Funds: $65,000
Source: Australian Agroforestry Foundation
Contract: KHE-518363-26-7
In September 2014, four keen members flew to Victoria to represent our organisation at the first national workshop for this important pilot project. All four were inspired and ready to get the program started back home on their return. SNE Landcare then delivered an Australian Master TreeGrower program in partnership with the Australian Agroforestry Foundation. The program was conducted over eight days from October to December 2014. Twenty three members and non-members participated in numerous site visits and workshops during that time, on topics related to agroforestry that they largely selected themselves. Twenty two of them graduated with Master TreeGrower (MTG) gate signs.
On 5-6 March 2015, 12 MTG graduates - all members of our network - trained as Peer Group Mentors (PGM) under the tutelage of members of the Australian Agroforestry Foundation and the Otway Agroforestry Network. PGMs met the following week to prepare their program of site visits with prospective ‘mentees’ over the coming 12 months.
From March 2015 – January 2016, 10 site visits to 10 properties produced 10 site reports focussing on how the various landholder mentees might progress their agorofrestry ideas for their own properties. During this time, an interim visit by Otway Farm Forestry Network members assisted to clarify and smooth a few issues we were encountering. Secondary site visits by mentors with mentees are now ongoing throughout 2016.
In March 2016, at the conclusion of the pilot project, a Most Significant Change (MSC) workshop took place where eight PGMs and two observers discussed nine 'stories' collected and collated by PGMs at interviews with various mentees in the program. MSC Stories were inspirational to say the least. The group felt inspired and empowered to carry on with the program and the stories were used to monitor and evaluate the impact of the project in our region, and as part of the national pilot.
Outcomes
Aside from the huge amount of information collected at the MSC stage of the project by project leaders, our members were left with a number of valuable outcomes. We now have added extension materials and templates (e.g. site visit template and site report template) that will be very useful for carrying out the program into the future should further funding become available. By opening up our program to a wide audience, we attracted a small number of participants from outside our traditional region. This served to inspire and kick-start agroforestry endeavours, including another MTG program in the Hunter. We call that ‘paying it forward’.
Acknowledgement
Southern New England Landcare Ltd would like to thank the Australian Agroforestry Foundation and the Otway Agroforestry Network for sharing their program with us and giving us the opportunity to reinvigorate Landcare in our region with such an inspiring program. We have valued it immensely.
Our involvement with this program has enabled us to see a new way forward in extension in agriculture and NRM. We hope the Federal Government recognises the benefits of such a program and empowers other organisations like our own to use it to make a difference.
