Understanding the Path to Carbon Neutrality with Hayley Purbrick

This week on the podcast, Mark chats with Hayley Purbrick, a key figure at Tahbilk Winery, one of Victoria's oldest and most esteemed wineries. Hayley, a fifth-generation winemaker, has spent a decade transforming the winery's environmental policies, achieving an impressive feat of carbon neutrality. She is an advocate for understanding data, transforming it from a burden into a tool for efficiency and sustainability.

We delve into various topics, including her latest venture focusing on empowering farmers to understand their environmental efforts and leverage the emerging opportunities in the carbon-neutral movement. With her vast experience and her passion for revitalising small towns through entrepreneurship, Hayley offers a unique perspective. Hayley now spends her time helping farmers understand their emissions at various levels. 

For many producers, it has been easy to not look too hard at their environmental impact. The concept of adding more data and paperwork to their business, for 'no return' has been unappealing to many. But it’s not all about carbon emissions, Hayley explains. "The thing about data is that it's powerful in terms of your decision-making and planning," she explains, “You can either look through a compliance lens or you can look at it through a planning lens."

Hayley suggests a reframe that empowers farmers to look forward in their business, rather than weighing them down. “We always end up starting from a decision-making/planning lens. Because if you don't understand where you're going, why you're doing your work and how that specific data supports your decision-making, compliance does feel very laborious.”

Efficiency is another key focus for Hayley, “Once you understand the data and what the data is trying to tell you, it can be a really powerful tool to show you whether your business is efficient and where the most inefficient parts of your business are.” 

Hayley's philosophy on decision-making is grounded in a simple yet powerful approach, "When people make a decision, they should ask themselves three questions: 

1. How will this impact my bottom line?
2. How will this impact the environment?
3. How will this impact my animals?"

In terms of carbon, she emphasises the importance of understanding the full spectrum of emissions in a business, which goes beyond the on-farm activities to include the entire value chain of what comes on and off your farm. This offers a more comprehensive view of a business's environmental impact. "We like to know what the lion looks like in the grass behind us," explains Hayley. 

Join us in this enlightening exploration of sustainability, data and a vision of the future of agriculture. Hayley Purbrick's insights are invaluable for anyone looking to understand the complexities and opportunities in both sustainable wine production and agricult

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com.

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Transcript

Mark: 0:05

Welcome to the Head Shepherd podcast. I'm your host, mark Ferguson, ceo at Next Gen Agri International, where we help livestock managers to get the best out of their stock. I want to take this opportunity to thank our friends at MSD Animal Health in Orflex for sponsoring Head Shepherd again this season, and I'm also excited to introduce our mates at Heinegger as brand new sponsors of the show. Msd in Orflex, or perhaps better known as Cooper's Animal Health in Australia, offer one of New Zealand, australia's, largest livestock product portfolios, with a comprehensive suite of animal health and management products connected through identification, traceability and monitoring solutions. Like us, they see how the wealth and breadth of information born out of this podcast can help their men and their farming clients achieve their mission of the science of healthier animals. Heinegger will need a little introduction to our audience. A market leader and one-stop shop for wool harvesting and animal fibre removal, together with an expanding range of agricultural products and inputs, the Heinegger name is synonymous with quality, reliability and precision. The Heinegger team have a deep understanding of livestock agriculture, backed by Swiss engineering and a family business dedicated to manufacturing the best. It's fantastic to have both of these sponsors supporting us and bringing Head Shepherd to you each week and now it's time to get on with this week's episode. Welcome back to Head Shepherd.

Mark: 1:16

This week we welcome Hailey Perberick onto the show. Hailey is the fifth generation at Dubuque winery and one of the oldest wineries in Victoria, established in 1860. So we cover a bit of that territory. She ended up working in that winery for 10 years changing its environmental policy and ending up with it being carbon zero. She's passionate about land and the environment in general, so we talk a lot about that. We also talk about a range of things like governance and her journey through going away to work and then ending up working back in the family business and then moving to a governance role in that business and starting her own work, which is focused around helping farmers tell their story and helping them put measurements around their environmental story so that they can make the most of opportunities that are going to come out of the whole movement towards a carbon neutrality. We have a good chat around that and an open and honest chat around that. Some people obviously see that as a really big thorn in the side of agriculture and other people are embracing it and we talk about those things. Hailey's got a great depth of experience. She's been a recipient of the Melbourne Food and Wine Legends Award in 2022. She's done a range of things, so it's a really interesting chat. She's very passionate about rebuilding small towns through entrepreneurship and a really interesting person to chat with, maybe a little bit different than our normal ones.

Mark: 2:50

Before we get underway with that, I just wanted to make people aware of one thing that's going on. I guess one of the pains of most of our existence is weather forecasting. We've seen in recent weeks, in what's meant to be an end of year, a lot of rainfall around the place, which has caused havoc for those trying to harvest and a elation for those that are trying to grow grass, and I guess that does remind us that if we had good weather predictions, we wouldn't be in this situation or the rain will still turn up. It would have been better predicted when it turned up. Interestingly, google DateMine, which is a research department of Google, are using machine learning and have turned that, I guess, that focus towards weather prediction. We've been playing with that model that is predicting that weather On our on the hub. We post those videos most days. We'll put up whatever it's predicting.

Mark: 3:48

It's going to be interesting to watch, but I think, as we've talked about various times, it'd be awesome to have better weather prediction models. I think I'm pretty excited by the power of machine learning and the power of Google coming together to predict the weather. That's something that might interest you. The European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast is actually using that model, which is where I've been accessing it, but get in touch if you want to know more about that or jump onto the hub. Anyway, we better get on with the show. This week we've got Harley-Perberic Welcome along.

Hayley : 4:18

Hello.

Mark: 4:18

Great to have you on. We first met in Crush Church not that long ago when we were having a chat about a mutual quiet. I thought it'd be good to get you on here and have a chat about what you do these days. But also I think it'd be nice to start, I guess, with your history being fifth generation winemaker or one winemaking family. The Tobilt Winery is a bit of an institution in Victoria, one of the oldest wineries there, so it'd be cool to talk about how you took it from somewhere that was very strong in history to somewhere very forward, focused on looking into internet zero and how that transition has gone.

Hayley : 4:59

Absolutely Well. I guess what I would say is I have a passion for nature in the environment. Before I got to Tobilt I was pretty connected to land and country. I went off to university before I went home and studied agriculture at Melbourne Uni and I think while I was there I was surprised by how little we learned about the environment. We learned a lot about animals. We learned a lot about animal physiology and biology. We learned a lot about broad acre cropping and, I guess, farming systems, but we really didn't touch on how that ecosystem interacted with the natural environment.

Hayley : 5:46

And so I mean that was over 10 years ago and I really wanted to look into natural resource management, but there was really not a lot around. If you wanted to do that you had to go into probably a government type role where they might be working with water irrigation. There really wasn't a lot of environmental sustainability, natural resource management positions and opportunities out there. So that is what led me back to the family business. I did a pretty short stint with a company called Ernst Young in their research and development corporate tax area for a couple of years, which I did try while I was there. They were on the forefront of emissions, carbon accounting and they were setting up an office in Brisbane and I attempted to go there but in the end I didn't pursue it because I wasn't convinced they would pay me enough for my journey.

Hayley : 6:47

So it took me back to the family business and that's where it really all started for me in terms of what I could do there. I actually didn't go back into an environmental role. I went into a tourism role because, like with most businesses, tobilk really also didn't have a focus on climate environment outside of vineyard management. The vineyard management side really wasn't where I was interested. So it was a bit of an evolving process. It took me about one year from the time I got back to the business to grow my own role, which really focused on climate and environmental sustainability as separate to the day-to-day management of the vineyards and the vineyard health. So that's where it all started and kind of grew from there.

Mark: 7:37

Yeah, excellent. So I guess, yeah, one of the I mean link to your passion around land care and sustainability is is you're in a relatively small town in you know, near Dennellicot in New South Wales and from what I've read you know pretty passionate about the sort of declining regional town in Australia, I guess and ways to bring business back into into those regional areas and the positives that can bring for for all involved.

Hayley : 8:06

Yeah, I think what I learned from To Built. So I worked at To Built doing our. We had a net zero strategy so to become emissions neutral, naturally through our own. Revej took about 10 years for us to achieve that goal. And I think one of the things that I learned while I was working at To Built which is in a very small community, 2000 people, where this would not be uncommon for a lot of sort of mid-sized agricultural businesses is we employed.

Hayley : 8:36

Pretty much 80% of the community had a tie back to our business and I I really noticed that if the people weren't skilled up and in the right mindset for what I was trying to achieve, which was really environmental change, so trying to change our business practice to see the environment as being an important driver for decision making, as equal to profitability, if I didn't have the people on board, then there was nothing.

Hayley : 9:06

And as I started to look around I really noticed that the local community was really struggling to engage, I think mainly young people, but the whole community and the value of education, and I guess that really impacted what we could personally achieve within our own business and what I could do. So that really put me on that path of how do I actually advocate for rural and regional Australia to make sure that we're actually growing people where they're planted, rather than sending them away to be educated and then trying to attract them back to a community that they might have outgrown in terms of their own mindset. So it's interesting. I still find it a very interesting area. I live in a small community, still a little bit bigger than the Gambi up in Deniliquan in southern New South Wales, but even though it's that little bit bigger, it still struggles with the same issues.

Mark: 10:04

Yeah, I think, yeah, obviously, well, I don't know, obviously, but I left a community of a small community as well, and I don't I can't think of anyone in my particular class that stayed in within. I was a couple maybe, but yeah, very few actually stayed around to take over family farms. All I can say, yeah, there is that decline and, as we see, I guess land use change and all the necessary efficiencies of scale and ag, it means there's less families doing bigger areas and, yeah, certainly puts a lot of pressure on resources across and so, yeah, and yet we've got our cities full of people and using up mostly pretty handy soil because they're on, they were built wherever it was close to water and yeah, it always seems like a bit of a tragedy to see great farming land going to houses when there's plenty of other opportunities. But anyway, we won't get onto that too much.

Mark: 10:58

But I think I read somewhere that you told your grandfather when you were five that women can be winemakers too, or something to that effect, and I guess you've obviously been in and out of the business and now back in a directorship role. How's that pathway been, I guess, in terms of has it been hard to be, go from being boots on the ground to heading back into just a more of a governance role. Has that been challenging or has that sort of been by your design?

Hayley : 11:26

It has been, or it's been by my design, but it's also been challenging. So at the moment our family business is going through a huge transition and I would say this is probably happens to people every day. But so my father, who was managing the business he was leading it for 45 years grew it from a 200 person business to what we now call the to-built group. So we're one of the largest wine groups in Australia now. So it has changed significantly in between fourth generation to my generation, which is the fifth, and it's been a really interesting process. Observing a transition.

Hayley : 12:10

As a fifth generation family member who the dynamics or, I guess, the opportunities to step into a leadership role and run the business, looks very different to what it did in my father's generation and even generations before that.

Hayley : 12:27

So it has been by design, in the sense that I recognise that during this transition for me to have the greatest influence, being a director is a much more attractive position to be in. I actually started my directorship position while I was still working in the business, so in the day-to-day, which was really good. But you could imagine that it would have its inherent frustrations when you kind of jammed in either side so you might be sitting under a new CEO, but you're also a director on the board, so you've got this inherent friction point. So it certainly has been much better for me to not have as much insight into the day-to-day, to be able to let go and actually evolve our strategic direction and help other members in my generation actually skill up and become interested in the business. So it has been really challenging but it's also been, I think, very rewarding. It has its moments, just a constant evolution of being aware of what's happening with other members of the family and trying to help us all actually move from a fourth generation business into a fifth generation business.

Mark: 13:44

Yeah, I think people often maybe underestimate the difference between sort of being in management versus being in governance, and that they're not kind of an extension of the same thing. They're quite different things. And yeah, it would have been very tough if you were sitting under a CEO and the above CEO as a director. That would be a very interesting place to be. But I think, yeah, I guess in ag businesses obviously small ones that don't often have a governance structure but I think one of the things we see is the need in sort of medium sized businesses to get some sort of governance in place so there is some accountability beyond who left the gate open or who didn't graze the header or whatever there's to the higher level. What are we doing about growth? What are we doing about sustainability? What are we doing about these bigger ticket items? That really need to be quite a different discussion. But yeah, what about interesting, interesting transition?

Hayley : 14:40

Very interesting. Yeah, I wear also. I guess my husband's a farmer, so we've also we own, did own three properties until recently. We've just sold two and that was through a family succession plan and I think what's interesting. So that's probably more a small family business context and so we always talk about in this from a small family business, around being really clear around what hats you're putting on when you're having a conversation. So we should call them.

Hayley : 15:10

You've probably heard of this concept. It's like the blue hat, the red hat, the green hat, and one one's your manager hat, one's your strategic hat, you know, one's your family hat. And just being really clear before you engage in a conversation which hat you're wearing and make that statement before you have a conversation. I mean, I even find that even though we're a mid-sized business, it's really, it has been really important for me, even just in a single role as a director, to say I'm talking now as a director, I'm not talking as a family member, just to get everybody to shift into a different mindset in the conversation. It's very helpful.

Mark: 15:49

Yeah, yeah, indeed, if we shift gears a bit and move to what you do these days, so you run your own consultancy and I'll let you always describe exactly what you do rather than me make a mess of it. But that's how we met and, yeah, obviously that passion for that combined knowledge and passion is now. You're now directing that towards helping others as well.

Hayley : 16:16

Yeah, so I would. The way I describe myself is that I advocate for sustainable business practice and investment in social license. So the reason I keep it really broad is because what I notice out there in the world is there's a lot of confusion and a lot of noise around. What does it actually mean to be a sustainable business? How can we marry sustainability with profit? Where do we actually fit in the context of what's happening?

Hayley : 16:51

And I think it's really challenging for businesses at the moment because a lot of the narrative around sustainability, climate emissions, whichever way you want to take it from ethical practice is being taken over by the sort of branding and marketing of the world, so the big brand owners and the big market marketing conglomerates who don't usually own their supply chain but have a very big influence on the amount of compliance and or that direction that their supply chain must go in.

Hayley : 17:25

So I think that's makes it really difficult for business. So I guess I would just say my consultancy. What I do is I help people understand where they are within that context and then help them if they need to they don't always need to adapt their practice so that they can feel more confident that they are actually heading down this path or the path that they actually want to go down. So a lot of the time I don't think people really know which lane they're going down and they come to a crossroads and they're not sure whether they should hop off their current lane and go down a different one or whether they should keep going. So I just help them identify what crossroads they're actually at and which road they could potentially go down.

Mark: 18:12

Yeah, it'd be a fascinating role and I'm sure you get into the pretty interesting conversation does and that's in any sort of consulting type role like ours included. It is an absolute privilege to be working closely with a range of different families and operations to at that kind of strategic level, not just day to day. So yeah, it'd be very interesting. I guess, while we can kind of think of the big evil companies which are driving their mandates but I guess without that happening, none of this would be going anywhere Like essentially little soul voices in different parts of Australia have had like that's been around for a long time but it really wasn't until recently when well, relatively recently, until they started to get home and the big corporate start talking about it and start talking and moving with their checkbooks or funds transfer and that sort of has, I guess, brought this into a little bit more closer to each of us and therefore clearer for each of us that we need to act. Is that a fair statement or am I on dreamland?

Hayley : 19:18

Yeah, I think it's a fair statement.

Hayley : 19:22

I think also, though, just from my experience, a lot of businesses, particularly small family businesses, are already doing great work when it comes to environmental sustainability and, I guess, ethical practice, which are the two sort of areas that I think are mainly being driven, is that your product can no longer do the talking. You need to be able to find some qualitative and quantitative data to prove that you're also caring for the environment and you're also caring for your animals and your people. I think that's the big shift is a lot of data is required to be able to tell your story and validate your story, and that's something really new. I think that's could be quite daunting, particularly for a small business or even a medium-sized business, who might have the data, but it's not organised in a way where they can gather it quickly and bring it together to be able to provide that evidence back to someone in their supply chain. So I think it's really good, but I also think it's got some real challenges behind it, and technology could be a real enabler if we can get that right.

Mark: 20:41

A quick interruption here to remind you of Hedge Shepherd Premium and our consulting services at Next in Agri International. If you love this podcast and want to hear more of them, visit the hubnextinagricom and sign up for Hedge Shepherd Premium and get an extra podcast each week. If you are listening to this and thinking you really do want to maximise the journey going to your livestock and feel more confident around the decisions you're making on farm, then send me an email at mark at nextinagricom and we'll get in touch and see, see where that takes us. Yeah, and one of the things I guess in this whole and your whole sphere would be that's kind of becomes their problem. Almost no one knows who they are, but but it's always somebody else. Like it's not we're doing a great job, but but they aren't or they aren't rewarding or whatever, and we sort of get into that sort of game and I guess, how do you?

Mark: 21:28

What do you see the future playing out like? In terms of like? Any sort of assurance game is only well, I think, is only strong, as a weakest link. So it only takes one, one enterprise somewhere that you're aligned with by, by supplying the same company or whatever, if they have an animal welfare disaster or an environmental disaster or whatever, then then in my mind, maybe simplistically, the whole ship goes down with with that disaster is how do you say, playing out as an individual farms, how they can act to? All groups of farms can act to, I guess differentiate themselves a bit so they're not maybe have the same risk.

Hayley : 22:07

Yeah, I guess I so. For me, working in agriculture, I think one thing that we don't do particularly well is tell stories, and I've certainly learned from working with different graziers and growers that they have a great story to tell, but they're just not telling it. They're not sure how to organize their story to create impact, and I think that's actually really important having a good standard to apply to make sure that everybody who's telling a story is applying a certain standard that can support that story. I think that's really important as well, and there's plenty of different standards out there that people can apply depending on their story and the strength of their story.

Hayley : 22:55

So I feel like things can always go wrong, but the challenge the agricultural industry has globally is that because we don't share a positive story before things go wrong, when it goes wrong, it just adds to the negativity that I think a lot, of, a lot of noise gets pointed at agriculture in a negative way, where, if we could elevate the starting position to be one of positivity, when you have a mistake happen, which inevitably things go wrong. Not every producer is a great producer or you know, things just happen that are out of your control or gets missed, like that's part of being in business. There's risk involved, but I think it really hurts the ag industry because we don't market ourselves as strongly as I think we probably could yeah, that's interesting, I guess, if you sort of contrast to Bill versus a family farm.

Mark: 23:50

Both are probably fourth-fifth generation, both have heritage and and founders have done amazing things and like all very similar. But one's got some nice great, some vineyards and some buildings and stuff that are sort of obviously demonstratable and therefore have a like a story, even if you don't choose to tell. That's there to be told or let us see, or isn't a farming context. The same stories often exist in a different scale, a different level, but they're still there and still still add inherent value to that business if told well yeah, I think that was one thing.

Hayley : 24:21

So when there was a going to possibly a re-inemissions trading scheme in Australia or back in 2010, I think it may have been so it was a while ago now and it's eventually canned and didn't go ahead, and I think the one thing that I noticed back then, as someone who was interested in the environment, is that carbon calculating or accounting for me was all I could think was oh, this is just another way for me to see if I'm moving in the right direction.

Hayley : 24:55

So we're already doing water monitoring, we're already doing biodiversity monitoring, we were already doing soil testing, and all of those data points tell you a story about the health and well-being of your ecosystem, and the one thing that we were missing was well, how do we know whether our we're being efficient and whether we're being wasteful?

Hayley : 25:19

And that's something that I think emissions data does really well, and if we could all sort of harness that data to support the story, I think we'd find that a lot of growers are doing great work, but you do need that data to be able to tell a consumer, or even tell yourself, that what I'm doing is actually working, if you can see it and feel it and also put a number on it, then it's got great impact and it can really create a lot of change, which I know could be very challenging for a small business. But I think this is where industry can be really powerful if you're in a good industry, and also when you work together with a group of other growers who are all like-minded and want to achieve a similar outcome.

Mark: 26:01

Yeah, and in your role I'm sure you've encountered it all. Obviously, we're around the place. We hear everything from the climate change. Denying to that. It's yeah, because there's a fair bit of angst in this area and people who kind of just see it as another layer of red tape and paperwork. That's sort of yeah, it's just making life harder and should be all left alone. But the reality is that, yeah, I guess that's an interesting discussion that you must end up having. Well, I guess maybe the people who come to you aren't in that mindset. They'll be different, but there'll be people listening to this going. Why are we talking about carbon still? Why aren't we? We've got glam prices to go over.

Hayley : 26:46

Yeah, well, I guess what I notice is there's two ways. You can look through the lens of sustainability and either look through a compliance lens or you can look through it through a planning lens, and I think for a lot of people it's just changing the way that they see. So you can choose to look through a compliance lens and if you do, it will feel like a massive burden. But the thing about data is that it's powerful in terms of your decision making and planning. So if people choose to look through a different lens which is a lot of the work that I do people might start approach me through a compliance lens. But we always end up starting from a decision making planning lens, because at the end of the day, if you don't understand where you're going, why you're doing your work and how that data supports your decision making, compliance does feel very laborious. I guess what I've learned working in the emissions space is that once you understand the data and what the data is trying to tell you, it can be a really powerful tool to show you whether your business is efficient and where the most inefficient parts of your business are. And one other thing I would just say which I think is really, really challenging for growers when it comes to this emissions conversation is the, I guess, the complexity of the rules at the moment, where you can do an organisational carbon footprint or you can do they call it a life cycle carbon assessment, which is a product carbon accounting footprint. So with the organisational level footprint because it's a volunteer program you have choice.

Hayley : 28:34

So a lot of industry groups are choosing to ask their growers or promoting that they just do scope one and two, which would be essentially from, I guess, what's on farm to the farm gate, whereas at Tobilk we have always been interested in doing scope three as well, because we like to know what the lion looks like in the grass behind us. We don't want to be caught off guard. And when we've done that, it's actually changed our impression of where our biggest emissions footprint is. And I think I know you talked to a lot of graziers and I think this is just a really interesting one for people to consider that depending how broad or how narrow your data set is, things are going to look bigger or smaller. So if you're only looking on farm, methane as an example is going to look gigantic because you've got a narrow lens and that is a big emission source through a narrow lens.

Hayley : 29:37

But if growers were to expand their lens out into scope three, so to look at their upstream and downstream emissions contribution, they might find that methane is not such a significant contributor or at minimum looks smaller and it shifts your focus somewhere else. Anyway, it's just an interesting side of it. I think compliance is only scary when you don't understand what the data is trying to tell you, which I think is absolutely fair. And it took me 10 years to achieve what I achieved at Tobilk and that was like a lot of intensive learning. So it's not going to happen overnight for people, but it's a willingness to actually want to know more, I think, which will help people's businesses in the end.

Mark: 30:23

Cool. So to help them along that chain, if we just quickly explain scope one, scope two and scope three. So I mean that language gets used a lot, but I guess I don't know particularly well and it'd be nice just so that people are clear about those difference, because they're going to hear that from people like that's the language that gets used.

Hayley : 30:43

Yeah, so scope one, so that's direct emissions, so it's essentially any activity, any emissions generated from activity which is within your control. So anything that happens directly in your farming operation say, for example, if you're laying out fertilizer on the ground, if you are using chemicals and sprays, that's all part of your scope one. Emissions, diesel fuel, unleaded fuel use, is all in your scope one. Scope two is purely electricity, energy consumption, so any heat, energy sources. So usually for a farm would be your electricity that you might be using for your pump or your farmhouse or your shed, if you're shearing, that's all in scope two. So it's indirect energy use.

Hayley : 31:40

And then scope three they call it upstream and downstream emissions, so essentially it's what happens not on your property, either coming to your property or leaving your property. So if you move your sheep to a processor, that transport emission use would be in that scope three for a downstream emission. Or, for example, when you're bringing something onto the farm like a chemical or a spray, that freight component would be captured in your downstream scope three. So that's what the one, two, three looks like, and often you hear a lot of people talking about scope three and a challenge about whether to include it or not. To me data is data. I think it's much it's different in New Zealand because I know that you have a taxation system that's being built around emissions, so that is going to be really difficult. But from an Australian context, if you're just looking at purely on wanting to understand what is my complete footprint across my entire supply chain, end to end, then doing your direct emissions, your electricity and your indirect emissions through scope three can be really useful information.

Mark: 33:00

Yeah, I guess it's relevance to your average farmer is that if, even if you're not thinking about your scope three, other people are thinking about their scope three and you are part of it, and so that's why you become focused, or a focus, because a whole process that has to within their scope three is what you're up to.

Hayley : 33:22

And so that's where it becomes relevant for us. Yeah, everyone's. Scope three is someone else's scope one In Australia. Just because you know what your data footprint looks like does not mean that you have to do anything with it. It's just information to inform your decisions. You would know the New Zealand market a lot better than I do. I'm not sure how that taxation system works, whether it's go one, two or three, or how they're doing it, you'd be surprised to have a little I know about the New Zealand tax system.

Mark: 33:54

Yeah, I'm just doing here, but I'll leave it to the boss and to the accountant to worry about that stuff.

Hayley : 34:01

Yeah, I'm sure someone listening will know.

Mark: 34:06

Yeah, I'm sure they will Exactly 100%. That's just not my strength. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Thank you For someone out there listening. How do they get in touch with you to make contact and see if you can help them? I don't know if you are looking for more work, but even if you're not, that doesn't mean it.

Hayley : 34:27

Yeah, they couldn't always. I mean, if they look up Hailey Perbrick, I am on LinkedIn. That's where you find me easily accessible. Just shout out, send me a message and I am very responsive. That's the easiest way to get in touch with me. I am always more than open to just talk to people about it. I think for a lot of people it's just getting some clarity about what is their next step and being able to have somebody to ask questions to. I am always happy to answer questions Excellent.

Mark: 35:07

If we go, we will go high level. To finish it off, if we are sitting here in 2033, what is our landscape look like in terms of your area of expertise and how things changed? Oh, gosh.

Hayley : 35:24

That's such a good question because I feel less hopeful most of the time that anything is going to shift. I think I've accepted that the change that we need is it really requires people to draw down on their existing business practice quite deeply and really change their behaviour in the way that they are thinking. If I could wish for anything, it would be a really simple hope. That is just when people make a decision that they just ask themselves three questions, and that is how will this impact my bottom line, how will this impact the environment? How will this impact my people and all my animals? If we could just start to slightly shift the way that we think, to ask ourselves a few more questions as we are making decisions, I think that's really going to help.

Hayley : 36:24

That's about as hopeful as I am that we can change. I'd love to say I think things are going to change quite rapidly, but I really think this is many decades of practice that we need to turn around. I'm hopeful that people can do it at some point. I'm just not sure if it's going to be in my generation.

Mark: 36:47

Yeah Well, that was a good answer and there are definitely three good questions to ask, because it is easy to almost purposely turn a blind eye to one of those three, or even two of those three if you get really carried away with economics. Important, I think. As you say, bringing awareness is obviously the first step and just being aware that you can still make the same decision and do the same thing, if you're aware that that does have an impact at least I think my ones start to change your behaviour once you're aware of something and I'm ever in awe of the power of the human brain to make change even though we don't know what's happening- yeah, I definitely live by that.

Hayley : 37:32

innovation is not just reserved for profitability. Innovation can be very attainable when it comes to sustainability, and I think that agriculturalists are definitely a big part of our solution here, because I think they're adaptive, they're clever, they understand the environment. So, yeah, I think if everyone who owns land can do this together, then we're going to be in a good spot.

Mark: 38:01

Yeah and we will finish up. But yeah, like you've never met a farmer anywhere that doesn't want to leave the place in a better way than they found it. So it's more helping helping retrieve that and helping have some measures around that. So it is quite a clear outcome and that's something everyone wants. That doesn't matter where you come across them. That would be something in pretty held close to their heart. So there is hope, however faint that may feel sometimes, and you're wrong.

Hayley : 38:30

Well, not the people that I'm working with are definitely. I think everyone's so keen to do the right thing and I think that's a great starting point, and I think really, it's just being open to what might need to change, and change is really difficult. That's why I like to call it transition.

Mark: 38:51

It's just thinking about it more like a transition.

Hayley : 38:55

Where am I now, where do I want to go and how do I transition through that process? It doesn't have to happen tomorrow, it can be over a period of time, but I think what's important is that people recognise they need to transition and then it's just working with people to help them get through that process from where they are now to where they want to go. And I think everyone's unique and they have the right to want to go wherever they want to go. And if it could just include a rich and abundant landscape, then that would be lovely.

Mark: 39:29

Excellent, that sounds like a fantastic place to pull up, but I very much appreciate your time. You're doing great work. Obviously, 10 years changing to build but now working with other businesses to do the same. And, yeah, I appreciate your time and look forward to catching up soon.

Hayley : 39:45

Thank you.

Mark: 39:46

Thanks again to our mates in Honega, who are proud world leaders in the manufacturing and supply professional sheep shearing and clipping equipment. They understand that their customers rely on the quality and performance of their products each and every day. Also, thanks to our friends at MSD Animal Health in Orflix, the AlfaN extensive livestock portfolio focused on animal health and management, all backed up by exceptional service. Both of these companies are wonderful supporters of the Australian and New Zealand livestock industries and we thank them for sponsoring the HIPAA podcast.