“There was no power, no water, no telephone, and that's how we lived for the first few years until we could build a house.”

You listen to Clancy Mackay speak and you wouldn’t believe he is only 27 years old. A man with decades of experience, and a love of animals, family and adventure has seen him explore the globe in pursuit of his agricultural adventures.

On Day 2 of the Australian Dairy Conference in Tasmania this year, Oli sat down with Nedd Brockmann. This podcast linked at the bottom of this post is a live recording of that chat - it’ll feel like you were there!

In 2022, Nedd cemented his legend status by running from Perth to Bondi in 47 days, and not only that, but he raised $2.5 million for homeless charity We Are Mobilise.

“A lot of my ancestry has been directly involved in agriculture, mum’s parents are farmers, and through my dad’s side there was a pretty strong farming influence as well. I also grew up in an area that was sort of semi-rural, I grew up on a hobby farm and I remember from a young age being inspired by the farmers in my family, the farmers around my family.”

“Everyone that lives in the bush, they love it, they live and breathe it, they choose to live there, but with that choice to live in the bush [there are] these conditions… challenges that are outside of your control,” said Ginny.

“Floods, fires, droughts, financial stress, succession planning, commodity price risk, you have isolation… we are herd animals, we are not meant to be alone a lot, there's a lot of farmers that are alone a lot.”

“We made the decision that we couldn’t farm anymore… we were totally financially, physically and emotionally exhausted.”

When Warren was given two options, stay on the farm or leave, it wasn’t just his “silent business partner”, Mother Nature he was trying to come to terms with, it was deteriorating mental health, financial stress and a fifth kid on the way.

Bringing people together is the first step towards meaningful conversations about mental health – that’s where the local show steps in, says Karl Milde.