NEW PODCAST ALERT: One of Australia’s longest-running farmer groups has a new name. The Victorian No Till Farmers Association (VicNoTill), formed in 2002 by a group of innovative broadacre cropping farmers in the Wimmera, is now ‘Farmers helping Farmers’. Board president Michael Gooden announced the new name to a room of almost 200 farmers, agronomists, scientists and industry leaders at the group’s annual conference in Yarrawonga on 2 September.
The group also invited internationally renowned soil educator Joel Williams to host this very special episode with Michael Gooden and immediate past president Dan Fox to share the story of VicNoTill and how the current board arrived at the decision to go national and change their name. Joel has been involved with the group for over a decade.
“It’s a real honour to be invited to be the guest host today of today’s podcast. I go back a little over a decade with this farming group, and I’ve met many of your members, and worked closely with the board and the team. I’ve stood in many of your paddocks and spoken at some of your conferences, and even last year, I had the pleasure of playing tour guide with a group of you all who came all the way over to UK, and we did a wonderful study tour of some innovative UK farms, which culminated in a visit to the Groundswell Festival. And through all of those experiences of overlapping and collaborating, I can say with confidence and with authority that VicNoTill, now Farmers helping Farmers, has been responsible for significant steps forward in Australian agriculture. The group is made up of a whole lot of farmers who think outside of the square. They ask a lot of questions about their soils, about their crops, about their farming systems, and they aren’t satisfied with the status quo. And they continually strive to do better. They are making changes from the ground down, down to the soil health, to the soil biology, to the soil structure, but also from the ground up. And their influence is reaching all around the world.” Joel Williams, soil health educator, Canada
The Farmers helping Farmers podcast is available on all your favourite podcast APPS.
