Head Shepherd
Mark Ferguson from neXtgen Agri brings you the latest in livestock, genetics, innovation and technology. We focus on sheep and beef farming in Australia and New Zealand and the people doing great things in those industries.
Head Shepherd
From Passion to Progress in Sheep Farming with Andrew Glover
Andrew Glover, known to most as Gloves, has spent his career navigating the ins and outs of the sheep industry, managing operations that run 600,000 sheep a year. He started his career straight out of school, wool classing, and is now station manager at one of Australia’s largest and most innovative sheep studs, Pooginook. Andrew’s passion for the job has only grown, as has his understanding of what makes farming work. He knows that success comes down to investing in the right places—genetics, infrastructure and people.
Andrew has some great advice for those wanting to begin a career in ag. He says that leadership isn’t about titles; it’s about action. He values hands-on experience, seeing it as the foundation of a solid farming operation.
Andrew has a true passion for sheep farming and his story is proof that a clear vision and a relentless focus on improvement can keep you, and the industry, moving forward.
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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Welcome back to Head Shepherd. We're doing another one live, which is great. We like doing the odd one out and about, so we're out here in the river today catching up with Andrew Glover, otherwise known as Gloves Gloves. Thanks for having us today. When did you? Yeah, we'll start with a few questions, and always we start with a bit of a background when did you know you sort of wanted to clear an ag, and has there ever been anything else you think you might have wanted to do or think?
Speaker 2:you might have wanted to do. Yeah, it's a good question and something that we probably spend a bit of time pondering about over the years. But yeah, I was always an outside kid growing up. Mum and Dad were both school teachers and Dad was bitten by an agricultural bug. He's a Sydney boy, but he was bitten by an agricultural bug and he bought a little property 300 acres. So I grew up there and, yeah, agriculture was on and especially sheep was always something I was interested in. But I did toy with the idea of being a bricklayer or a butcher or something like that, along with every other kid's dream of being, you know, an athlete of some description. But yeah, no, sheep are sort of where I've been in agriculture. I think it's a space that's got so many doors that you can open. It's just a matter of finding the one that fits what you want to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 100%, and you could have played footy, because you actually won't do that, have you?
Speaker 2:No, no it's all lies. It's all lies, mate. I've broken down old has-been. Yeah righto.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess. Yeah, talk us through your career today. So lots of stepping stones. You did the contracting from day one to where we are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's been a path full of twists and turns, but pretty much early days at high school I had found a passion for agriculture the subject agriculture but I had a really good careers advisor who was a mad, keen sheep breeder and I used to skip a few classes that I didn't like eg English and spend a bit of time in his office talking sheep. So that got me interested and I was, you know, always keen to get out and do some other external study and whatnot. So I actually completed my wool classing certificate while I was at school in year 11 and 12, two nights a week and from there went straight from finishing school in Cootamundra to UNE to study a Bachelor of Livestock Science, sheep and wool production, and that was a four-year course that I completed both internally and externally, like full-time and part-time, and during that stage, during that time, I worked part-time or I worked full-time, sorry on a cropping place and I did a bit of interstate truck driving as well. Towards the back end of the study In 2009, I'd sort of completed, got the certificate in the mail and realised that I had $50,000 hex debt and I had to work out how I was going to leverage that investment to make a life for myself.
Speaker 2:So I jumped into the contracting space with a crutching trailer and the plan was always to build a relationship with the client, to then step out into a consultancy role, try and get some runs on the board, I suppose, and then go into the consultancy role.
Speaker 2:But that sort of never really fully eventuated because the contracting just got bigger and bigger to the point where in the last couple of years, towards the back end of that 10-year period of our lives, we were sort of handling 600,000 sheep a year across 115 clients.
Speaker 2:So that was really big. So from there we'd, you know, be honest probably burn ourselves out or burnt myself out a little bit. So I was looking to change the pace and jumped out of the contracting space into into some into a farm manager's role and was lucky enough to go and be operations manager up at a well-known study in the central west where you do a lot of work for, where we met each other up at mumble bone, and from there I had a really good five years there. But then it was just time to chase that next or scratch that next ditch, I suppose, and we're lucky enough to fall into this role here where we are now at Pudgenook and, yeah, still really excited about where the sheep industry can go. Despite the challenges we're all facing with diminishing returns and increasing cost structures, still think there's a positive, bright future for the right type of sheep in Australia. That's for certain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Won't disagree with that at all no-transcript.
Speaker 2:The unsuccessful places, I would say would be fair, and I was.
Speaker 2:I was really lucky I probably didn't realise it until towards the back end of that 10 years of contracting that I was lucky enough to be invited into people's workplaces and businesses and could cast like a third degree eye, like an external eye, over what was going on.
Speaker 2:And I started asking lots of questions towards the back end of that to try and build my knowledge set and gain some trust, I suppose, in case I did want to step out into that consultancy space. And the three things that stood out for me, for guys that really were the top end producers of those 115 clients we had on our books, was probably investment in infrastructure, investment in genetics and investment in their people. You know, with the infrastructure becomes the ability to, you know, run at that, run it right, right at that pointy end, and obviously to get to the pointy end you've got to have good genetics. And then people you we're all stuffed without people. So you know that was probably the three things that really stood out. And, yeah, any of those guys that I used to work for, listening, I'd extend a great thanks and gratitude for allowing us to be part of your businesses for so long. It was a good part of our lives and something that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they're three keys to any business. And well, obviously you can't control the genetics if you're in a people business, but having that people right is critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just another thing I'll probably put in there. Third, two was the one thing that just stood out for me was the guys who knew their businesses or who were successful and knew their businesses inside out. They did one or two things and did them really really well. They weren't what I call a whirlwind farmer, they didn't chase the next fad, so to speak, and the best way to explain it is probably when you get a phone call to say we've got X amount of sheep to do whatever to, and you turn up and there's 500 less or 500 more. That was generally an indication that the guys didn't have a full handle on their business. So that was probably one thing I missed off that previous question, that those successful guys knew their business and they knew it inside out, but they kept it simple, you know, weren't juggling too many balls, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, your numbers is something we we refer to a bit and yeah, obviously, and you do, yeah, lots of. I guess you're in contracts. Any contractor has that experience that way. You've come out and catch a few hundred or whatever, and then there's a thousand yards or whatever, and yeah, yeah, yeah it was nearly a weekly occurrence back in the day I mean, it's pretty clear from from that job being contracted for that many sheep.
Speaker 1:It takes a massive engine and I think if we asked I haven't done this. But if we did ask lots of people how to describe you, I think work ethic and drive would come up near the top of the list. Where does that sort of that real drive and work ethic come from to keep the fires burning?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question and I think, to be brutally honest, the drive to be successful has been instilled in me from a young age. Dad was a Sydney born and bred boy that ended up in the bush, followed mum, got married. Anyway, long story short short. He was gifted, or he bought six corridor ewes and an old ram and ran them on the back of the ju young schoolyard, ended up selling those for 60, the lambs for 60 or something. He thought, how good's farming? I'm going to get into farming. So went and bought 300 tough acres at coolac in the hills and build a nice house.
Speaker 2:But his work ethic was something that sort of had rubbed off on me but all of my brothers and sisters, one of four. And to see Dad literally work his hands to the bone every weekend, every spare hour he had to make that little block of dirt financially viable for us was something that I you know I'll probably never. You sort of don't realise it as a kid that you're getting exposed to that, but it sort of it rubs off for sure. And the best way to sum up the work ethic and where it comes from. Not too many people have been up to mum and dad's house where they live up on top of quite a big hill, and dad and us kids, as we got older, were a bit more help, but hand cemented a one and a half kilometre driveway by hand because that was the cheapest way to do it.
Speaker 2:He didn't value his time, rightly or wrongly. But you know, so long days and hard work was something we were used to as kids and it sort of just rubbed off as a lot later in life. But I have worked out that you know the old analogy you only get what you get by. The sweat of your brow is true to a degree, but we've got to. Everyone's got to work a little bit smarter and I'm sort of potentially learning that at nearly 40. So, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure I could I go back my work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure I could like I would back my work ethic, but I'm not sure I could stay down the barrel.
Speaker 2:A k and a half of concreting, yeah, yeah, yeah no, it was, uh, it was 13, or yeah, it was round figures 13. Summer holidays yeah yeah, dad used to buy a pallet of concrete. Um, when the concrete was done, we'd go on holidays. It was all hand mixed shovel, the sand shovel, the gravel shovel. Yeah, yeah, the yeah cart the water, you name it.
Speaker 1:That is a good way to teach work. Graves, you're now managing a significant station, pudgenook. It's a big deal. What advice would you give to young passionate people out there that that would be aspiring to sort of take this role on in the future?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's potentially a dream job for a lot of guys out there that are aspiring to manage a station, especially one with the aura that Pudginook has in the Riverina. You know, long-term Merino studs still producing top-end rams, still supplying a lot of rams to the industry. So there's that ability or that potential to influence the industry from a seed stock point of view and that's obviously a big attraction for me to have taken on this role. But I think the advice that I'd give would be that you just got to take your time to do the apprenticeship. It's a slow road. Gain the experience and be patient.
Speaker 2:You've got to be really willing to do those jobs or to start at the bottom to do those jobs that don't really fit what you think you're up to. You might have a $40,000 or $50,000 hex debt, but you've still got to be willing to drag out that shitty sheep and crutch it, fix that fence, do all those things that we've all had to do. We've all started at the bottom. Just be willing to stay curious, be willing to ask the questions, be willing to throw yourself out in front of the people that make the decision about who's going to be the overseer, who's going to be the assistant manager who's going to potentially be the manager? Be positive and confident, work hard, but one key piece of advice would be throw the clock away. Clock watches in agriculture don't fit, so don't count hours. It's a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job and that's the stuff that doesn't go unnoticed. So work hard, stay committed and your time will come. Just yeah and stay curious would probably be the main thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great thoughts. And yeah, I think I 100% agree on that clock-watching aspect. It's sort of I don't know. We came up through an era where there just wasn't an option to be watching what the clock is, and I think we need to. Yeah, I mean, obviously every employee has rights, but there's still if you want to climb, you have to work, and that's the same as in McKinsey and PwC, like it's. All the big firms are the same and agriculture is no different. If you want to achieve something, you actually have to bend your back and make it happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got to be a bit of a self-starter back and make it happen. Yeah, you've got to be a bit of a self-starter, you've got to be willing to put the time in, and the harder you work, the more you enjoy the time that you get not to work. And I think it's a key thing that, yes, we've all got entitlements, but sometimes the job at hand overrides that entitlement and you've just got to get the job done for the benefit of the business or the company or whoever you're working for, and it doesn't go unnoticed. People take note. So, yeah, I think when we grew up, we didn't have a clock on every device we owned.
Speaker 2:So unless you had one on your wrist. You were guided by the sun, and when the sun came up, you went to work, and when it went down, you went home, and when it went down, you went home. So you know, that's whether that's the old school approach, I don't know. But yeah, I think that's pretty key that clock watches and agriculture are two very different worlds yeah, no 100.
Speaker 1:I think your leadership point's a really good one and I actually one of my users that's probably been out by the time of well, this is released but I think it doesn't matter where you run a business. You need to find a way to lead. Like, even if you're the, you're the juniorist, junior shepherd or whatever on the on a property, you still need to. If you've got something you see wrong, you still need to find a way to, and that's just through communication, as you already covered.
Speaker 2:Like, leadership can come from all parts of wherever you are in a business, you still you still have an opportunity to show some leadership yeah, I agree, and leadership has so many different meanings and when people think a leader they quite often think a captain yeah, captain of the ship, sort of thing. But that's definitely not the case and it's not the case in a multi. You know employee business like, um, yeah, it's, you've got to, everyone's got to learn. I think it's a, it's a real development piece that's. That's sort of coming into a lot of agriculture, probably because it was missing for a lot of years. It was more of a follow me type. But if we want to keep staff and we want to attract the right staff, we've got to create buy-in. And the best way to create buy-in is give people an opportunity to lead and take on some of those meaningful tasks as their own, change it to make it suit them and do it better than what we can do it.
Speaker 1:I think that's I've always when, whenever I've employed people, I've always tried to find someone that does the job better than I can do it and then let them go and do it. That makes life a little easier if you can find those people. So here at bush it's. It's one of. It's home to one of australia's largest marina stud. The sheep industry is ever changing. It's ever evolving um and to an extent, the marina studs should lead this evolution. What do you see as the features of pushing at Pomerino in 2035? So if we could jump in our time machine and fast forward sort of 11 years or 10 and a bit years as we are today, what are we looking at? If we wandered out into the yards today, can we?
Speaker 2:jump in that time machine and see what the market's going to do in 10 or 11 years time.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't have to be here doing a podcast if we knew that. Answer mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's right. Look, I 100% agree with what you're saying. I think education is key behind a lot of that. The industry needs educators like yourself and it needs studs to help facilitate that education.
Speaker 2:Pudginook, you know I'm lucky to have inherited a great business. Pudgenook's been under the Parraway Bennett for 16 years. It's stood the test of time for all the right reasons. So we're not tipping it upside down and all we're trying to do now is just take off some of those sharp edges round the animal out a bit more, become a little bit more resilient and ultimately more profitable, and whether that's in lamb or wool, or kilos of lamb produced or kilos of wool produced, I think it's probably a combination of both, Not convinced that one or the other is gonna reign supreme in 10 years. So, no, I think it'll be subtle changes and, yeah, we just hopefully no, not hopefully it will be Pudginook will stand the test of time and someone else will be able to stand here behind this wall table in 20 years or 10 years or however long I last at the helm and be able to talk about it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly and I think, yeah, I guess, if we could get in that crystal ball, I think they're relatively predictable. We've already seen, like we were just chatting before, like the RWS premiums are there and so we're seeing the market rewarding the non-meal status of Pudginook. We'll see well, the land markets bounce back pretty well and we're going to see that meat market, like all the trends are pretty good for the meat side, so that dual-purpose animal as it already is, I can imagine that will just keep building out and some of the welfare traits will keep kicking in there as well. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:You're right. I think consumers will shape where we need to go, because if we don't listen, we don't have a market. The RWS side of stuff quite intriguing at the moment. Like you said, we just sold some wool yesterday. That's shown that the premiums are back and back in a big way for some short 68 mil RWS accredited wool. So that's exciting and I think, yeah, the meat market people have got to eat can't see that changing. It's more just a matter of trying to make ourselves resilient and be able to flex when the season, the climate variability we now all face be it like yesterday, like 30 mil downpour, our rain seems to be falling in shorter, sharper bursts and our dry patches are getting longer and more frequent. Without going down that rabbit hole, I think it's about building businesses and animal enterprises that can flex, that can ramp up and go hard when the seasons are good and then tighten back down when the seasons aren't there, knowing you can get back in quickly when it turns. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:Doing this interview and being where we are, we wouldn't be appropriate without mentioning your wife, Peter. Like lots of people in agriculture, it's a team effort. How important to you has been sharing the career journey with Peter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, peter's an amazing woman. She's definitely helped take some of my rough edges off. Pretty big chisel some days yeah, some days a chisel isn't big enough. No, look, she's been a successful entrepreneur in her own right as well. I think that's what made us such a good team, or makes us such a good team is her ability to sit back and look at the big picture.
Speaker 2:So obviously, raised four beautiful boys while I was contracting and allowed me to run that business and probably run a little bit harder than we should have from a family point of view, but kept us all together. And then, yeah, she's been successful, started and ran a very successful laundromat business which she sold when we left Wellington. She's had food trucks and coffee carts and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, no, peter, like you say, it is a team effort. There's no way I don't think I could have done half of what I've achieved without someone like her beside me. So, yeah, no, she's a very important person and I know she'll cook us a good feed tonight, ferg, so we'll be spoiled, as usual.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, I love her dearly and yeah, couldn't have done it without her. Yeah, no, I love her dearly and yeah, couldn't have done it without her. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I understand Clive. It's a question we ask everybody, which is the hardest question we ask often, and that is what is the last thing you change your mind about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question and one I sort of was trying to come up with something funny to reply to, because I did see this question come up. But anyone that knows me knows I change my mind nearly as often as I've changed my socks, um, which is daily. So just just to clarify, yeah, yeah, but I'm it's a very open question and I was just trying to think of, you know, obviously, something funny. But there's one thing that I keep coming back to and that's probably the riverina itself. Um, you know, I grew up at cootamundra in that you know, some of that best wheat growing country in australia around cootamundra, wallenbeen, through that, through that area. There, you know the riverina was sort of had this perception of being borderline desert. You know you're one step off the great sandy desert in south australia. You know like it was, but it's a big.
Speaker 2:It's been a big eye opener moving down here and seeing how strong this country is, how, how well the stock do, the lack of pressure that we spoke about today in the car from worms and diseases and things like that, but the ability for the country to respond. We've had 40 mils of rain in the last two days. We'll see a green pick come now, that'll carry our sheep through joining. Green pick come now, that'll carry our sheep through joining. And when I turned up here in 2023, sorry we took on some adjustment cattle that came down very drought, ridden out of the north out of that big drought that was on its way, and within sort of two or three months they turned around to become quite good looking mob of cattle. So, yeah, I think the thing I've changed my most on is the ability of this country to be able to grow stock and be productive, and it's probably about trying to find a now. It's trying to find the genotype that will allow us to do that and make some good returns in the modern era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really interesting. And maybe a supplementary question is how, yeah, I mean, in this strong country, people sort of see sheep out here and see, like you're here, like you can literally hear the fleece at the table out here, because they grow great, great fleece weights and and are healthy and they have heaps of lambs, because it is really really strong country. But I guess, yeah, we have to be careful about expecting these sort of genetics to then transform into other environments that aren't so easy. And that's the, that's the art, I suppose, of trying to seed stock producers, trying to breed sheep that will not only do well here but also do well as you shift them into into different environments that have different challenges, I suppose. And that's kind of that's, that's the beauty of, I guess, the breeding base to test things here that aren't maybe a challenge here, but we can force them to have a challenge here in worms or whatever, but it's not really heavy worm country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's. I think you're right there. We're lucky enough to have a big client base, that a lot of those guys are east of the Newell Highway, so back into sort of a moderate to high rainfall dual purpose country like cropping and grazing country. So we we need to be able to breed sheep that can go into those areas, um, down into victoria as well. So you know, key things that we're we're focusing on and we'll continue to focus on are obviously feet and worms and dag and things like that, because whilst it may not be top of the tree for our local environment, it's still there are still correlations or fundamentals at play that mean they perform well in our environment. In particular years and last year with our wet summer that turned up. This year, with the potential of another wet summer, those key traits will be paramount. So, yeah, that is the beauty of the art of seed stock breeding, something that I'm only new to, but I'm sure in time we'll get there yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:Awesome mate. Thanks for you, thanks for your time and yeah, great, great to have a chat. We'll, we'll, uh, we'll be plenty of plenty more chats.
Speaker 2:I'll be there after this yeah, and I look forward to it, fergan, looking forward to having you on board and we'll go from there. Cheers, mate.
