Want innovative, hands-on skills to manage your farm landscape for productivity, profit and the environment? Looking at developing or updating your whole farm plan?

• Talk soils, water, pastures, vegetation and animals; and explore how it all fits together as a landscape.
• Identify sustainability issues.
• Assess and map your farm’s natural resources and landscape.
• Explore ecology-based, innovative approaches: planned grazing, diversity-cropping, self-herding, stress-free stockmanship and ecological soil strategies.

Your trainers:

• David Hardwick - agroecologist with 20+ years extension and agricultural experience, running workshops in soils, farming, grazing, and land management Australia-wide.
• Bruce Maynard - innovative Narromine farmer who developed the No-Kill Cropping and Stress-Free Stockmanship approaches, and co-developed the Self-Herding approach with scientist Dean Revell.
• Kristy Youman - farming systems extension specialist working with soils, grazing and land management around Australia.

The course integrates whole farm planning with a range of innovations including planned grazing, agroforestry, BEHAVE (animal behaviour and diet diversity concepts), innovative farm planning, diversity cropping (multispecies cover cropping, pasture cropping, no-kill farming), biofertilisers, innovative erosion techniques and more.

By the end of this program, participants will have a greater capactiy to

• strengthen and buffer against future social, economic and environmental shocks
• implement whole farm plans underpinned by sound ecological principles coupled with innovative techniques.

Cost: $350 or $300 for a second person from the same enterprise - includes training, maps, morning tea and lunch. RAA approved - 50% subsidy for eligible landholders.

Register by Monday 16th April with Southern New England Landcare 02 6772 9123 or mail@snelandcare.org.au. Please have your Lot & DP information on-hand when registering.

This project is supported by NENW Landcare Network Chairs Inc. and Northern Tablelands Local Land Services, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. Image courtesy of Benjamin Davies via Unsplash.