Jamie Pepper

Jamie is a beef and sheep farmer on his family farm at Tahara, near Hamilton, a job he has had since 2015. He is an alumni of Leadership Great South Coast, participating in the program in 2021. This program gave Jamie exposure to community, volunteerism and personal capacity building.

Away from the farm, Jamie is Deputy Chair of Food and Fibre Great South Coast and is a Council Member of the National Farmers Federation Young Farmers Council, a role he has held since it was formed in 2022. Through both of these roles, Jamie is able to couple his love of agriculture with passionate advocacy, policy development, stakeholder engagement and helping to shape the bright future of agriculture more broadly.

Jamie is involved with the World Farmers Organisation and was part of their delegation to COP28 in Dubai. He also represents the WFO on the UN Decade of Family Farming Steering Committee which reports directly to the FAO.

Jamie’s interests away from farming include sport (AFL and tennis), managing (along with his partner) their accommodation business in Halls Gap, winery tours, reading and planting trees.

Marty Gent

Marty is the manager of the Biodiversity and Indigenous Partnerships team at the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority. After studying ecology and working in environmental education she ran away to join the science circus but then got drawn back into academia. A research Masters in saltmarsh ecology and the impact of sea level rise, followed by a stint in antarctica where the lack of sea ice and some disturbingly skinny whales, led her to get involved in climate action and policy writing. For over 20 years she has alternated working in climate policy with working in conservation until finding her dream job. Back home in Southwest Victoria, Marty and her team support threatened species conservation and climate adaptation across the region. Marty strongly believes that the climate and biodiversity crises must be addressed together and that rebuilding the human nature relationship is the key to building a better world for everyone and everything.

Johnny Gardner

Johnny is part of a family owned and operated sheep and beef operation run in the Southern Grampians. Maddie and Johnny, with a team of 3 are involved in the business. He is fourth generation and custodians of this land since 1910.

They are a specialist prime lamb and Angus beef operation over 1,800ha.

Their commitment is to operate a professional, and profitable business across the property aggregations involving prime lamb production and cattle whilst ensuring to improve PEOPLE, PLANET and PROFIT when considering decision making and PREPAREDNESS always. With the keys of continual improvement and adaptation of the business model and education of all involved in the business to achieve a top 10% business continually.

They see a huge opportunity in improving their emissions intensity, this is underpinned by improving the efficiencies within their production system. With targeting the implantation of a lucerne finishing system to support lamb turn off weights and deep-rooted perennials for resilience in a more variable climate. They also see building some robust data around our emissions that they produce and the biodiversity on farm. They see this as a big part of building on continuous improvement for our farm business as well data driven transparency for what they do on farm.