Welcome everyone as we are back into a new year! We Hope you’ve had a great break over the summer and that 2024 is a ripper year for you and your family.

This year already has been Huuuggee for Humans of Agriculture. Oli and new team member Han are back from a trip to Northern NSW and QLD where they met some incredible characters, learned abit about Cotton, worked on partnership projects (more to come on this!) and captured a heap of Ag content 🎥🤳📸

Our first couple of podcast episodes for the year have gone LIVVEE also, so if you’ve missed them and want to catch up, you can do so via the links below 🎧

Jan 17 - Legacy In Farming with Fritz Bolten

Jan 10 - Dave Interviews Oli about all things Humans of Agriculture

Jan 3 - Happy New Year!! We're back on the 17th of Jan!

If you would like to connect with Humans of Agriculture in 2024 with an idea, feedback or just to say G’day 👋 Reach out to us on socials or GO HERE

Congratulations to all graduates from the National Farmers'​ Federation National Agricultural Leadership Program, with a big congrats to our very own Milly Nolan!

Milly has balanced completing the program while being an integral component of the engine room at Humans of Agriculture this year.

Milly partnered with Hayleigh Dawson to deliver a policy project on the Horticultural industry.

As part of the program, Milly got a first-hand look at the inner workings of Canberra, commenting that "The bustle and inner-working of Canberra is pretty nuts. The bells, meetings, people... It's an eye-opening insight into the way these people live.

One morning we were there, some people had to work until ~4am and were back in the office by 8am!

A huge shout out to Hayleigh Dawson who I partnered with to deliver our Policy Project on competition in horticulture.

I learnt SOO much, about what on earth an oligopsony is (when only a small number of buyers, and in this case retailers, exist for a product) and those impacts on growers ability to invest and consumer ability to afford.

Hayleigh is a jet in this space and I am grateful she shared that knowledge with me and I got to learn about something that I had absolutely zero idea about! We even got to weave in "A Home Among The Gumtrees" song into our presentation (no singing, just the reference to Woolies).

Also, Sheep Producers Australia sponsored my spot, so a massive thanks to them!"

Read more on the graduates HERE

As pictured, Milly in Canberra for the Graduate Program

If you or another leader in Agriculture may be considering applying for the program, For more info head to 👉 National Farmers Federation Leadership Program

The paint-like landscapes where Cattle country meets the ocean is something else, I was in the backseat of the chopper and had a little moment, and with a smile I said to myself ‘how on earth has this become my everyday’.

Ok… Ok… Not every day is helicopters and incredible scenery but sharing the stories of the Humans involved in Agriculture is, and it’s been such a rewarding past 12 months doing it.

This year has been a biggen. It’s been fun, challenging, rewarding, completely and utterly intoxicating. And later in the year it 💯 caught up with me.

I think I’ve matured a lot, being responsible for people’s livelihoods has weighed pretty heavily on me. The most exciting part has been to see what we can do as a team, and we’re totally getting there.

On that note, we’ll be welcoming a new team member in January taking our little team to 4, and to settle the new job nerves we’ll be hitting the road to find some characters and stories from across Northern NSW and Southern Qld. (If you know someone - hit us up!!)

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves though, I wanted to look back on a few of the moments that have defined Humans of Agriculture this year.

🎧 Clancy’s story captured the hearts of so many

👀 Millions (Yep! Millions!) were mesmerised by a seed growing into a plant 🌱

🎧 Carbon Shortcuts - simple and easy to understand

🐂This is Aussie Ag - why the heck don’t we do more of them!! 🤷

💝 Our community shared more about them and how we make them feel

📋And… That jobs board thing that we tried, learnt and then closed!

📫For more from the year that has been, Read our December Community News HERE

200+ times we’ve listened to our guests respond to the question: “if you had the chance to talk to Year 10 students about a career in Agriculture, what would you say?”

Last week we pulled together a full day workshop in Lismore, NSW as part of the NSW Government Department of Education’s pilot for the Launch Your Career in Agriculture program.

We spent the day understanding them, their ambitions, their interests, the things they care about, working with them to showcase how the things that interest them or would make a meaningful career are possible through Agriculture.

We then had four amazing people sit down for a panel led by our very own Milly. The students got the chance to ask questions of young people in various areas of Aussie Ag from Research and Development in Dairy, Meat Trading, Berry Farming and Sustainability management for consumer facing Food and Beverage businesses.

We want to see Agriculture thrive into the future enabled by its people, to create a better tomorrow.

Everyone who’s been part of the Humans of Agriculture story helped shape the day, a special thanks to the businesses that supported our guests come along on the day to help connect, inform and inspire the students to launch their career.

As pictured, Alex McManus - Cape Byron Distillery, Sam Barnier - Endeavour Meats Heidi Court - Dairy Australia ,Tom Gunther - Mountain Blue and Milly Nolan, Humans Of Agriculture.

Our thanks to Scott Barnier, Careers Learning Advisor and the whole team from the Department of Education NSW for bringing this project to life.

Read more about the event as featured in the Lismore City News HERE

Our Top 10 Podcast downloads for the year are in! From Clancy Mackay to Pip Courtney and Leila McDougall - If you missed them, its time to catch up!

These amazing chats and so many more, can be found on your favourite podcast app.

See more of who made the top 10 HERE

2023 has been HUGE and we have so much that we want to share with our Community.

So instead of our usual podcast this week, we are sharing with you a Humans of Agriculture Radio episode.

In this episode, we chat about insights from our Community Survey, Mental health, Careers In Agriculture and touch on what have been some of our favourite podcasts throughout the year.

Catch the episode HERE

We're pretty damn lucky to get a front row seat to all kinds of businesses, careers and people.

Oli's mates joke he's had more starts than pharlap (ok pipe down!).

Our community survey showed that 45% of people in our community are planning or considering moving jobs in the next 12 months.

So we thought we could help you all out a lil!

We're turning job interviews on their head and interviewing the businesses looking to hire people - who are they, what drives them, why do they do what they do.

We hope it helps give a little more insight before you hit the 'apply' button.

Anddd over the next little while, you're going to see more of us getting out and meeting people working in agriculture and finding out what are the opportunities for you!

So if you're looking for a job, or would love to see us try our hand at one - lettuce know!

To see the latest business on the hunt for new team members that we are placing in the spotlight

Check out Harvest Road Group HERE

Humans of Agriculture are excited to announce its extended partnership with GRDC for another two years as part of GRDC’s successful In Conversation podcast series.

The podcast series, hosted by Oli Le Lieve, showcases individuals in different sectors of the grains industry with the first two series of the podcast totaling 18,700 downloads.

GRDC will now broaden its scope and take the next series of the podcast  to a National reach, placing an emphasis on the adoption of technology and innovation.

Read more HERE

We're excited to share our Community Survey Insights, the first look at who is really in the HOA community and what's the tangible impact that we are making.

Our community is unique, it is progressive, diverse. They feel Informed, Inspired and Connected and more than 90% believe that HOA's purpose is to shift the stigma and/or champion Aussie Agriculture.

So what are some of the takeaways:

🏙️ 1 in 5 people in our community are not in agriculture

🤙🏻 83% are under 45 years old

🤔 45% planning or considering their next career move

🌱 56% of those in management positions are women

🫶 HOA has raised more than $50,000 for various charities

Thankyou to all members of the HOA community who took the time to participate in our survey. We sincerely value your feedback and will use it to guide us in shaping Humans of Agriculture to be as great as it can possibly be.

Read the full report HERE

Over the next 12 months Humans of Agriculture will be tapping into the stories of various Nuffield Scholars from across the decades.

We are really looking forward to learning how the Scholars projects have shaped and continue to influence their careers and the broader Agricultural Community.

Read more HERE