Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture

Nutri-Tech on the Sunshine Coast runs a regular course in organic farming. The next Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture is in March 2012 and is being held at Nutri-Tech's facility at Yandina. A course outline and costs are provided on their website, with a similar course being run in Victoria by the same company.

It looks interesting and comprehensive (four days + field day) and I would be interested in attending if it weren't for a little bit of a financial squeeze likely for the next 12 months in our household. Nevertheless, it might be something you are interesting in attending. Let me know what you think if you do manage to attend.

If you are interested, there are discounts offered on the course costs if you're an eligible primary producer, which can be claimed from the government (FarmReady program). Pin It

Free Mulch

I have just come across Mulch Net.com. This is advertised as connecting tree loppers and vegetation management people with people that want mulch.

I have registered in the hope that I will get some mulch for a revegetation project that I am hoping to commence on my property in the cooler months, but it seems that there aren't any loppers currently registered in my area.

Nevertheless, I think this is a fabulous resource and a great way to connect people and ensure that resources aren't going to go to waste (hee hee hee).

Maybe it might work for you in your area.


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Nature refuges - Queensland, Australia

Here in Queensland a solution to the limited funding available to government for conservation has been the establishment of the nature refuge program. This recognises the important environmental values that private lands hold and reduces the necessity for the State to own and manage these properties.

The Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) is the agency that administers this program and has useful and interesting information about this program available on their website.

The overall concept relies on a voluntary agreement between the landholder and the State government that "acknowledges a commitment to manage and preserve land with significant conservation values while allowing compatible and sustainable land uses to continue". This arrangement is recognised on the title of the land and is carried across to new owners if the land changes ownership, thereby protecting the environmental values and management ethos in perpetuity.

According to the DERM website, there is assistance to the landholder for management activities through the NatureAssist program. This program currently attracts some funding through the Blueprint for the Bush Initiative and is given out through "rounds" where property owners have expressed an interest in receiving funding for specified projects. How much money from these program actually travels through to the landholders I am not sure, although some of the projects that have seemingly attracted funding include:

• control of stock; 
• establishment of of-stream watering points;
• identification and management of cultural heritage;
• fencing;
• revegetation or regeneration techniques aimed at improving water quality;
• ecological surveys aimed at guiding management requirements;
• weed control;
• development of sustainable management plans; and
• improvements to agricultural practices that will result in the improvement of conservation values on the property. 

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Landshare

Have you heard of Landshare? Its basically a dating agency for people wanting to grow their own food but don't have any land and those that have land on which the first group could grow their food. What a fantastic concept! I have seen so many parcels of empty land begging from someone to use it for something other than a never-ending mowing circuit.

Landshare's website allows you to express an interest in either sharing your land or get connected with someone with some spare land. The website includes some useful tools, such as sample legal agreements ensuring the protection of everyone's rights. There are also case studies showing some successes and nothing more useful than planting guides for different regions in Australia and recipes for produce available from your landshare garden.  

Currently there are just over 1100 members and growing rapidly. What an effort for something that was only started four months ago. Have a look at their map indicating locations of people wanting land and people offering land and see whether there is someone you can match up with in your area. Pin It

Ever heard of being an Ecotarian?

I hear a podcast on ABC radio the other day which discussed the concept of being an ecotarian. I had never heard this term previously. The guest on the show discussed their previous vegetarianism which transcended into veganism. Their food choices were based on their concerns for the welfare of animals and the manner in which they were produced, transported and slaughtered. However, this all changed when their neighbour offered them a couple of fresh eggs from their free-range chickens that lived on their neighbour's lovely rural property. At this point the guest on the show thought about this offer and couldn't really justify (based on their previous parameters) why they shouldn't take the eggs from their neighbour.

Many people's choice to become vegetarian or vegan is primarily based on animal welfare issues, but when you produce your own food and know the full process of how the animal was cared for, its environment and potentially how and where it was slaughtered many of the welfare issues fade into the background and become irrelevant. People's food choices might therefore change solely from animal welfare to sustainability issues relating to the production, transportation and sale of food products brought into their lives.

I am not suggesting anyone change their eating strategy I just found it an interesting concept which I hadn't discovered previously. Pin It

How to build your own soils

An important step to becoming self-sufficient in producing your own food is having fabulous and healthy soils. Modern agriculture has all sorts of inputs that they pour into the soil to boost their productivity, but overtime the soils become depleted and require additional inputs and larger amounts. Such strategies are a long way from producing soils, are not self-sufficient and are generally very resource hungry, with many petro-chemical based inputs.

I went to a seminar today on Green Manures and Crop Rotation at my local library. This was presented by Sonya Wallace, a well known permaculture teacher here on the Sunshine Coast. This session was very informative and relieved some of my concerns about have green manure crops within my personal food production system. The concerns that I had previously about green manure crops was that I was loosing a good patch of soil which I could have been producing another viable vegetable crop.

For those that are unfamiliar with green manure crops, these are crops that assist in replenishing the soil with vital nutrients such as nitrogen as well as providing organic matter into the soil encouraging a good soil structure and a great diversity of life-forms within the soil (microbes, bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, etc). These crops are grown to rest your soils and also ensure that you have great soils to produce the food you want on your table.

Sonya presented information on types of green manure crops and the importance of rotating crops throughout your garden to ensure the soils can produce the best crops possible, with your rotation program to include green manure crops.

I now understand it is important to use such crops and strategies to ensure I will have long-term productive soils without having to utilise artificial sources of nutrients, in turn allowing for ongoing gardening success. Pin It

In Tune with Nature

To become more in tune with the land, seasons and opportunities for food growing, energy and water capture and the changes in wildlife and weeds in my life and the land I occupy, I am going to start an observation journal. 


What will this entail?


Recording:

• date
• season
• weather - temperature, rainfall, cloud cover, etc
• what is in flower/fruit - food, native and weed plants
• what is happening on the land

and anything else that takes my fancy. 


Overtime, I hope to collect a picture of the patterns in the landscape, what I will need to be doing on the land, what to expect from my food plants and identify things that are out of place or sorts.


I am looking forward to learning from this process.  Pin It

Gourmet Farmer...great TV series

A little while ago the SBS aired a series called the "Gourmet Farmer", where food critic Matt Evans decided to leave his Sydney life and re-connect with the land and the origins of food. Basically, he decided he would become a farmer, aiming to provide for himself and sell some of his wares locally to get by. 


I love this series and the idea of it. I think the notion of growing your own food and being able to provide for yourself is very romantic and idyllic lifestyle. Obviously there is a lot of hard work, pain, suffering and a completely different lifestyle (than I am currently leading) if you get down to the practical side of this, but nevertheless the idea to me is infinitely attractive. 


I have borrowed the DVD of this series from my library and currently trolling my way through it. My daughter and I sit and watch the farmer and his progress together. I love the fact that my daughter is being exposed to food production in its truest form, along with me and realising how you can transform bare resources, to your own food and then turn the produce into something called "dinner" or a "treat". Fantastic. Enjoying journey this so much at present.   Pin It

Farm Day

Watching the telly tonight, Getaway was on. They had a piece on "FarmDay". This is apparently where city families (which we are) travel to farm to visit farms and country families. The idea is for city families to learn about farms and farming activities. Whilst the country family in the Getaway piece said that they get to see their lives through the eyes of people fresh to such experiences and remember the reasons why they are on the land.

The Farm day website (www.farmday.com.au) allows you to register your interest for the next farm day weekend (29 & 30 May 2010). The organisers of this service then coordinate the farmers and city families based on interests and children's age groups.

Let's see if we are successful in getting a farm. Keep you posted. Pin It