Organizer
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Lower Blackwood Talkin' After Hours
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Email
[email protected] -
Website
http://lowerblackwood.com.au -
Lower Blackwood LCDC Events & Online Community
Speaker
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David HardwickAgroecologist, Founder & Owner, Soil Land FoodWHO IS DAVID HARDWICK?
David Hardwick, is an agroecologist & partner in the rural change management company Soil Land Food. David has over 20 years experience in rural landscapes, farming and food systems. He develops and delivers many of the extension projects for Soil Land Food across Australia. He worked in community development and then horticulture before completing a dairy traineeship on an organic dairy in NSW.
Since then he has had a wide ranging career working in both management and technical roles. These include Landcare extension, agronomy, soils, agribusiness, biofertiliser R&D and manufacturing, organics, training, and consulting positions. For many years he also helped run a regional farmers market business with his wife. He has also worked on rural cooperative and social enterprise projects. David also teaches soils, regenerative agriculture, farm planning and agroecology at TAFE NSW on a casual basis. David’s passion is agroecology and empowering farmers with knowledge and skills that make a difference!
David’s qualifications include:
Bachelor of Ecological Agriculture (University of Sydney)
Diploma in Agribusiness (TAFE NSW)
CIV in Training & Assessment
Grazing Land Management (Queensland DPI)
Natural Sequence Farming – Tarwyn Park Training
Diversity Pastures
A 5 part Online Course to learn why and how to increase pasture diversity on your farm.
Presented by David Hardwick and the team from Soil Land Food, this course will explore the benefits of increasing plant diversity using multispecies cropping and pastures. You will also learn some tactics on how to increase plant diversity on your place successfully through the development of a Diversity Pastures Action Plan for your place.
The course consists of five by 90 minute Zoom Webinars, run once a week over 5 weeks. The course is limited to a maximum of 15 to allow for personalised attention to the participants from the course trainers. Recorded sessions will be accessible for catching up via Talkin’ After Hours, the Lower Blackwood LCDC’s Online Community.
Topics Covered Include:
- Plant diversity: why it is important and the benefits
- How plant diversity helps your soil and grazing business
- Multi-species: the different diversity tactics for pastures and cropping
- Species and Varieties: the options available in south-west WA
- Identifying windows of opportunity in South-West WA
- Steps to diversity success
- Setting Goals: identify your issues and set some paddock goals
- Plan your strategy
- Choose your seed mix
- Prepare your soil and paddock
- Sowing: timing, equipment, depth etc.
- Managing your crop/pasture
- Stages of change towards your long term paddock goal
- Grazing as a tool to improve diversity
Course Logistics:
Course Dates:
- Session 1: Friday April 5th, 4.00pm to 5.30pm
- Session 2: Friday April 12th, 4.00pm to 5.30pm
- Session 3: Friday April 19th, 4.00pm to 5.30pm
- Session 4: Friday April 26th, 4.00pm to 5.30pm
- Session 5: Friday May 3rd, 4.00pm to 5.30pm
Where? Once registered & paid you’ll be sent a link to the zoom sessions prior to each session.
Cost? $250 + GST.
This course forms part of the Lower Blackwood LCDC’s Regenerative Agriculture in Practice Program (RAPP) 2024 which is supported though funding from the Shire of Augusta Margaret River Environmental Management Fund.
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