# 195 - Breeding Better, Building Smarter The Science of Genetic Gain with Dr Mark Ferguson, neXtgen Agri

G’day everyone, How often have you heard it said, or perhaps said it yourself, that good people just don’t exist anymore? That they’ve all gone to the mines, or that the younger generation in our area just don’t want to work? I understand why we feel that way. Recruiting is hard, especially when we’re farming remotely. But a mentor of mine once said something that really challenged me: we get the people we deserve. I truly believe who we attract to our teams comes down to three things: how good we are as employers and leaders; how good our recruitment system is; and how well we select, then onboard. In this episode I’m joined by two of our own, Michaela Malicki, our FOA Operations Manager, and Sunny Roberts, our People and Culture Manager. Together they’ve helped us welcome more than 30 new team members over the last five years. Sunny has also worked alongside many farming families, helping them find, recruit and settle great people into their businesses. Their professionalism, and their genuine care for every candidate, is something I’m so proud of. Grab a pen and paper. We unpack:

Achieving a successful startup as a first-generation farmer is a tough assignment. On top of that, achieving a ‘direct to consumer, first generation farm’ is even harder. Tens of thousands, as you all know, have tried. Very few have succeeded. Meet Tim and Hannah and The Food Farm. Their story is remarkable. Their passion inspiring. Their determination unwavering. 5 years ago, Tim was a sole-operator contractor… surviving on borrowed machinery and blind faith. Hannah an opera singer from inner-Adelaide. Their first $2,000 came from a potato harvest festival that was nearly washed out by floods. It bought their first chicken caravan, towed home to New South Wales from Victoria. Today, and where they've arrived to is something to be immensely proud of. Tim and Hannah now lead a team of ten, run their own on-farm butchery, and grow pasture-raised chicken that has been awarded at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show three times. Their organic, quality produce and endeavour even earned them a recent audience with our King! Every week, 600 to 700 people sit down to beautiful produce grown by Tim, Hannah and their passionate team. In this episode, Tim, Hannah and I explore:

What if living longer had less to do with finding the perfect diet, supplement or exercise program… and more to do with how we live, what we believe and who we surround ourselves with? In this episode, I’m joined by the incredible Marcus Pearce, a longevity strategist, speaker, author and host of 100 Not Out. Marcus recently joined us at our FOA Deep Dive Workshop, and I was struck again by the way he challenges so many of the assumptions we carry around health, ageing and what it means to live a genuinely exceptional life. We explore:

Uncertainty Is the Only Certainty: Building Resilience with Psychologist Maria Ruberto Two hundred episodes in, and the thread running through nearly all of them is this: the numbers matter, but what's going on in our heads and hearts is what determines whether we thrive or just survive. So for this milestone, I wanted to talk human emotions properly, starting with the one none of us can avoid. Uncertainty is almost the only certainty we've got as farmers. But it isn't a sign that something's wrong with you. It's a normal state your brain moves into when it can't predict what happens next, and once you understand that, you can move through it with a lot more strength. That's exactly what we dig into today with psychologist Maria Ruberto. Maria Ruberto is a psychologist, certified applied Neuropsychotherapist and Founder of Salutegenics. With more than 30 years of experience across education, clinical practice, leadership and workplace wellbeing, Maria delivers science-backed training programs that help individuals, teams and organisations build resilience and strengthen their ability to support the wellbeing of others. Her approach focuses on understanding the powerful connection between biology, psychology and behaviour. In this Learning from Legends episode, we reconnect with Maria, who has previously presented to our FOA alumni and joined us on the podcast before, to unpack a topic every farmer knows intimately: uncertainty, and how we manage our exposure to it. We explore:

AI is moving fast — incredibly fast — and whether we like it or not, the game has changed. In this week’s episode, I sit down with Sam Johnsson, CEO of Farm Owners Academy. Sam, along with Michaela, Greg, and the broader FOA team, has been doing outstanding work in this space, not just exploring what AI can do, but figuring out how we can use it practically to build better businesses and better outcomes for farm owners. We unpack what AI really means for agriculture and why I believe the opportunity in front of us is enormous. From using ChatGPT or Claude as a smarter research partner, through to analysing data, improving decision-making, building systems, automating repetitive work and even capturing 40 years of knowledge from inside a farmer’s head, the capability is extraordinary. But we also talk about the other side of it: security, accuracy, the risk of AI being “confidently wrong”, and why good judgement, trusted advisers and knowing what good looks like still matter enormously. Sam also shares a really useful framework for understanding where you are on the AI journey, and, more importantly, how to take the next step without feeling like you need to become a technology expert overnight. My encouragement is simple: don’t sit on the sidelines. Get curious. Have a play. Start small. Because this technology is going to touch almost every part of business and life, and I think those who learn to use it well will have an extraordinary advantage. I really enjoyed this conversation with Sam, and I hope it gives you the confidence and a few practical ideas to start putting AI to work in your business. Keep winning! Hutch & The Farm Owners Academy Team P.S. If this episode has you thinking it's time to get more out of AI in your farm business, Sam is running a 90-minute live workshop on 21 & 22 October. You’ll learn how to spot the work where AI can create genuine leverage, then set it up with the context, standards and guardrails it needs to do that work properly in your operation. See the workshop and register here.