Stockyard Sessions

In this episode of Stockyard Sessions, I’m thrilled to welcome Dorianne Coventry, Director of Investor Relations at Impact Ag Australia. Dorianne's remarkable journey spans Wall Street to the heart of rural Australia, where she and her husband manage a commercial beef and ultra-fine merino wool enterprise. We dive into her transformative career pivot, exploring the balance between family life, farming, and a fulfilling professional path. Dorianne shares her insights on redefining success, the evolving role of women in agriculture, and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. Join us as we uncover the stories and experiences that shape the future of Australian agriculture.

In this episode of Stockyard Sessions, Victoria Lawrance sits down with Sam Johnsson, CEO of Farm Owners Academy.

Sam grew up on Kangaroo Island and spent a decade in engineering and construction consulting, leading a team of 65, before stepping back into agriculture five years ago. Today he works with farm owners across Australia and New Zealand on the business skills that sit around the technical side of farming: strategy, structure, mindset and long-term decision-making.

The conversation covers why the top-performing farms in Australia make four to five times more profit than the average without doing things drastically differently, the two numbers Sam believes every producer should have a solid handle on, what "playing above the line" actually means, and how to approach natural capital opportunities like soil carbon so they support the long-term goals of the business.

Sam also shares the personal moments that reshaped how he thinks about leadership, and why setting your business up to run whether you're there or not matters more than most owners realise.

This podcast is brought to you by Atlas Ag, the team behind Atlas Carbon and Atlas Grazing.

In this episode of Stockyard Sessions, Victoria Lawrance sits down with Jake Smith from BJS Farming, a family operation running across five properties in the New England region of New South Wales.

Jake grew up on land that’s been in his family for generations, spent time working as a livestock agent, and in recent years has focused on transitioning the business toward more nature-positive and regenerative practices. More recently, he’s been involved in a soil carbon project.

Jake’s story is about a gradual, deliberate shift from conventional set stocking to intensive rotational grazing, with knowledge and confidence built over years through courses, books and a lot of observation.

This episode is recorded during an intense and prolonged dry spell. Jake has already destocked, is putting his worst paddocks to work with bale grazing, and is thinking carefully about genetics and what it takes to build a truly resilient animal.

The episode explores family legacy, a gradual shift away from conventional grazing, the practicalities of a soil carbon project, and what resilience looks like when conditions turn tough.

This podcast is brought to you by Atlas Ag, the team behind Atlas Carbon and Atlas Grazing.

In this episode of Stockyard Sessions, Victoria Lawrance sits down with Richard Brimblecombe.

Richard brings a perspective few can offer, having seen the Australian agricultural industry from a range of corporate agribusiness roles, as well as running his own cattle property on Queensland's Western Downs. Richard’s past positions include senior roles at NAPCo, Nutrien, GRDC and StockCo. He's now Co-Founder and CEO of Legacy Livestock.

In this conversation, he explores what genuinely good decision-making looks like in a grazing business, how data and context shape better outcomes, and why acting early, especially in a dry, is one of the most important disciplines a grazier can build.

He also shares the journey that led him and his wife to register a soil carbon project at Glen Morgan, not because of the financial opportunity, but because the science, the philosophy and the land management logic all pointed in the same direction.

This podcast is brought to you by Atlas Ag, the team behind Atlas Carbon and Atlas Grazing.

In this episode of Stockyard Sessions, Victoria Lawrance sits down with Andrew Mosely, who runs Etiwanda Station near Cobar, New South Wales, a 50,000-acre operation in the Western Division that his family has called home since 1949.

When Andrew returned to Etiwanda in the late 1990s, he inherited a landscape that had been pushed hard. Soil that barely held water, scrub encroachment, a collapsing wool industry, and a business that wasn't set up to survive the decade ahead.

Guided by the principles of holistic management and a growing understanding of soil health, Andrew began reshaping Etiwanda from the ground up. Over the following decades, alongside his wife Megan and their daughters Emily and Jess, he rebuilt the property around rest and recovery, fencing infrastructure, and a deliberately diverse livestock mix of White Dorpers, goats and Red Angus cattle. The result: carrying capacity more than doubled, perennial grasses returned, and a system that can now grow cattle feed in the same rainfall event where neighbouring properties struggle to produce sheep pick.

"It is fragile country, but it just needs the right management and it responds."

The conversation covers what it really took to turn that landscape around: the role of fencing, the logic behind running three livestock enterprises, how epigenetics is shaping their breeding decisions, and why Andrew sees soil carbon not as a distraction but as a natural extension of what they've been doing all along.

Andrew also reflects on what it means to be a custodian of country. The droughts, the hard decisions, and what keeps you going when the land is tough. His answer is as honest as you'd expect.

This podcast is brought to you by Atlas Ag, the team behind Atlas Carbon and Atlas Grazing.

Find out more at atlasag.com