MATTHEW EVANS - The reluctant celebrity farmer and chef using his fame to spread the word about healthy soils, healthy foods and healthy people
Farmers helping FarmersShow Notes
VicNoTill farmers were rapt to welcome food writer, farmer, television broadcaster and chef Matthew Evans to the Food for Thought Conference in Wagga Wagga. After Matthew walked around the paddocks, stood in a soil pit and sampled the beef grown on the cattle stud of VicNoTill’s Michael Gooden, they sat down to talk about the links between healthy soils, food and people. Matthew shares how he went from a city boy who was always hungry to a reluctant celebrity who uses his fame to ‘bang on about healthy soils’. His purpose is to spread a deeper appreciation of the broader health impacts when people values farmers like those in VicNoTill who are changing their farming systems and improving their soils to grow more nutrient-rich foods. Based in Southern Tasmania, Matthew lives and works on Fat Pig Farm, a mixed holding where he tends a garden, makes cider, fattens the namesake pigs and tries to entice milk from two full cream dairy cows for his onsite restaurant. Matthew’s personal farming journey has been the focus of six series of Gourmet Farmer on SBS, and he’s presented two documentaries, For The Love of Meat, and What’s The Catch. Matthew is the author of 15 books on food, including the authoritative ethical meat manifesto On Eating Meat. He’s an advocate for open, fair, accountable food and farming systems, and has pushed for honest labelling so we can all enjoy sustainable seafood. His book SOIL is a hymn to the remarkable, and underappreciated bit of Earth that gifts us life. It’s a swashbuckling tale of soil that arms us all with the knowledge and respect to care about its health, the perfect complement to his latest completely revised cookbook The Real Food Companion. His most recent book, MILK, came out in July 2024 and unpacks the truth and lies behind the original superfood.
More from Farmers helping Farmers
This Farmers helping Farmers episode is coming to you from a regenerative rice farm in Southern Tuscany, Italy. Picture yourself there by listening out for the town bells, the birds and a tractor going past. Angus 'Gus' Ingram is travelling through Italy with his family, exploring all the things the country is renowned for - food, food, food. Not just any food, high quality, nutritious, regeneratively-grown food. In this episode Angus visits the farm of Ariane Lotti from Tenuta San Carlo. Ariane was recognised in 2024 as one of Europe's Top 50 farmers, an initiative started by Foodprint Nordic to recognise farmers who are working in harmony with nature, regenerating the land, restoring biodiversity, and building resilient ecosystems. Ariane Lotti spent summers on the farm with her family as a child, and since 2014 has been leading Tenuta San Carlo with a vision for certified organic agriculture with a regenerative approach. Under her leadership, the farm has become certified organic, expanded its crop diversity, restored natural ecosystems through reforestation, and launched a line of farm-branded products. A Yale graduate and former U.S. agriculture policy expert, she also has roles within Italian and European farming organisations. Ariane provides a valuable insight into the economic considerations of changing from a conventionally managed farming system to a regenerative one. This episode also highlights the incredible innovations that can happen when you look for opportunities within your farm business and follow through on your vision to grow healthier food. Ariane is honest, practical and thoughtful, giving a realistic view of the challenges along the way, and the things she would do differently. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we do. It once again highlights the power of 'farmers helping farmers', no matter where you are in the world.
Guest host Joel Williams talks to Michael Gooden and Dan Fox about the evolution of this grassroots farming group over the past 24 years, and the announcement of its new name - Farmers helping Farmers. NEW NAME | SAME PRINCIPLES | SAME SUPPORT| SAME FARMERS HELPING FARMERS In 2002 a group of innovative broadacre cropping farmers formed the Victorian No Till Farmers Association as an independent, practical, grassroots group of ‘farmers helping farmers’. Fast forward through 24 years of droughts, floods, fires, hail, frost and amazing seasons and a lot has changed in Australian agriculture. The group has also changed – membership has extended beyond state borders, the core focus has gone well beyond no-till farming systems, and the knowledge and experience that comes out of member paddocks is teaching everyone something new every day. One thing that has never changed though is the reason for being. Farmers helping Farmers. "We welcome all farmers, no matter what system they are in, to join us as we launch Farmers helping Farmers Australia. Together we will continue to strive to regenerate agriculture for future generations. From the ground down, and the ground up." Go to our new website to find out more and get involved.
In this episode, Michael Gooden catches up with board member Carol Fitzpatrick and her husband Brian to delve deeper into their on-farm brewing set-up which is providing nutrition to their family's combined 6000-hectares of broadacre crops in one of Australia's harshest farming environments - the Mallee. Carol attended her first VicNoTill conference in 2022, just one year into being full-time on the farm. Although she felt like a fish out of water at first, VicNoTill has taken her knowledge to the next level. She joined the board in 2024 and has never looked back. “You've got to talk to farmers for that knowledge if you don’t know yourself. You need to speak to other farmers to find out when to apply, when it's worked and when it hasn’t. “The theory is all great and it's good to keep that in the back of your mind, but the practical implementation is just as difficult sometimes. Listening to other farmers tell you how they do it and how they've spent their money and time is more valuable in the long run.” If you enjoy listening to this podcast episode with Carol and Brian, they will be at the Farmers Helping Farmers Conference in Yarrawonga on September 2-3, 2026. They would be more than happy to answer your questions and share their knowledge. Farmers helping Farmers is what we are all about.
"I didn't get to Dad's until 12:30am Friday. I’ll never forget coming over the hill I’ve been coming over my whole life to home and seeing the area glowing. The whole horizon wasred. It was like an apocalypse." VicNoTill board member Callum Lawson and his partner, large-animal veterinarian Lyndall Barwick, were on the frontline of the Longwood bushfire in Victoria that started on January 7, 2026. This fire burnt over 140,000 hectares. Callum manages ‘Allanvale’ at Avenel and his family farm is at Highlands, about 45 minutes southeast. Callum and Lyndall did everything they could to create firebreaks and protect livestock at ‘Allanvale’ in catastrophic conditions before making an emergency dash to Highlands to help save the family farm. Seven months on, Michael Gooden catches up with Callum about the steps he's taken to restore and repair burnt soils, and rebuild his regenerative grazing system using tools such as natural sequence farming, virtual fencing, applying foliars, stimulating his underground biology and just sitting back patiently letting his landscape rest and recover as his soils rebuild themselves. A huge thank you to Callum for his generosity in sharing his story and for the time he's put into sharing his knowledge and experience to help others. Farmers helping farmers is what it's all about.
We are re-releasing our very first Farmers Helping Farmers podcast episode with former VicNoTill president and sixth generation Lockington farmer Grant Sims. This conversationwith Dan Fox was recorded way back in 2022 is our most highly listened to episode of all time. Grant joined the VicNoTill board in 2015 and was president until 2020. Landline Australia featured Grant and the benefits of regenerative farming system on its May 10, 2026 episode. It is exciting to see regenerative agriculture finally get the airplay it deserves. It might have taken a world war and a global fueland fertiliser crisis to get this attention, but the reality is that VicNoTill farmers like Grant have been successfully farming regeneratively in large-scale broadacre cropping and livestock systems for over 10 years. Grant has long been at the forefront of innovation and was president of VicNoTill when our farmer-based, grassroots organisation started testing and trialling regenerative tools. Grant credits VicNoTill as taking his passion and vision for better soils, better livestock and better, more profitable and sustainable farming systems to the next level. “Farmers helping farmers is a powerful way to lead change, and I don’t know any other organisation out there who does this as well as VicNoTill does,” he says. Grant’s excitement and passion for a new approach to how farmers feed the world is contagious, as you will discover in this episode of Farmers Helping Farmers - soil health, soil function and grassroots agriculture. Grant is also the founder of DownUnder AG. You can find out more about Grant on the VicNoTill website – he’s a wealth of knowledge and is generously sharing that knowledge around the world.