Ep 44 - Modelling Profit in a Messy World: Farm Economics with Michael Young

Welcome back team to another episode of Selling in the Paddock.

Today I’m joined by Michael Young, an agro-economist with Farm Optimization Group, beaming in all the way from Western Australia. Michael grew up on a mixed farm in the south-west, took a detour towards engineering, and eventually found his way back to agriculture through a simple but powerful question:

“Why are farmers doing what they’re doing – and could they do it better?”

In this conversation, we dig into the world of farm systems modelling, profit, risk and decision-making in real farm businesses.

We unpack:

• 🌾 Michael’s journey from farm kid to agro-economist and why he turned away from engineering

• 🧠 Why farmers make such different decisions with the same conditions (e.g. one goes all-in on wheat, the neighbour won’t touch it)

• 🖥️ What the Australian Farm Optimiser (AFO) model actually does – and how it helps test ideas on a computer before risking five years and big dollars in the paddock

• 🌦️ Farming under uncertainty – using modelling to adjust stocking rates, rotations and tactics when the season starts good… or turns bad

• 💰 Profit, risk and greenhouse gases – what happens when we start overlaying emissions on top of farm profitability

• 🧮 The real complexity behind “simple” questions like “What stocking rate should I run?”

• 🤝 Working with grower groups, government and researchers to crunch numbers and turn trial results into practical, on-farm decisions

• 🛠️ How Michael and his partner used the model on their own 100ha block to decide how much to crop, how much to keep in pasture, and how many sheep to run

• 🤖 Where AI fits now (coding support, machine learning on trial data) and where Michael thinks it might go in future for farm decisions

We also get to know Michael a bit more in the rapid fire:
☕ Hot chocolate over coffee
🎧 Red Hot Chili Peppers on repeat after reading Scar Tissue
🚜 Evenings spent farming rather than binging Netflix

If you’ve ever wondered how to put better numbers behind your gut feel, or how economists actually turn trial results into real-world decisions on mixed farms, this episode will give you a clear, practical window into that world.