Bonus Episode: Wayne Schild - From paramedic to big-thinking, commercial farmer

05/17/23 • 38 min

Wayne Schild's journey from paramedic to commercial farmer has taken guts, vision and plenty of curiosity.
In this bonus episode, we're playing the extended interview with Wayne, who we spoke to in Episode 6 - 'Staying Operational While Innovating'.
Wayne grows garlic in Victoria's Western districts where farmers mainly produce sheep and wool.
It's been a huge journey for his business called Grange Garlic, from the lows of suffering major crop losses, to the highs of finding a way to mechanize his operations - allowing the business to move from artisan to commercial.

"I have no claim or credentials, only that I wanted to be a farmer and I wanted to do something that mattered. I simply have followed the path of authenticity and have refused to go to market with a substandard product. All other ways of processing garlic, in my view, destroy the natural attributes of what garlic has. Everyone knows garlic for its flavour and aroma."

Wayne Schild, Managing Director, Grange Garlic Pty Ltd

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Wayne Schild, Managing Director, Grange Garlic Pty Ltd

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Previous Episode

Episode 8: Empowering climate adaptation at a local level

Rainfall levels for many parts of Australia haven’t recovered since the devastating millennium drought. Many rural communities are having to face a reality of landscapes and climate that have already changed, and are likely to continue to do so. So, what makes an effective climate adaptation initiative?

Following on from the previous episode about creating innovation systems on a national or regional scale, this episode looks at how innovation systems can function on a much smaller, local scale. We examine local innovation systems, through the lens of addressing the challenges of climate change in agriculture and in rural communities.

How are local water corporations, local government, scientists and community groups working together to offer effective solutions to drought? How so we make sure all the voices are heard, so that climate adaptation is not ‘top down’ but more grassroots in its design?

This episode draws from the speakers held at a recent Vic Drought and Innovation Hub Think Tank Event, held in Bendigo: “Are We Drought Ready?” Exploring local adaptation

Hear from:

• Prof. Lauren Rickards, Chair of Climate Change Adaptation, La Trobe University

• Caroline Welsh Deputy Chair, GWMWater, member of the Victorian Agriculture Climate Change Council and the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund Consultative Committee.

• Damian Wells, Managing Director at Coliban Water

• Prof Rebecca Lester, Freshwater Ecologist and Director of the Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, Deakin University

• Professor Richard Eckard, Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Primary Industries Climate Change Centre

• Dona Cayetana, Community and Partnerships Program Manager, DEECA (Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action)

• Cr Jennifer Alden, Deputy Mayor at the City of Greater Bendigo

View the Vic Hub’s latest research and resources on climate adaptation here.

Listen to Dr Rob Faggian, Associate Professor of Climate Change Adaptation at Deakin University speak about climate modelling for agriculture.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR)
Tati Tati Kaiejin - Resources

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Next Episode

Episode 9: Tapping into Circular Economies

Can you heat a hospital with wheat stubble? Or use chipped almond trees to improve your soil? These are some examples of circular economic trials that are underway in Australia at the moment.

Arguably, never before has there been such an incentive to develop circular economies, with the costs of fertiliser, fuel and electricity all rising significantly over the past few years.

But one of the big challenges in agriculture, is that we operate in linear economies, rather than in circular ones (i.e. most farmers buy inputs to produce outputs).

Even still, new circular economies are emerging across multiple sectors, in part to address the problem of the high cost of inputs and also to address environmental and sustainability concerns.

So, in this episode, we look at three very different circular economic solutions - where waste products are being re-used, recycled, or reprocessed for fertiliser, bio energy... and even water retention in soil. We look at circular economies from a local farm scale to regional initiatives (including heating a small Central Victorian hospital, with plant material waste).

GUESTS:

Neale Bennett – Almond grower in Merbein, Victoria (and participant in an Australian ‘Whole of Orchard Recycling’ study)

Daryl Scherger – Victorian Bioenergy Network

Dr Sara Hely – Director of Research at Riverine Plains (the Vic Hub’s NE Node)

For more information visit our website.

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.