#74: Grass, Cattle & Customers: Building an Ag Businesses with Charlie Thurgate

Send us Fan MailG’day and welcome to the A Place to Call Home Podcast.In this episode, I’m joined by Charlie Thurgate, a 24-year-old cattle producer based in Tamworth, New South Wales — and someone who genuinely wears a lot of hats.Charlie’s story is one of resilience, responsibility, and having a crack. From stepping into management at a young age, to building his own trucking business, surviving a serious accident, and rebuilding from the ground up — Charlie has packed a lot into his early twenties.Today, he’s building Kamilaroi Cattle Company, a paddock-to-plate beef business grounded in regenerative principles, while also growing Element Agri, a mineral business supplying livestock and soil health products across Australia — all while continuing to learn, trial, and refine his systems.What stood out most in this conversation is Charlie’s level of perspective and wisdom for someone his age. He’s thoughtful, open about mistakes, and deeply committed to building systems that work with the land, not against it.This is a practical, honest conversation about regenerative agriculture, genetics, business, and what it really takes to build something from scratch in agriculture.In this episode, we chat about:Taking on responsibility at a young age and learning on the jobOvercoming adversity and rebuilding after a life-changing accidentTransitioning land from cropping back to pastureRegenerative agriculture and ultra-high density grazingSanga genetics and breeding cattle for resilience and efficiencyBuilding a paddock-to-plate beef business from scratchThe realities of running multiple ag businesses at 24Systems thinking, soil health, and long-term land stewardshipResources MentionedMAN, CATTLE and VELD : Zietsman, Johann: Amazon.com.au: BooksIntegrity Soils - Biological Education SpecialistsFollow Charlie📘 Facebook: Kamilaroi Cattle Company📸 Instagram: @kamilaroicattlecompany @elementagri 🌏 Website:Kamilaroi Cattle CompanyIf you enjoyed the episode, please share it with your friends and leave a review—it really helps us keep these conversations going.Stay connected with A Place to Call Home:📘 Facebook: A Place to Call Home📸 Instagram: @aplacetocallhomepodcast🔗 LinkedIn: A Place to Call Home Podcast🌏 Website: www.aplacetocallhome.com.au🎙️ This episode is brought to you by, Speed TaggerYou can learn more at Speed Tagger WebsiteSpeed Tagger – Speed TaggerSupport the show