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9 September 2025

“Increasing resilience in your landscape and on your farming property is huge for increasing your farm’s profit too, which I think seems to get missed a lot…” — Ian Haggerty

From fringe to leadership: large-scale regeneration in harsh country 

The third episode of The Role of Animals in the Food and Agriculture System of the Future podcast series, co-produced with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food, features the Haggerty family and their 63,000-acre diversified farm in Western Australia. They started with a small piece of marginal “unwanted” land and fostered it into a much larger, thriving, resilient, and profitable landscape. They now produce a wide variety of crops and products, including grains, cover crop seed mixes, meat, and wool.   

Their story, told by Ian, Dianne, and Matthew in this episode, offers lessons in perseverance, practical innovation, and the transition from isolation to regional leadership. They describe a shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, emphasizing moisture retention and ecological resilience as critical, especially in their brittle, low-rainfall environment. The Haggertys demonstrate that taking care of soil, plants, animals, and community can go hand in hand with profitable farming, even when conventional advice says otherwise. 

Stewardship rooted in place 

The Haggertys point out that they did not inherit their land, they built their operation from the ground up. Starting out with a conventional, input-heavy farming mindset, they endured major setbacks, from devastating droughts to discouraging professional advice. Instead of giving up, they adapted: learning from failures, experimenting boldly, and shifting their approach toward working with, rather than against, nature. Today, they see themselves not as controllers of land, but as stewards and lifelong learners within complex living systems. They are motivated by worldwide health and environmental challenges, and they are educated and inspired by global pioneers in science and farming. But, in practice, they are firmly focused on their local land and community. 

Working with living systems 

Animals play a vital, dynamic role throughout the Haggerty operation. During the conversation, Dianne shares that “…we didn’t even really contemplate having a farm without livestock. So that was how we started off, even in conventional farming.” Their sheep are central to rebuilding degraded soils and transferring beneficial microbiomes to new properties; an approach they see as much deeper than “just” grazing.  The farm grows multi-species cover crops (some baled for hay), which are then fed to sheep. Their manure feeds worm farms and is used for compost, which is then returned to fields—demonstrating an efficient, circular nutrient system that depends on livestock.  

Tangible impacts and ongoing innovation 

The farm’s progress is evident: fields are greener, water cycles are restored, and resilience is built even during record droughts. Yields remain steady without the use of conventional “crutches” such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, drenching, and grain feeding. In the episode, the Haggertys share vivid examples of their ecological “bank account,” demonstrating how continual learning, mindset shifts, and openness to new science keep their farm productive, profitable, and forward-looking. They utilize large-scale technology, but always with awareness of ground-level ecosystem realities, blending modern machinery with careful, context-aware land management. Their journey exemplifies how large-scale farming can be part of the solution, supporting biodiversity, rural vitality, and improved food system outcomes. 

Collaboration for the future 

Education and collaboration are clearly woven into every step of the Haggerty operation—they welcome visitors, learn from Indigenous wisdom, and actively build supply chain connections to get regenerative products to more people. The episode closes with discussions on capturing financial investment, scaling opportunity, and cultivating new markets, all of which are essential to making regeneration truly sustainable, accessible, and impactful. 

Listen with us

Listen to the full conversation for a grounded look at how regeneration is possible at the landscape scale, and how everyone—from rural stewards to urban partners—can play a meaningful role. You can learn more about the Haggertys’ operation and their work in developing Natural Intelligence Farming on their website. 

Find all episodes in this series on the DMSF Podcast Hub. 

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This podcast series is co-created and supported by the Datamars Sustainability Foundation. Discover more about our ongoing projects and join the conversation about building regenerative food systems for the future.