Succession planning problems, successes to be highlighted in podcast

Pastoralist and industry advocate Gillian Fennell is working to create a podcast, looking at how the industry is dealing with succession.

She was one of seven recipients in the 2024 AgriFutures Rural Women's Acceleration Grant, which comes with $7000 to bring a project to life.

Ms Fennell, who is on several industry boards, said the issue of succession planning - or the lack thereof - was a recurring one throughout the years.

"At every single event I go to, there is not one event where I don't engage in conversation with people who are frustrated about their own future and the future of the industry because of lack of succession planning," she said.

"I've spoken with people who have got it wrong and left the industry, and people who got it right.

"The biggest cohort is those in the middle, who are most frustrated and scared."

Ms Fennell said every sector of agriculture needed to be more open about this topic because the risks were too high.

"Biosecurity and lack of labour get a lot of attention but asset transfers to the next generation is going to have a big impact on the industry in the next 10 to 20 years because people will leave the industry," she said.

"We're losing good people out of the industry because of a lack of willingness to talk about it.

"We need people in our regions."

Ms Fennell said there were a number of complex factors related to succession planning, with the different generations of families often having competing interests.

She said, with the price of land so high, it was often out of the reach of the next generation to be able to afford to buy it from their parents but, for the older generation, that land was their "superannuation" and they needed to be able to realise some of its value.

"It's a discussion we need to start having, and to ask, are there policy levers we can pull, with land tax or inheritance?" she said.

Ms Fennell said the idea of a podcast came from a university project as part of her studying a Bachelor of Communications.

As background to the topic, she has been looking at research from the past 20 to 30 years.

"It's gone on for so long and not a single thing has changed in 30 years," she said.

Ms Fennell said she would love to hear stories from people who have a story to tell - with anonymity offered - as well as experts in the field.