Details

First Name

Robbie

Last Name

Ivers

Nickname

robbie

Profile Type

Student

Sub Catchment / Suburb

Rosa Brook

Postcode

6285

State

WA

Country

Australia

Agricultural Land Manager

No

Land Managed Property Size

Not applicable

Land Managed Primary Usage

Not applicable

Your Primary Crops

Not Listed

Primary Livestock You Manage

Other

Your Age

20 to 30

Areas of interest

Farm Planning, Grazing and Grazing Management, Livestock Health and Nutrition, Plant Nutrition and Health, Soil Health

Your Story

I’m 26 years old from Perth, Western Australia. I grew up in Kojonup

while very young, before my family moved into the city. We continued to

visit the country regularly, to see family friends who were farmers and

also to plant for my father’s tree planting company (which has now

planted 450 000+ seedlings). I gained admittance into John Curtin College of the Arts

through their specialist drama program and graduated in 2015.

Around my late teens, I was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases:

crohn’s disease and ankylosing spondylitis (AS). I wanted to understand

the underlying cause of why my body was dysfunctional, as opposed to

just treating the symptoms with medications. The medications were

useful in the short run for relieving symptoms, but not a long term option. This led to

experimentation with a few diets using food from regen ag farms. Long

story short [and as crazy as it may sound]: I went from being in so much pain from AS I couldn’t walk to

coming off medications for both, healing the crohn’s by “80%+”(doctors

words not mine).

It was around my early teens I was first indirectly introduced to

Regenerative Agriculture and Joel Salatin when I was completing an

online course from one of his first apprentices.

Since my autoimmune diagnoses, my interest in regen ag has only grown:

I frequently volunteered at my local farmers market to volunteer and find

healing food (Palmyra Farmers Market 2019 to 2023); attended tours

and field days (Margaret River Organic Farmer (MROF) Easter Tours

2023, WA Regenerative Livestock Producers Inc. Field Day March 2023);

and volunteered on Farms (Runnymede 2022, MROF 2023). Call of the

Reed Warbler by Charles Massy is a favourite book of mine. Growing a

Revolution by David Montgomery was great. Joel Salatin’s books have

been particularly helpful and instructive.

Interests

I do have competing interests! One is making regen ag food more accessible to the public (ie. the marketing side of regen ag as opposed to the production side of it). I recently came across a no-staff 24/7 retail outlet for a regen ag farm in a news article. That set up was very interesting.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/wolki-farm-butcher-opens-247-with-no-staff/news-story/7ef628043ec5e8b98804d706e65c4a73

Another competing interest is adaptation to climate change. My thoughts are very preliminary on this – but current fire fighting just seems antiquated/inadequate for global warming, and it pains me to think that producers can have years of progress wiped away in hours by one fire. There should be a solution/s that is affordable/available to all farmers.

Final competing interest is micro enterprises: I’m curious about smaller operations and urban farming. If cows were smaller, I’d put some in my back yard! I’m curious about how micro enterprises might work in a therapeutic setting.

Challenges I can best help others solve are:

I have a young body and may be useful in assisting older farmers execute their farm operations. I'm keen to learn by doing, within a wwoofing, internship or paid context.

Key challenges I would like to solve are:

1. Making regen ag farms immune to extreme fire events. 2. making regen ag produce more accessible to the public in a profitable way for farmers.