Soils For Life

Ben Simpson runs Thistlebank, a 22,800 hectare cattle property near Aramac in Central Queensland that has been in his family for five generations. He came to the property from a very different life as a fitter and turner on the Gold Coast and has run it since 2010, joined by his wife Kim in 2014.
A hard drought in the late 2010s meant more money was going out the door than coming in, so Ben went looking for a different approach. In 2022 he did the KLR Marketing and RCS Grazing for Profit courses, followed by RCS’s Next Steps coaching and Executive Link programs. Since then, Ben and Kim have moved from set stocking to cell and rotational grazing. Their minimum ground cover has gone from around 40% to 60% or more, and their benchmark carrying capacity has risen from around 6 to 15–20 stock days per hectare per 100 mm of rain. They now rank in the top 20% of RCS’s profitability benchmarks. Ben has also started working with RCS as a coach and adviser.
In this episode, we talk about:
How Ben went from the Gold Coast to running Thistlebank, and what made him stay
Why financial pressure during drought led him to seek out training, starting with marketing and business skills
Starting small and scaling up, from 16 or 17 mobs down to four mobs of 700 to 1,200 head
Running intensive cell grazing on 6,000 hectares and a slower rotation across the rest of the property, working with flooding, access and labour constraints
Planning grazing 12 to 18 months ahead with feed budgets, so that small adjustments made early avoid forced sales later
Shifting from breeders to trading cattle to match stocking rate to carrying capacity, and to suit the people running the place day to day
How goats fit into the system, and the paradigm shift of seeing grass grow back under timber
Why coaching, peer support and a written vision have been central to the change

Ben features as a case study farmer in our Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration. He was due to host a field day at Thistlebank with Soils for Life and RCS, but recent flooding has put that on hold. Instead, we’ll be running a webinar with Ben and RCS Managing Director Dave McLean. Details on our website.
Links and resources
Soils for Life Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration: https://soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration/
Webinar with Ben Simpson and Dave McLean: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-field-day-thistlebank 
RCS: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/
RCS Grazing for Profit: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/farming-grazing-for-profit-programs/
RCS tools, including FarmEye: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/tools/
KLR Marketing: https://klrmarketing.com.au/
The Long Paddock (Queensland Government ground cover and climate data): https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/
CarbonLink: https://www.carbonlink.com.au/

More from our grazing series
From feeding animals to feeding biology, with David and Ruth Read: https://open.spotify.com/episode/21dVEksiDbbDDQTWLrZxGT
Regenerative grazing and the key insights of Holistic Management, with Brian Wehlburg: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bWGHbRB332rYcw9bLwt90

This episode was hosted by Eli Court, produced by Jen Sheridan and edited by Chris Wieffering.
We’d love to hear your feedback, questions or ideas for future guests. Get in touch on social media or at info@soilsforlife.org.au.

Today’s guest Frank Ashwood is a soil ecologist with a side passion for macrophotography - photographing the incredible creatures and organisms living in the soil.
He has an academic background in biology and land restoration to woodland.
He mostly studies the biological diversity and associated functions of forest soils, but three years ago Soils for Life brought Frank Ashwood to Australia to turn his camera to the life in the soil on farms across six regions. The photographs were astounding, and a number of them have now been included in his new book: The World Beneath our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All. 
In today’s chat, we discuss some of the incredible creatures that live in the soil, diving into how each layer of soil differs, and some of the experiences and observations on farms around Australia. 
Links and resources:
The World Beneath our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All, by Frank Ashwood https://www.frankashwood.com/twbof 
Frank Ashwood book launch at Fat Pig Farm on 10 October: https://zfszi4-wi.myshopify.com/products/frank-ashwood-book-launch?variant=50520122654964 
A recap of Frank’s work with Soils for Life, visiting and photographing Australian farms: https://soilsforlife.org.au/frank-ashwood-soil-life-up-close/ 

We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at info@soilsforlife.org.au.

Courtney Young farms organic grain with her husband Ian in Rutherglen, Victoria, and is also Soils for Life's Farmer Learning Manager. In this episode, she talks with Eli about building a farming life from scratch, growing healthy soil and grain, and turning wheat into a value-added business.
In this episode
How Courtney's path into farming began, from her dad's oyster farming on the NSW South Coast, through a disillusioning stint in conservation, to discovering regenerative agriculture
The economics of getting into farming today, and how Courtney and Ian navigated the challenge of accessing land
Building soil and crop health on their 100-acre property and the family's 2,000-acre organic farm at Berrigan, including intercropping wheat with clover and improving grazing management
The decision to start milling their own flour, turning a commodity crop into a paddock-to-plate product with a loyal following among Melbourne bakers
How Courtney and Ian test new ideas cheaply and quickly, and "fail fast" rather than risk the whole business
Soils for Life's new Cropping Communities program, an eight-location, on-farm and online initiative helping grain growers and mixed farmers interpret soil and plant health data and turn it into action plans

Find out more
If you're interested in the upcoming Cropping Communities training program for growers and cropping advisors, head to soilsforlife.org.au/cropping-communities/

Get in touch
If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via info@soilsforlife.org.au.

World Fungus Day is in October and to mark the occasion we spoke with two mycologists - fungi experts - Dr Sapphire McMullan-Fisher and Julie Fielder about this amazing and mostly hidden lifeform.
Sapphire is a lecturer in plant and fungal Ecology at the University of New England and Julie runs consultancy Phytos Environmental in WA, and both are involved with Fungimap, one of Australia’s longest running citizen science organisations. They’ve both also been involved in the recently published book Fungi for Land: A practical guide for land managers, which draws on the work of more than 25 Australian scientists to explain what fungi do in the landscape and how to manage land in ways that support them.
In this conversation we delve into the weird and wonderful world of fungi, from their ancient beginnings almost 400 million years ago as partners to plants, to their incredible and bizarre present day forms. And we discuss how healthy and diverse fungal ecosystems are so deeply interconnected with, and essential for, healthy and resilient soils, plants and people.
Correction: In the intro we say World Fungus Day is on October 2nd. The date actually varies by country, it's marked across the first week or so of October rather than on one fixed day.Mentioned in this episode:
​Fungi for Land: A practical guide for land managers - https://fungi4land.com/  
​Fun Fungi Ecology - https://www.funfungiecology.com/ 
​Fungimap - https://fungimap.org.au/ 
​iNaturalist - https://www.inaturalist.org/
PhD on metarhizium - https://eprints.qut.edu.au/117674/

About the podcast
David and Ruth Read own and manage Woodcote, a 470 hectare beef cattle trading farm located in East Gippsland, Victoria. 
In this episode, we talk about:
How the Millennium Drought sounded a wake-up call for their farm
The changes they have made since that time including moving towards higher density grazing, establishment of fencing and water infrastructure to support that
Shifting to a primarily trading enterprise and refocusing from feeding animals to feeding biology. 

Ruth and David also share their enthusiasm for learning and adapting, and share a wealth of resources for people to tap into as they make their own farm learning journey.
David and Ruth featured as case study farmers in Soils for Life’s recently released Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration. They are also hosting the third of our national series of field days launching the guide. If you’re interested to see their work in action, and hear more about their farming practices - alongside grazing educator Brian Wehlburg - join us on September 15 for a day of on-farm learning.
If you’re unable to attend that event in-person, we’ll also be running an online webinar on September the 2nd with Rod and Katrina Butler, another of the farming families featured in the grazing guide.
Resources, links and events from the episode
Soils for Life Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration: https://soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration/ 
Grazing field day: Strategies to build soil and landscape health, 15 September: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-field-day 
Grazing Webinar: Getting started with grazing for soil and landscape health: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-with-rod-and-katrina-butler
Woodcote Pty Ltd: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057240318507
Soils for Life’s interview with Grant Williams:⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yQTkVCoaAXNnwPuROxSib?si=rPR1lf6-QkqI_xu3pdL3RQ⁠
Education providers
RCS Grazing For Profit course: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/farming-grazing-for-profit-programs/ 
Graeme Hand: https://www.handfortheland.com/ 
Dick Richardson: https://www.naturesequity.com.au/ 
Jim Elizondo: https://www.rwranching.com/ 
KLR Marketing: https://klrmarketing.com.au/
Joel Williams: https://integratedsoils.com/ 

If you have any feedback
If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via info@soilsforlife.org.au.