absolutely need to get out of your farm every year. And the offside of that,
Joe Fleming: is because of input costs. The input costs, especially, probably over
Joe Fleming: the last... Or for the revolution into zero till, which
Joe Fleming: was an absolute necessity at the time, and we've developed it
Joe Fleming: over the last, we'll say 25 years at least. The
Joe Fleming: offside of that, is we're getting to the pointy end
Joe Fleming: of that now, where input costs are starting to outweigh
Joe Fleming: potential production. So, we're now having to push and push
Joe Fleming: and push our country because of that. And then things become, well,
Joe Fleming: you're less risk- adverse. It does become more stressful. And I think that
Joe Fleming: that is the biggest challenge to date. How do you
Joe Fleming: go to bed and not stress every day? How do you
Joe Fleming: get profit out of your country without spending all of your profit?
Joe Fleming: How do you expand that, the line between the two?
Joe Fleming: That's probably the biggest challenge what we're facing to date, mate.
Rohan Leach: So, with challenges comes opportunities, I guess. So, is there
Rohan Leach: a big win on the other side of that?
Joe Fleming: Yeah, and that's right, mate. I mean, necessity is the mother
Joe Fleming: of innovation or invention. There's absolute potential there. But the upside
Joe Fleming: of that, and that's what I'm passionate about now, mate, and
Joe Fleming: that's what I've found with Evolve. It gives me the opportunity to look
Joe Fleming: at improving management strategies and implementation of those strategies, and
Joe Fleming: how we are going to improve country or maximize production
Joe Fleming: on country without spending everything in your back pocket. That's
Joe Fleming: the exciting thing about it. Whether it's what I'm trying
Joe Fleming: to do here, or whether it's swarm bot, robotics in
Joe Fleming: minimizing chemical usage on the country by robots in spraying. How
Joe Fleming: bloody exciting is that? I think we're at a really
Joe Fleming: exciting time in agriculture now, that we're finding the next
Joe Fleming: revolution of farming enterprises. It's that. But that's gotten to
Joe Fleming: a point out of absolute necessity. So, yeah, I think
Joe Fleming: that that's probably the most exciting thing about what we're
Joe Fleming: all doing now together, mate. And what you're doing, sharing
Joe Fleming: these different people's opinions and ideas and views, that goes
Joe Fleming: with it. With podcasting and information around that, and how
Joe Fleming: accessible that is to people, and what that means to
Joe Fleming: people to be able to listen and have a deep think about, "Well, how are you managing,
Joe Fleming: or how are you running your place? And can you
Joe Fleming: do it that better without costing you an arm and a leg
Joe Fleming: than a kidney?"
Rohan Leach: Leave the kidney for a steak and kidney pie, I think, mate. Mate,
Rohan Leach: I've had a great time. Thanks so much for coming
Rohan Leach: on the podcast.
Joe Fleming: Thanks, mate, much appreciated.
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