2025 WA Australians of the Year Dianne Haggerty and Ian Haggerty

Australian Community Media

Meet Your Australians - 2025 WA Australians of the Year Dianne Haggerty and Ian Haggerty. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.

Transcript

00:00We're farmers out in the eastern wheat belt of Western Australia, about three hours northeast

00:07of Perth, and we farm 26,000 hectares out in what's classed as a brittle environment.

00:12And we see it very important that we can produce, with our varying climatic conditions, reliable

00:19food and fibre while taking care of country.

00:22We're pretty fortunate through our farming history we've had exposure to about 36 different

00:27farming properties, and that gave us a really broad range of experience to look and experiment.

00:33One of the key things we've realised and learnt from watching nature is just as that diversity

00:38of plants and microorganisms increased, so did the health impacts we could see through

00:43the animals that were there, and the plants and the crops were growing, so everything's

00:47interdependent.

00:49We really look at what's under our feet.

00:51A tablespoon of true, living, healthy soil has more microorganisms in it than people

00:57on this planet.

00:58A microbiome in the soil is very similar to the microbiome in our gut.

01:03What we've done over a period of a number of years is actually we went out and learnt

01:07a lot of knowledge from all around the world, speaking with leading scientists, and that

01:11pieced together an agricultural system to actually nurture those microbiomes in the

01:16soil, because we soon realised with the human health that we're actually providing nourishment

01:20for, you know, the community.

01:22Food is a nourishing, health-giving, medicinal thing that we actually consume.

01:28The moment we realised we're making an impact was when consumers started feeding back to

01:34us of well, of actually the quality of this food and what they were getting out of it,

01:39and the global community, farmers from all over the globe, started approaching us and

01:43wanting to see what we're doing.

01:46We are able to talk to lots of different people and lots of different players and make

01:50a difference there by helping share that awareness.

01:54People are really interested in how they might be able to contribute to looking after the

01:58climate and the environment and biodiversity, but also still maintaining producing food

02:02and fibre for the populations.

02:04We have growing world populations and it's really important that we continue to feed

02:09those people and clothe those people, but really respecting our planetary boundaries

02:14at the same time.

02:15So looking after our ecosystem, ensuring that can thrive so we can continue to thrive as

02:20humans within this beautiful planet.

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