Ducks on the Pond

Episodet

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  Ever felt like trading in your life? Amie Penny, did just that. 23.07.2026 49min

  Have you ever wondered what would happen if you walked away from the life you thought you were supposed to live? Amie Penny grew up in the suburbs of Sydney and went on to work at an investment bank in the CBD. She loved the corporate world and always imagined herself in a successful nine-to-five career. Farming was never part of the plan. Then, what was supposed to be a two-week break on her extended family’s farm near Cowra changed everything. Something clicked for Amie. She surprised herse...
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  Community-led innovation: How one rural town found more doctors - Kate Day 09.07.2026 39min

  What happens when a rural community decides to stop waiting for someone else to solve its biggest problem? For the people of Mudgee in central-west New South Wales, it meant creating their own solution to the growing shortage of GPs. The result is Doctors 4 Mudgee, a community-led initiative that set an ambitious goal of attracting 10 new doctors in three years. Just 11 months in, they're already halfway there. In this episode of Ducks on the Pond, Kirsten Diprose speaks with winemaker, busin...
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  Why female farm vets need a better system - Dr Rebecca Faris 25.06.2026 48min

  It can be hard to attract and retain professionals in the regions and vets are no exception. Entering the eighth year of a regional vet shortage, our guest Dr Rebecca Faris wants to curb it. Having worked as a vet in South West Victoria for many years, Rebecca transitioned to focus on helping students move into the workforce and then eventually vet wellbeing at the Australia Veterinary Association. Rebecca shares that vets experience high rates of poor mental health, one of the re...
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  Finding Your Grief "Family" - Georgia Lillie and Sarah Guthrie 11.06.2026 51min

  Losing a loved one is a worst fear for most, and something that Sarah Guthrie and Georgia Lillie have in common. Sarah’s son Ford died 10 years ago from an accident when he was only 17. Georgia’s husband James died of an aggressive cancer seven years ago, leaving her and her two young boys behind. While they both lived close by in Western Victoria, neither women met until they were encouraged to swap books that they each wrote about their grief. For Sarah it’s an intimate bo...
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  Understanding Soil Microbiology - Dr Aurelie Quade 28.05.2026 37min

  How much do you know about your soil microbiology? Dr Aurelie Quade makes a very good argument for why we should know more about it… including improving farm productivity and lowering inputs. Originally from a forestry community in France, Aurelie fell in love with the desolate landscape of Australia when she arrived here 20 years ago. Initially doing her PhD in plant pathology, she said she became bored at trying to fight nature and instead wanted to learn to work with it, leading her ...
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  Why dieting never works, but a systems-approach to health can - with Bronwyn Fletcher 14.05.2026 43min

  Unrealistic body standards are inescapable for young women. Between diet culture, food rules at home, and stick- thin models all over our screens, it’s hard to feel in touch with what our body needs. Nurse, midwife and systems-thinking expert Bronwyn Fletcher spent her childhood fixated on understanding what was and wasn’t healthy - she later found she wasn’t always given the right information. Turns out eating less and moving more doesn’t always equal weight loss and more importantly b...
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  How to beat perfectionism and thrive at work and in life - Lynne Cazaly 07.05.2026 58min

  What should you do when your ideas at work are always getting shot down? Or you’re being micromanaged by your boss? Or letting perfectionism stand in your way? Workplace expert Lynne Cazaly has the answers for you. She is a consultant, future work expert, international speaker and award winning author (just to name a few of her hats!). But despite all those qualifications, she also makes time for hobbies and speaks to the importance of doing things you love, even if you do them ba...
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  How to Talk About Climate Change Without Losing People - Dr Rebecca Huntley and Prof. Leslie Hughes 23.04.2026 56min

  Climate change can be one of those topics that people either avoid, argue about, or feel completely overwhelmed by. Meanwhile, climate policy is often a political football. So how do we have better conversations about it, especially in rural and regional Australia, where the impacts are often felt first and hardest? And why is it still considered by some to be a ‘leftie inner city issue?” We’re joined by two brilliant minds: Social researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley and climate scientist,&nb...
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  The Quiet Crisis: Life Inside Complex Mental Illness - Amanda Gaudion 09.04.2026 57min

  This is a big, honest, and deeply human conversation. In this episode, Kirsten sits down with Warrnambool mother, Amanda Gaudion, who shares the story of her former husband Troy — a devoted dad, police officer, and someone who experienced a severe mental illness that ultimately led to his death by suicide. It’s a conversation about love, confusion, systems, stigma and what it’s actually like to live alongside complex mental illness that doesn’t fit neatly into the categories we’re more comfor...
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  How to Have Difficult Conversations and Forge an Unconventional Career in Ag - Liz Brennan 26.03.2026 42min

  When was the last time you had a difficult conversation? Maybe it was with a family member, at work or even within your community. While it can be easy for us to shy away from hard chats, our next guest considers her ability to have “crunchy” conversations a superpower. From a young age Liz Brennan had these conversations role modelled within her family. So by the time she found herself in Papua New Guinea working alongside cultural leaders in a tourism role, she felt well prepared to p...
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  Season 8: Removing the blame and shame around weight loss - Introducing, Bronwyn Fletcher, Weighting for Happiness (Trailer) 19.03.2026 12min

  Ducks on the Pond is back with Season 8! Hear what's coming up on this powerful 10 episode season and meet Bronwyn Fletcher, founder of Weighting for Happiness.... and Ducks Season 8 sponsor. Bronwyn is working to change the conversation around women and weight through a systems-thinking approach to health and wellbeing. She unpacks why rural women often face different barriers to support and services, and why addressing complex challenges requires moving beyond simple fixes. Bronwyn al...
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  Should you join a farmer representation group? Rebecca Reardon, NSW Farmers 05.03.2026 42min

  “If farmers don’t have a voice, they’ll be dealt a poorer hand.” That’s the simple mantra that motivates Rebecca Reardon to be involved in advocacy with NSW Farmers. Rebecca is a mixed farmer from Moree in NSW, an agricultural economist, board director and Vice President of NSW Farmers. Her path into agricultural leadership wasn’t linear. After 20 years working post–farm gate in the grains industry, including stepping into a CEO role during one of the most personally challenging periods of he...
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  Working Smarter, Not Harder: Lean Thinking in Farming, with Jana Hocken 02.03.2026 31min

  What if the difference between a struggling farm and a thriving one isn’t the cows, the land or the milk price… but the systems? When Jana Hocken and her husband returned to their 1,000-head dairy farm in New Zealand, they were facing two seasons of low milk prices, a $500,000 overdraft and long, exhausting workdays. Something had to change. In this practical and eye-opening live recording from the Australian Dairy Conference, Jana shares how applying Lean management principles, develop...
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  Busy, Burnt Out… or Burnout-Proof? with Carli Phillips 26.02.2026 36min

  What happens when you don’t make time for your wellness? For wellbeing researcher and speaker Carli Phillips, the answer was confronting: double pneumonia, a heart infection and total burnout in her late thirties... all while juggling two jobs, a masters degree, young children, farm life and caring responsibilities. In this powerful live recording from the Australian Dairy Conference, Carli, the founder of the Corporate Wellbeing Hub, shares the lesson that changed her life: If you don’t make...
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  Battling the Anti-Farming Agenda with Positivity and Storytelling - Claire Taylor, ADC Collab episode 29.01.2026 1h 6min

  Where did the anti-farming sentiment begin, not just in Australia, but around the world? And most importantly, what can we do about it? Claire Taylor brings a genuinely global perspective to this conversation. Originally from Scotland, she travelled across multiple countries as part of her Nuffield Scholarship, exploring how farming is portrayed, discussed and defended in different cultural contexts. That journey eventually led her to Australia—where she fell in love with a farmer ...
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  How to Understand Your Leadership Style - Australian Dairy Conference collab episode 27.11.2025 43min

  Farmers are often portrayed as being lone operators, but we know that working in agriculture, or any rural business, is a team sport. No matter what specific industry you’re in, you’re not going to get far without the ability to get people working together towards a shared goal. None of this is possible without effective leadership, and that’s the topic we’re going to be tackling in this episode. How do you define your leadership? And who better to ask than tw...
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  What it’s like to wind up a business you love - Nikki Davey 13.11.2025 46min

  Nikki Davey is well known in the rural women's community as an entrepreneur, flower farmer, speaker and absolute go-getter. She founded Grown Not Flown, an app connecting customers with local flower growers. This startup business had a great cause in directly challenging the lack of sustainability in the flower industry, where many flowers are flown to Australia from countries in South America, Africa and Asia. Which is a crazy amount of unnecessary flower miles... given the amazing flowers w...
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  How do we account for sustainable farming practices? FCA Collab, pt 3 11.09.2025 49min

  It can feel very murky when diving into measuring things like nature, biodiversity, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. Essentially, how do you know what you’re doing is working? And while the tools are still improving there are many reasons why it’s worth giving it a crack. In part 3 of our collaboration series with Farmers for Climate Action, we dive into ways to help you account for all the good environmental work you do on farm. We also get insights directly from the bank, in...
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  What does ‘climate smart farming’ even mean? - Collab with Farmers for Climate Action, pt.2 28.08.2025 53min

  “Climate smart farming” has become somewhat of a buzz word (or buzz phrase, rather!). But what does that even mean? Instead of becoming caught up in definitions, we hear from two women who are each running farming operations in two very different landscapes...but are both proudly, climate smart farmers. At its essence, climate smart farming is about lowering inputs where you can, making decisions for your soil and grass, and in some cases, tapping into opportunities such as renewable en...
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  Women as Change Makers in Ag - Fiona Marshall and Cressida Cains, FCA Collab Series, pt1 21.08.2025 28min

  Behind every good Ag business, is a good woman. Well, a smart and caring one. There are many women doing innovative things on farm and in the broader agriculture industry. From cracking a value added business, to finding more sustainable ways of producing food. In this episode, you’ll meet two women who think strategically about their own farming businesses, as well as broader issues around soil science, national food security (such as a national food plan) and how to bring more diversity int...