GRDC in Conversation: Tony Lockrey

Well, straight down the barrel, eh? Yeah, yeah.

We're another victim.

Yeah, I'm not sure why to who I owe this pleasure, but anyway, that's cool.

No, thank you, mate.

I reckon you do great work, so I'm happy to be involved. I think it's good.

Well, I think where we cross paths was more a young Aggies the ball.

And Susie's crusty old nugget kicking around with the young people.

Mate, that was, that was a tough gig that night. I don't know how I signed myself up for that.

It's like there's a. Yeah, everyone's at a party, they don't want to even sing Happy Birthday. They just want to party all night. So it was. Shana wanted it, Shanna wanted to do it the year before and she struggled.

Yeah.

And then within six months she was Australian of the Year. So I'd look out, mate, you never know what could happen to you.

I can tell you where I'm heading and it's not that way, you know, not. Not the caliber of Shanna. But it's an interesting community here. There's a heck of a great young presence and young crew getting around.

More E. Yeah, no really good vibe and it's been like the drought was a big blow, like we lost a lot of people and then since then it's been building so we've just got more and more people in more action. It rained, you know, pretty well for three years, so we grew summer and winter crops overlapping the whole way through. So there's been a really good, you know, it's a moisture fed industry, basically agriculture here. So yeah, we've had that opportunity and this year was looking down the barrel of a drought and all of a sudden it rains again. Bomb got it wrong again and we're on.

What is it about Moree, you reckon as a community that. Yeah. What is the vibe for people who have never come to northern New South Wales here and experienced Moree? What's it like?

I don't know, it's a real dichotomy. Cause you'll hear so many different stories about Moree and the further away you go, the more often you hear the bad stories. But it is a great community and it's particularly a good farming community. So it's. We talk about agriculture. Well, it's the culture that's part of what we're into and we really like. So the production that comes out of this area, the opportunities that people have had to get into agriculture and, you know, carve out a career. Carve out a fortune in some cases has been. Yeah, there's a lot of those stories. So it's, there is that level of not quite pioneer spirit, but it's definitely, you're up against it and it's tough work but really good rewards. And because you're all doing it together, it's a great thing to, you know, to be in a community where blokes want to play footy together and want to get together and do other things. Support the community. Yeah.

So GRDC have listeners right across Australia. So people from Western Australia right across. Can you tell us a little bit about the farming and the soils in this area?

Yep. So we, we farm in every direction for 100k. So it's a very productive area. We're mostly on alluvial soil, so heavier clay soils, cracking soils, but we do have some loamy stuff. We've got plenty of silt near the river. Our soils hold 150 to 250 mils of stored moisture. So that's our bank that we farm. So quite often in the dry land or rain fed part of our agriculture where we'll be monitoring that, checking how much moisture will build up in the soil before we decide on a crop rotation. We can grow summer and winter crops so we've got the weather that we can do both. So we can flex a bit. If we miss a summer crop, we can roll into a winter crop. We're predominantly grain and cotton, so grain and oilseed I should say. Nah, I'll say that again. We grow everything. No we don't. We grow cereals, pulses and oilseed as well as cotton. They're our main crops. So an irrigated area is dominated by cotton just at the moment because that's what's making the most return in terms of dollars per megalitre. We also have some, some tree crops so some citrus and pecan nuts in the valley and they're on high security water. They're beautiful alluvial soils. So we can grow a crop. Definitely can grow a crop. Our rainfall is probably a little bit winter dominant, so our winter crop is a more secure one. But we have the ability to grow a summer crop and that helps us rotate out of, you know, weed or disease issues that we've got.

And so are you farming as well yourself on the side?

Yep, yeah. I've got a little handkerchief patch about 30K's west of town on the river. And I just love being, I love farming and we run some cattle as well. So I've grown most of the Crops that are grown in the district, we've grown at home, but there's a couple we haven't ticked off yet. But, yeah, we're running a rotation. So when it comes round to a break crop, we might. We might grow some canola and. And some fiber beans. We haven't grown them yet.

Keeps you honest at the. At the pub, you're not just giving the advice.

Yeah, yeah, it does. And I'm really happy I don't have a fishbowl block that everyone's looking at, so they can see my mistakes. But it definitely gives you a little bit of cred that you've, you know, you've got a crop in as well and you're sort of in the same game.

Yeah, it's just a trial is how you could phrase that one.

Yeah, that'd be a good tax deduction, mate. Yeah, Research, huh?

Yeah, mate, tell me, why agronomy. What was it that drew you into it?

I love being outside. I was fascinated by insects and plants, basically, as a kid, so I was the youngest of six. I spent a heap of time just exploring outside, climbing trees down the creek, you know, turning rocks over to see what was living under it. Oh, I thought I'd discover a new insect or something that no one else had seen. So I had that interest in the back of my mind, but just as a general interest, I guess. Love being outside, riding motorbike, shooting, whatever. Dad went through Hawkesbury Ag College, so he would. I'd look at a grass species and he'd tell me its scientific name, his Latin name, and I go, oh, wow, that's cool. Not too many people know the Latin name of a weed, you know, so that was of interest as well. Mum was about fifth generation in the New England grazing family, Merino, mainly grazing country. So there was definitely some farming in the blood. Love being outside, love being out of town, basically. So definitely wanted to end up on a farm.

So what did your old man do?

He was an ag science teacher. So, yeah, he grew up in St Mary's in Sydney. Yeah, I went to Canterbury Boys High with Johnny Howard and then loved spending his holidays on a good friend's dairy. So I was Mad Ken on cattle and chooks and went to Hawkesbury Ag College, Went through there, Came up to Armidale and did Teachers College after that. And then, yeah, he was an ag science teacher. There you go.

Because you went to University of New England, didn't you?

Yep. Yeah, I went through Armadale. Yeah.

And I've got here that there's an interesting story. It wasn't just straightforward for you apply for the first job you get and. And you kind of in and off on your career. You had like. It wasn't easy just to step into the workforce.

No, there was a lot of graduates at the time. I did think, and I think I reflect I probably was a little bit overconfident that I was issuing for a job because I'd worked, you know, I'd come off a grazing farm. I decided I was very strategic. I went, I wanted to take a gap year so I went and worked in. I wanted to go west, work on some farming country. So I worked on a large wheat sheep place and then on an irrigated cotton place. So I thought I've got some practical experience, I want to put that together with a degree and I'll be employable. You know during my degree I went back out to Warren and did a thesis, honours thesis in cotton. IPM in cotton. So I thought I was tracking pretty well. And then I don't know, there was probably 50 graduates applying for five cotton jobs at the time. So I went and applied for all five of them and didn't get through. And what that's interesting. Wasn't sure why but you know, they all had a reason. Some of them were probably the most common was we don't want to employ someone straight out of uni. You've got the cred but we just think we'd like someone a bit more settled. Which just made me determine that the first job I got I would work three years minimum. Just slog it out and make sure that I gave back, you know, what I'd been the opportunity I'd been given. I guess so yeah. I was working on my thesis over the Christmas holidays and a fax came through to the agronomy department. No one else saw that fax. It was dropped in front of me. Are you interested in this? I went sure, I'll apply for that. And I drove myself to Bundaberg to have the interview because I was pretty keen and turned out later that no one else had seen that job advertised. It was only one fax that went through to the agronomy department at Armidale and I picked it up. So when I got there like oh, we're not sure that we actually do have a job. But coming over yarn to us anyway.

Were you hell bent on cotton or did you did with those couple of setbacks you thought I just want to do agronomy.

No, I just wanted to be in agriculture. I was actually Hell bent on being a beef farmer. I was really keen on stud cattle. I was showing bulls at the Eka and the Royal, and I was definitely going to be a cattleman. And I just realized partway through that that I was never going to own a farm, getting paid 30 or 50 bucks a day doing what I was doing. So I looked around. There's definitely jobs in ag, in agronomy. There was better pay in agronomy. And I thought that there was a chance to make a career there and then buy a farm.

And that Bundaberg region, well, I'm. I've never been, but I'm so fascinated by it because it just has such an interesting spread of everything.

Nationalities, crops. Yeah, Geography. So I think I checked in one week, I checked 50 different crops there. Yeah, right. And you could come home with five different veggies and, you know, a couple of watermelons and this in the back of the ute at the end of the day.

And a ginger beer.

Yeah, and a ginger beer. And maybe a slip past the rum factory on the weekend. Yeah. Frequent flies. So, no, we were checking all sorts of small crops in trickle irrigated tomatoes, caps, melons, squash, zucchinis, snow peas, cherry tomatoes. And then we'd go duck into a greenhouse that was growing tomatoes or eggplant or Lebanese cucumbers, go to a macadamia plantation, and then run through a couple of cane farms on the way home. So you're just such a big diversity of crop, you know, in terms of registrations and products that could be used and pests that we were dealing with. It was very good grounding in ipm, in nutrition, in irrigation management, on sand, a lot of sandy country. So it was just all the things that I'd learned at uni. I thought, wow, that I actually initially thought, they have undercooked me. Seriously, I do not know enough stuff for this job. And then within three or four months, I realized that the skills that I'd learned during uni, they couldn't possibly prepare everyone for every job. But the skills I'd learned just in researching and understanding a system and managing, you know, a whole suite of crops from a pest point of view or something like that, really good learning.

Because it nearly would have been, like, overwhelming in the sense of 50 different crops. But straight out of uni, it's not just, I'll say, learning how to work and get used to talking to people.

It was, yeah, but. And I'd worked since I was a kid. I always worked jackaroo like I was rouse about ing or spraying thistles or drenching sheep for someone and yeah, holidays would be away living on someone's place with them, working for em, you know, doing stock work. So always did that on the family farm. But yeah, you never, you never know exactly what you're in for. Actually learning that new job was one of the easier things. The other thing that was going on at the time is we'd just moved new house with a eight month pregnant wife that had chickenpox, so. Oh God, there was plenty happening. Yeah. So we had a little. How old were you? I was 23. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. I've got grandkids, mate. It's all happening at my house. Holy. We've got a bleaching family. Yeah.

Like you said, the first job you got, you wanted to stick at three years, sink your teeth into it and I guess build a bit of that credibility. Did the strategy around your career kind of go beyond that? Like you mentioned the end point of wanting to own your own farm, but yeah. What did the early parts of your career and what was the thinking going on in the background?

Well, I don't think I knew enough to strategize heavily but I knew I wanted to work outside, I wanted to be involved in cropping and agronomy, so that part of it was fulfilling. I also wanted to look after my family. So I found that at the end of three years I was away two or three nights a week, had two little kids on the ground then and I just needed to move out of that scenario or change something. I didn't. I had. I probably dealt with 15 different nationalities in Bundaberg as well. Like you've got a lot of different cultures and heritages going on there and not always the straightforward Western culture that I was used to. So I missed that a bit and I found myself gravitating to that. So I was doing a lot of work in Emerald and Dalby and Chinchilla. So a lot of the Cotton Valleys, I was ending up back in doing work and that's. So I actually, what would you say I suggested that I open a branch for that company in Dalby on the Downs. Cause I was doing a lot of work down that way and that's what I did. So I ran that for a year and then moved over to a local firm that was happening in a much bigger way down there and doing a lot of cotton and other agronomy, a lot of broad acre work.

What'd you learn in that in terms of actually putting ideas in front of the Business owners and then actually seeing them go, oh you know what, that's actually a bloody good idea.

It was tough cause I'd help them grow their business a lot. It's actually the business that you interviewed Jack Milbank about. So I was a predecessor to Jack in at croptech. Yeah, right. So I got, yeah. Paddy Menkens and John hall and I had in basically introduced that EnviroScan probe, the capacitance probe and been running all over the place. We had the lab running and humming and lots of IPM projects going. So John at the time and that business was. Was growing so quickly. John's a brilliant individual. Penny's a really solid back backstop and operator, also agronomy trained. The business was growing overseas already. So he was, oh no, don't go inland. Like we're happening in la, we're happening in California, Japan, Spain. The world's your oyster. Yeah, it's not. I've got a wife and two kids at home. So it was a real. There was definitely some tension there in trying to put that from an agronomy point of view and a business point of view. I should have been going overseas and going crazy with the business but I had a family to look after. So it was that responsibility and, and wanting to make the two work, I guess that that had me coming up with the idea of either going to Emerald or Dalby. It was an equal amount of work in either. Emerald was just about ten grand a year dear to live in at the time because of all the mines around there. So Dalby was the spot. So they, they didn't necessarily embrace it straight away. It was more of a, yep, we could grow the business down that way. It looks like you, you really want to go that way rather than, you know, punch overseas. So.

So how'd you end up down around Moree here?

Probably a similar thing. I then developed the Broadacre business for the company I worked for, which was Tags in Dalby, which is an awesome again family owned business. When I joined it was pretty well a cotton business. So they did cotton work on every farm, but not the Broadacre work. So my remit I guess was to build the Broadacre business. I think about the year I left. So I was there about eight years. The year I left the Broadacre business went past the cotton business. So we, we grew it well, we had some big years and we had some tough ones. But again I found I now had four kids and they were all at school. The last one was about to start School, six weeks of the summer holidays that they were home, I was hardly there. I was just checking cotton flat out and other crops. So again, it was a family choice to, to look for something that was more still, still agronomy, still cropping, still, you know, in a similar area. But the business I bought into down here was mainly a broad acre business, so wasn't dealing with irrigated cotton at the time. And I should say, mate, irrigated cotton back then, like late, late 90s, less extent, early 2000s, we were checking those crops three times a week. We had bug checkers in the ute. We were spraying them, you know, 10 to 15 times a year. It was intense. There was no bow guard in guard roundup ready. It was just full on. So now to be back at checking crops, you know, three times a fortnight and not being as concerned about how many white eggs per leaf we have in the crop at any one time, certainly a lot more relaxed than it is than it was then.

I think that's been something which has been so interesting. Chatting to different people is just that advancement in, also in the chemistry, but in the genetics and the science that sits kind of behind it, how, how much it actually has really changed people's lives. Like yesterday we were looking at a bankless irrigation system and what that actually then allows. Instead of five or six staff, you're back to one to do it. Innovations just across everything.

And the changes that we've seen in this industry have all been driven by, you know, we're up against it, we're always up against it. So it's. We need to become more efficient all the time. We just can't sit still. And I've had the privilege to go to the States and other areas where they grow cotton and in a less pressured environment, they've got crop insurance. If they don't grow the crop, they still get paid and they just can't understand how we can grow the yields. We can. They actually don't believe us, some of them. They're like. Is that every. Like you grow 16 bales every 2 hectares or every hectare. So I know every hectare. Well, what are you growing? Oh, we can get up to eight.

Yeah.

Wow. And so they haven't, they haven't had that pressure to innovate, to change, to keep moving ahead of the curve, I guess, all the way through. So, yeah, I think the Australian cotton industry is as cohesive and innovative as any industry I've seen.

Oh, I'd love to know how's that? I guess, yeah. As you said before the efficiency and the profitability of cotton has really driven water use in and around this area. How's the grains industry benefited from, I guess, that pressure and that competition that cotton's brought to the table?

Well, we talked a little bit before about the community and the vibe. I think that cotton industry brings a vibe to a valley as well. So there's innovative growers. They're looking at their cotton and going, oh, wow. We've advanced a new variety every two years. You know, we've got. We're using 98% less chemical than we used to. We're using half the water. Like, we're really kicking goals here. Attention also goes to all the other crops and that they're growing on the farm. Like, no one's just a cotton grower, no one's just a grain grower. We're all growing, you know, most crops and have the opportunity to. So I think that drive to innovate and improve and become more efficient, more profitable, more sustainable all at once. Like, you can never just focus on one thing and run with it. It's all encompassing. That transfers into everything else we do. So if we learn something, you know, with nitrogen efficiency and wheat, we'll bring that back into cotton. If we learn something with IPM in cotton, we take that back to mung beans or we take it back to sunflowers, you know, like we. It's a whole system. We're just improving wherever we can and adapting and applying it wherever we can.

I think what was really interesting was out at Wewall chatting with Steve Madden and he was talking about the crop capsule piece, but that the way they're using the beneficials in the crop and distributing it. Yeah, but yeah, learn to ding cotton. Starting trials with GRDC and canola around aphids and things. Like it's.

It.

Is that true? Yeah, I guess.

Marrying and so going right back to Bundaberg in the greenhouses. That's where I first used that technology where we were able to control what came in and out of those greenhouses to a certain extent. So we would release predatory mites and whitefly parasites and other things in that greenhouse on leaves, like on soybean leaves all the time. So you get a little canister, like a Pringles canister, pop that open, pop your Pringle and you'd have a hundred soybean leaves in there with predatory mites on them and you go around and just paperclip them up to a tomato plant in the greenhouse. So, yeah, it was cool.

Tell me A little bit more about your business here, about your team. And, like, what is it here in Mori that makes AMPS successful?

Yep. So amps was started 25 years ago this year. It was started by a group of growers that wanted to get closer research to home. They wanted to see trials in their own farm and be able to learn from that. And it was the research lead and then the commercial side of it followed that. So rather than charging each other themselves, I guess, like, they had to work out how to best fund that, so they started a commercial business to buy all their input through. So then it would be in relationship to what area they farmed that they would spend and then a percentage of that profit goes into research every year. So that AMPS hasn't always. Well, this business hasn't always been amps. It was originally by Smart Ag that the business I bought into and then in 2011, we sold to Amps. I retained a shareholding in Amps and we welcomed that research addition to the business, basically. So we had a good agronomy and supply business, but we've now got an awesome combination of that with our own research. And it's driven. The research is driven by our growers and our private consultants in this valley and in each valley. And, yeah, we've set about finding people that are, you know, we try and everyone does, but we try and pick the crop of the young graduates and show them what we can achieve in the paddock, I guess, and how that involvement in research brings them to the forefront of what's happening in commercial agriculture as well. So they're like these young blokes you've seen here today, and Amy, who's away on holidays. They're all involved in looking at trials through the season. We're looking at varieties that are a number the next year. We're putting 20 tonne of that out the paddock and growing paddocks full of that variety, because it ticks all the boxes that we've assessed it for, I guess, over the last two years, three years.

Is there one that leads and the other follows? Like between the research and the commercial side, or. And maybe initially versus It's a really good question.

I think it's a cycle, I really do. Like, we could take off and put branches everywhere and put flags on the map or on the map, and we would just be another commercial supplier and agronomy company. So we won't progress without research because we know it's one of the, you know, it's a really core founding principle of our Business, but also it's something that provides so much value and vice versa. We've got growers that would definitely love research to be in their backyard. And we've explained to them, well, this is a model, you know, it's paid for by commercial investment. So is it scalable? It sticks together. Yeah, certainly is. Yeah.

And so are you guys operating across other. Other regions and geographies?

We've expanded from one branch to six. Yep. In 25 years. And we. We have. Absolutely. We look at other areas. We get requests from other areas all the time. We're not looking in WA or Victoria at the moment, but we will. Yeah. Certainly look to within our reach to expand certain good parts for the sake of their grass. Yeah. Like, they want it.

And I think what would be interesting if people do want to know more, is that they can reach out to you guys and have a yarn and find out if there's growers or agros or whoever it might be that are only hearing about it for the first time.

Yeah, that's right.

Be good to reach out. Let's chat about young people because it's something that you're pretty bloody passionate about. I have here that there's a little bit of a ground truth in the importance of networks and mentoring. Why is that such a focus and. Well, not even a focus. A passion for you.

Yeah, I reckon. And going back to when it was like three or four knockbacks on job applications, like, I'll never knock back a work experience kid. Or like we have kids as young as year nine that come in here and jump in the ute for a week and we show them the best of what we can show them and we show them all of it. Like, we don't hide anything. I think I was blessed to have some really good mentors. The first one was my dad who'd done ag science and was teaching the stuff and. And UART and then Hawley in Bundaberg, you know, guys that I work with in Dalby, Mars and others. And there's always been, if you'll open yourself up and humble yourself enough to approach people and say, oh, mate, any chance I could jump in the ute with you for a day and just learn some stuff. And when you first do that, you're not giving them anything, really. They're only doing it because they want a legacy. They want to be able to pass on what they're learning. But there's such a. I mean, it's a community thing. We're built for community. It's something that we can grow and accelerate our learning so quickly by a bumping into people in our network that are peers and just rubbing shoulders with them and learning from each other, not making the same mistakes, learning what the new things are that are happening and then also having mentors that can save you so much time and teach you the smarts that aren't written down anywhere, that aren't on a label. And in some ways those older mentors also is, is more around the human space that you deal in and so well. And that's just understanding people a bit better and how to deal with them. You know, you can have the best technical mind and aptitude, but you can cock up a relationship really quickly if you, if you don't treat people well or don't understand their attitude to risk or their. Yeah, that's, you know, how they operate, what their farm culture is. And you can, you can do the wrong thing pretty quickly. You drive on a fallow padd or drive over the top of a contour bank and leave a deep track and you know, you can get a fair roasting when you're driving off the farm. It's like, hey, hey, you know, so just understanding some of those things. But young people, I guess, I mean, I'm. I love having fun. I love stirring up young people. I love being stirred up. I was the youngest of six, so I hang out more with my nieces and nephews than with my brothers and sisters. At times that family get together so that we're always looking for something fun to do. So that's part of how I operate, I guess. And I like that energy that comes with young people. And I love seeing the moments when they get it and they dig in and the moments when they actually slog it out as well. Just seeing people commit and hook in and you just want to encourage that.

It's interesting and something that's probably. You talked about that human side and probably that realization. I've had one, I reckon, in the last week. And it's like, well, not every, not every farm is out here to be a top 10, 20% grower. And those people who are the pioneers are just as important as the people who are doing it for the lifestyle or doing it for. Because yes, it's what they love and enjoy because they still make up the fabric of the community. And I think that's something which is really a highlighter to me where I think of, yeah, you want agriculture to be front and center and leading the way, but at the same time too community, such a not at the expense.

Of the people involved.

Yeah, yeah.

It's gotta be giving value. And hockey, it's not easy. We know that it's not always easy, but there's some absolute gems of times that you get to spend with people. And sometimes it's planned, sometimes it's unexpected, you know, and also just getting to see into people's lives that you don't. It's an absolute privilege, you know, when you're on farm and you're the only person that they've seen for a week and you. They, you know, they might unload on you, or they might just have something that's really bloody funny that they haven't been able to tell anyone all week and they just put on the balls of their feet. Cause they've got to tell someone, you know, something stupid that happened or anything, you know, so it's. It's our privilege to be on their farm and interacting with them and. And it's our responsibility to understand them well and, you know, get the most out of their farming system, not just agronomically, but from their family and human side of it as well. Yeah.

Here's one that I've been sitting on because I found it so funny. Hannah's joined our team this week, and last night we were coming back from dinner with a couple other people and someone's like, right, oh, well, we've seen kangaroos, have seen emus. It's all right, we'll try and find you a pig. Within about 10 seconds, as the lights come over the hill, there's a pig just standing in the middle of the road. And it's the funniest thing, like, ever.

Yeah.

I think for me, like, that's a memory which will probably just stay.

Yeah, yeah. Spoke it into being. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put it out there and it'll come.

The.

Talk to me about the men's campfire dinners and the. That community that has been created.

Yeah, a couple of things. So I think from just having a heart for people and wanting to be involved and seeing people hurting and wanting to help them, I realized, probably, I think it was 17 I started that it just wasn't a place for blokes to get together if they weren't playing footing or involved in other sport. Then it was often quite a long trek between times that they would get to catch up with someone. You know, a lot of us are blessed with really good mates that you can just pick up the phone and they're, you know, half a country away, but you can pick up where you were or you can unload, or you can learn, or you can spin a good yarn and remember some good old times. But not everyone's got that. And we're always faced with new challenges as well. So you're not sitting still. There's always new stuff coming at you. So I just. It was through our church that we thought, how about. And I guess I drove it and I hosted it. So we did it at home. We probably had, I don't know, for three or four years there. We would once a month on a Saturday night I just cook a barbecue and we have a coffee and a feed and we sit down around the fire. Blokes aren't good at, you know, eye to eye crying and hugging. They're really good at not looking at each other sitting side by side. If there's low light, that's even better. There's something else to look at. But we've just had some really good conversations and often we'll just lead it off with a, you know, this is what's happening or what do you think about this? Or we don't talk about politics much. We definitely don't judge and we're very confidential. We make sure that this is not a gossip joint. This is blokes trying to help blokes. And if you share something here, this is where it stays and we're going to learn from it, but we can also encourage you through it. So it's really just, it's a overused phrase. It's doing life together, but at a much higher level emotionally and almost spiritually, I would say. So that ability to get together like that just was gold. And I still, we. We didn't get to do much of it obviously through Covid. We've done a few since, but not enough. I've just been flat out and I really want to kick it off again this year. But I've probably had an equal number of wives as well as blokes say to me, oh, when are you going to kick that off again, Tone? And I went, yep, okay. So that not only did they value at the blokes, but their wives valued that their hubbies were going there. Which I thought, yeah, that's got to happen.

How have those different stories and I guess, yeah, going from the point of wanting to start something to help people, how's it actually shaped your perspective, the understanding of community of just the people who you interact with every kind of day?

Yeah, it's a good one, I think. I don't know. I guess my view on life is we're all individual, unique. We're all highly valued as individuals. So giving everyone that value when you meet them, whether they look like they need it, you know, deserve it or not, that doesn't matter. Like, we're looking through all that and just going, mate, you've got good value. What's happening, your life. So that's part of it. We all migrate or enjoy being part of a tribe or a community. Like I said, it might be a footy club, it might be a grower group, it might be your family. So we all like to have people around that can affirm us but also correct us at times. We've all got a spiritual aspect that we probably often don't recognise. So we do have a soul that lives on forever. And that's part of the deeper part of us that I think we need to get in touch with sometimes. And we don't even understand it really. Certainly in modern society we don't, so. But we do feel it when we. When we connect with someone, we definitely notice that and understand that that's a good thing. So I guess that's. It's just enhanced some of the relationships that you get to. To enjoy. It also means that you hear a lot of stuff that you probably could weigh yourself down with. And I think that's something else that we all need, is a way of unloading that, so not holding it, not carrying it around. So that's important. And I'd say that to any agronomist, you. You often. You start out in a technical career, you often end up in a. Some form of counseling career as part of that. You can't take that home, you can't offload that on your family. That's not fair. You know, you can't carry it forever yourself. It's too heavy. So you gotta. You've gotta have a way of processing that and offloading it and understanding that that's their life at the moment and you've actually helped them by just being there and listening. So that's. Yeah, I guess that was another learning from it as well. And that probably leads into the rugby club, to that chaplaincy work I do at the rugby club. It's a very similar thing. Like, I'm not there to absolutely flip anyone's world upside down. I'm just there to listen and have a yarn and maybe give a few points from across the old bloke that's been through, you know, some of that, not all of it.

Tell me more about that. What are you doing down at the footy?

Club. So I'm the chaplain at the club. Been for since 2017. Yeah, right, love. My rugby was involved in it when I was a young bloke. Played for Bundy and Bundaberg and Dalby. We had our B grade captain coach committed suicide the night before Our first game, 2017. I reckon it was the club president at the time. Kingy rang Sports Chaplaincy Australia and said, can we please get some people up here? Sports Chaplaincy rang our church and said, all our humans are at the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast. We just don't have anyone. Is there anyone in your church that loves rugby and would be happy to go out to the rugby club? So three of us shot straight out there and just. We'd all had some level of association with the club or with the sport, whether it's junior, senior, whatever. We knew most of the blokes there between us, we knew all of them. So it was just really a time of grieving together as a club and a rugby community. And from that I stayed on. I wanted an excuse to be involved in rugby still. I couldn't play the game, so I was like, oh, this is a cool way to still be involved and help. So I think it's, yeah, probably six years now that. That I've been involved and that role has been a very. A very occasional role, as in, I'm not. I'm probably get to training once a week and I'll get to every second game or a bit more. But I keep in touch with the players as much as I can. I don't interrupt training and give them a devotion or anything like that. I just hang back, catch up with people as they come or go. Someone's injured and they're by the sideline, I'll have a good yarn to them, you know. And often I reckon in that first year it was more talking to the older blokes that were involved in the club, that were shook as much as the players were by what was going on. So, yeah, we've had some tough times since then occasionally. And it's just been nice to be. It's been a real privilege to be involved and to be able to lead them through another time of grieving when we lost another bloke and yeah, we've had some other stuff go on there that you just. You're pleased that you've been there and you've got some skill that you can help with, I guess that's all. Yeah.

I want to ask you what, what it's like, the role that you Have, I guess in the community as other people would have known before that time would have been, we know Tony, he's a fellow down the road agro, whatever it might be turning up in. What's a pretty different role in the community is it was that like something that you had to. To balance or, or not even be mindful of. But just yet the. The Tony who he might be, the knock about bloke. Actually Tony's here coming out in a hugely empathetic way and kind of doors open.

I would hope that they saw the same bloke.

Yeah.

Because I do remember having a bit of an identity crisis when I was about 15, thinking that I was actually a different kid on the bus, that I was at school, that I was at church on Sunday, that I was on the soccer field on Saturday. Like I was, I was very good chameleon. Like I would fit in with that bunch really and really tight. And then I'd be in another situation socially and I'd fit that bunch really tight.

Gotcha.

So I was changing all the time to fit into that crowd. So I guess I learned that lesson early and just decided I had to be me. Yeah. Wherever I was. I just had to be the same bloke and live out the same character and ethics and whatever, you know. So, yeah, there shouldn't be any surprises. But it is different. It's definitely a different role. But I can move easily between the three, you know, like an agronomy and a chaplaincy and whatever other role. I'm very comfortable with the situations and, you know, and the overlap's huge. You know, you see the same black on the footy field at training as you've just checked his crop for him and you're talking to his old man and you see him at the pub as well. When you go down and catch up with him and the pub is like, oh, he's a chaplain, he goes to the pub. But I don't drink heavily. I had an older brother who was an alcoholic and I saw what that can do to people. So I'm very much a four pot, sit back and catch up and have a yarn to people. I actually like that atmosphere. It's when people do open up a bit sometimes. So yeah, it's good to sit around and have a yarn.

Absolutely. I want to talk to you about the helicopter accident. Before I get to that, I would love to know, like what role has Faith? And obviously you mentioned the church and the chaplaincy. What role has Faith had in your life and how's that Shaped you?

Yeah, it's a good question, mate. It's. I guess it's given me that eternal perspective. So I, I'm a firm believer in God created this earth that we're kicking around on. Like it's just too random that it could have happened by accident. Yeah. So I see him in everything that I deal with on a daily basis. You know, I see a sunset or a rainstorm or an animal or a crop. You know, I don't look at it and go, geez, I wonder how that happened. You know, I see a plan, I see a design and stuff. So that's. And then to me, and in my, I guess, upbringing, I understood that there, there's. That we have a soul or a spirit that carries on after this short time that we spend on earth. So you want to get that sorted, I reckon, like you want to know where that's going. I think it says in, in Matthew, it says, don't fear death. Fear the bloke after death that sends you to heaven or hell. So that perspective has always been with me. I'm not scared to die. I mean, I value life very highly and enjoy it and feel the privilege of being here. So I guess that's given me some perspective in everything else I do. And I think the other thing that's a big part of that is I talked about it before unloading stuff. So Jesus said, come unto me if you're heavy loaded and I'll. My burden's light. Like it's. It's not that hard because you can look at everything you've done in the past, the cock ups, the good stuff, whatever. You can park that like you said. I can. I'll put that away. It's done. You don't have to carry that. You don't have to stress about what happened before and what you did or whatever, just, you know, forgive and forget. And you're also not looking into the future that far either, because you can sit here today and rob yourself of today because you're so stressed about tomorrow. He says, don't worry about that. It's sorted, you know, it's organized. So you, you will be fed, you will be clothed. It's all right. So to be able to just live in the moment, live in the day, and not be carrying, you know, everything from the past or stressing about the future, I think that gives you some freedom. I guess that's how I carry myself in life. I guess that's how done the most work like that. You definitely get bogged down and you Definitely forget and stress. What an incredible. Yeah, that gives me the base, the platform, I guess, that I live off. Yeah, that's incredible.

Tell me about the chopper accident. You're out doing some pest control. Talk me through the moments in the lead up to the crash.

Yeah, standard, standard day, like probably, I don't know. For 15 years I've been involved in feral pig eradication out of the chopper and other means as well. It was a standard early morning start, you know, load up. I think we shot 130 odd pigs that morning on a couple of farms. And we're just working our way up a creek line. We had a mob that was moving out into the paddock under some power lines. So we were pushing them out under the power lines. We were holding off, waiting to get them through the power lines to. To engage them, I guess would be the technical turn. Clean them up. Two pigs broke away, two boars broke off that mob and headed back, you know, towards the scrub we'd push them out of. And we just spun left to pick them up before they hit the scrub line. We, we'd gone further than we thought and came back to it or come back further than we thought. Sorry. And the power line that we were looking at out in front of us, that went across us at actually the next pole, it angled back under us, so we just clipped the top wire. So we picked up both wires, but just with the bottom of one skid. So we both felt the tug, I guess, or the pull on the chopper. I looked down, there was two wires, you know, hooked on the skid. And I went right. And I had peace in that moment. I went right. Well, I'm either going to heaven or I'm still on earth. You decide, big fella. I'm in your hands. Very obviously. It happened very quickly. I had a very skilled pilot who pulled us out of that situation, but we still ended up hitting the ground, but not as hard as we could have. We hit, spun, thrashed around like those helicopters are always fighting themselves. There's a lot of momentum spinning around there. So we jostled around a bit and were both gratefully very still alive and alert and chatting to each other as soon as we hit the deck. So a lot of noise, a lot of action, but I was hanging out the door, as I do shooting, so my knee drove into the ground. Then I popped my hip and broke some part of my pelvis. The funny thing, if you're allowed to have funny things in these accidents, mate, was my. As an agronomist, you know, my shotgun went into the ground and. And had about a 10 inch mud core up inside the barrel. So I was definitely soil testing on the job. But the other end of the shotgun went into my ribs and busted a few of them off at the front and the back. So it was a little bit uncomfortable. But we. I don't know what the stats are. I think it's one in. It's a 25% survival rate for chopper accidents. And I was reading lots about them when I was sitting in hospital in John Hunter. But no, we, as I said, skilled pilot, bad situation, our fault, definitely human error, but we came out of it extremely well. And that, yeah, that moment and then that couple of weeks and the absolute outpouring of love and support from a community that I think some days you just don't know who's backing you.

Yeah.

And it reminded me, and I've had this yarn to the rugby boys. Sometimes in the change room, if you start a marathon, you kick off in the crowd and you're running that marathon. Most of the time you just run it by yourself. What you don't realize is there's a massive crowd in the stadium watching you on the big screen, cheering you even though you can't hear it. And I think that's what life can be like sometimes you get isolated and you're puffing and you're doing it tough, but you don't realize the crowd of people that are actually cheering you on in whatever you're doing in your endeavors. So you run into that stadium and you feel it. Sure. But not everyone gets that experience and not everyone gets to hit the deck and survive. Like a lot of people get crook and die, you know, and there's. People don't know how to talk to really sick people. They know how to talk to someone who's had an accident, survived. They think it's triumphant and everyone wants to have a yarn deal. And you know, so it was, yeah, I mean, what a, what an experience to have to. To be still alive, not. Not looking from above at your own wake. You know, I got to see and chat to the people who valued me as a person, which was. Yeah, it was pretty exciting, mate.

I love that analogy. That is so. I think this whole conversation, there's so many different elements and I think what's really cool is. I'll say there's probably parts of. I'd say when I. We generally shy away from marrying things up together. I think that you touching on the mental health aspects and blokes showing emotions the faith side of things, it's areas that we probably don't really talk about enough.

No, we're scared to. Scared to broach it. Yeah, quite often. But to normalize it. It makes it really easy to have conversations around that. And I've got mates that have modelled that to me as well. Like, it's not something I've come up with, you know, I've got people in my family and good mates that'll ring me and go, mate, how are you going today? And you go, well, why would you care? Like, you know, you've got heaps on. I'm flat out, like, do you really want to know how I'm going? Yeah, yeah. No, how you going today? Like, yeah, cool. Like, that's. That's. To have those sort of mates is gold, isn't it? Like, you. And to be one of those mates is an aspiration of mine, so.

Well, I'm sure you are.

It's important. Yeah, yeah, it's important.

What's over the hill, what's ahead for you both here in the business sense, but also community, everything else that you're involved in.

Yeah. So I think. Well, I guess to lead on from that accident, I think that was a strong realization. It wasn't a light bulb moment. It was more of a gradual realization that I'm definitely past my physical peak, mate. Which is disappointing because I still thought I was going to play something for Australia, but I'm not sure what have to be. Darts now, bowls. Yeah, it could be. You go through different peaks in life. I talked to an old bloke that said, oh, you're well past your peak, mate. You know, you're over the hill. And I went, mate, there's so many peaks, you know, like, sure, I passed my physical peak when I was 30 or whatever, it was 25, but no.

It has to be 35, I reckon.

But in terms of peak wisdom, peak knowledge, peak empathy, what is it? You know, like, there's so many different things that you can be good at at different times in your life, so you definitely don't want to write yourself off early. I think what I realized after the accident was that I wanted to live the rest of my life in a way that left a legacy, rather than said, look at me. So I definitely felt early on that I was trying to prove myself, to start with, that I, you know, I came off a little farm. I wasn't on a big farm. You know, you've come out of the city and you've seen the same thing. It's like, oh, but you're not a big farm. Well, you don't have to be to contribute to this agricultural, the whole ecosystem of agriculture, like anyone can contribute that's interested and wants to be involved. So I think I felt, definitely felt I was youngest of six hours, or I saw as a crash test dummy. You know, they just, they didn't. Wasn't sure if something could work, they'd throw me at it first. So I was always trying to prove myself. And then it's in your career you're trying to, you know, not. Not show off. You're just trying to be competent. You're just trying to not make mistakes and just do things well and be reliable. And I don't want to not do that. I just think there's ways now that with the experience I've had both, you know, physically, work wise, emotionally, spiritually, whatever, there's ways that I can help other people and lay a platform for them to go further. That's what it's about. You know, you want your kids to be a better version of yourself. You want, you know, people that you've helped lead and mentor to kick on and you keep cheering them while they go past you.

So you want to get in that stadium, watch them on the big screen.

Yeah, I'll just sit back.

No, Tony, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down. I've bloody enjoyed this morning's chat.

No, awesome, mate. Thanks for what you do. I think it's a great, It's a great tool to bring, bring this sort of message to people. We get a lot of, as I said earlier, we get a lot of technical information and that's awesome, to get the job done and to earn money and that. But it's, it is a community, it is a culture, agriculture. And it's important that we, that we, when we weave that tapestry, it's not all about agronomy, it's not all about money. It's. It's. Yeah, about everything that goes into making that tapestry. So it's part of it, mate. You do it well. Good on you.

Thanks, Tony.

Cheers.