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.
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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.