Interview with Airlie Landale – Farm Table
Interview with Airlie Landale – Farm Table
Where did you grow up?
On my family’s farm just south of Holbrook, in the Southern Riverina of NSW. It was an idyllic childhood full of beautiful memories, riding horses, paddock BBQ’s and paddy melon fights, warm Friday nights at the local pool, and making cubby houses around the garden. It brings back beautiful smells and feelings just thinking about it.
Where do you live now?
I live with my partner on his family farm at Pretty Pine, just north of Deniliquin in the Riverina of NSW. After doing a 600km long distance relationship and many podcasts and driving hours down, I moved down here to live with him at the beginning of the year. It is a lovely and friendly community with so many young people around the district.
What inspires you?
That question makes me smile because my mind fills up immediately with so many different thoughts and people. Of all the strong women, small business owners, farmers, my family, my partner, my friends, the land… Things and people that are real and tangible and are truly living and grasping life with both hands, day in, day out.
How did your project/business idea come about?
I was living and working back on my family farm a few years ago. I had just returned from Canada where I did my Masters and I knew in my heart that returning to my job in Melbourne was not the right path for me.
My future was in agriculture and the first step for me was to start back where I grew up. I committed myself to learning as much as I could from my Dad in order to understand what he and Mum had built to create such a wonderful upbringing and future for my brother and myself.
But, although I grew up on the farm and had studied agricultural economics, I had so, so much to learn. I loved learning beside Dad in the paddock each day and discussing all things farming at night. But, I knew to be truly valuable to my family farm, I needed to couple in-paddock learning with my own learning outside of that.
So, I turned online to continue to upskill and engage with my ongoing learning. But unfortunately, it brought a lot of frustration. Google doesn’t seem to understand agriculture too well, so you can lose hours upon hours without getting to an answer you need. A central platform to bring together the industry’s collective knowledge wasn’t’ there, so I set out to solve the problem.
What stage is your project/business in?
The Farm Table 2.0 is set to launch soon (on November 9 – eeeeeek). The first iteration was super-DIY while I worked fulltime and really understood the problem that existed. I have committed the last 11 months fulltime to go back to the original problem and then committed to solving it in order to make the online experience of farmer’s better.
What were you doing before you launched your business/project?
I was working on farm and then fulltime for Paraway Pastoral Company, Macquarie Banks farming entity. It was an incredible experience, meaning the Farm Table took a back seat, only getting my attention before and after work hours and on the weekend.
