Wheatbelt sunrise, the bush, the birds and the Bombaras. | ON WAFarmers Episode 4

From a freezing Hyden sunrise with the birds coming alive in the background, Hugo and Marianne Bombara join WAFarmers VP Mic Fels to talk Moroccan ambassadors and live-export futures, starting out farming on $1,200-an-acre Boyup Brook blue gum country, science-backed silent sheep yards, AI that codes your Xero bills, and why advocacy stands or falls on communication and trust. Hugo talks about how a live-sheep delegation to drought-hit Morocco turned into a diplomatic relationship with the Moroccan ambassador… and now phosphate supply conversations. His vision of how live export might still have a lean, on-farm-quarantine future, even if the old model is gone. Marianne talks about skipping the big-tractor step and going straight to autonomous, and how she is now dropping three-page supplier PDFs into AI and getting them coded for Xero categories in seconds. And why the compliance burden in farm businesses still falls so heavily on women. Coming later to farming as a career and a life, Hugo and Marianne discuss what WAFarmers needs to do about declining farmer numbers through pure communication, leveraging its hard earned reputation, and trust. These are the conversations farmers are actually having around the kitchen table, in the ute - and watching the sun rise over Hyden before breaky, on a cold morning in July! Listening to this episode feels like being immersed right there in the heart of the wheatbelt yourself. Chapters: 0:00 Morocco, live export and a leaner model 8:35 Yards built from a clean slate 15:45 Valuer and teacher to farmers 17:22 $1,200 an acre in Boyup Brook 25:44 Autonomous gear and AI in the office 34:05 Compliance, women and WAFarmers Produced for and on behalf of WAFarmers by Mic Fels (2026 Vice President). If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, and give it a like (and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!) — it helps get these conversations in front of more farmers, voters and policy makers who need to hear them. Drop a comment below, or follow us on our socials @WAFarmers with your thoughts, and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. If you value what we do, support us by joining WAFarmers now: https://members.wafarmers.org.au/auth/register