Sprouting a Culture of Collaboration

Dr Tomas Remenyi - Climate Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania

TIA -Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture

Professor David Bowman - Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science at the University of Tasmania.

Farmers for Climate Action - reach out for more information about how you can join your local group

To contact Kate, email thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or follow @Leap Farm on Instagram or Facebook.

More information about the Regenerative Agriculture Network of Tasmania (RANT) can be found on their website or Facebook page. The AGM is being held on 18th September 2021, and a farm tour demonstrating what one farmer has achieved through the practice he has learnt with RANT on September 26th.

The Tasmanian Landcare Action Grants Program can be found through  the TFGA website.

Kate would love it if you could rate or review this podcast, and if you like it, share with your curious colleagues, farmers and friends. If you want to see some pictures of Leap Farm, head to Instagram or Facebook, or even jump online to the website at leapfarm.com.au

Iain has a background in ecology, being award his PhD in 2005. He successfully completed 2 post-docs, and was most recently a lecturer ay Macquarie University, where he gave a birds eye view and whole of systems approach to landscape function, including agriculture to the students. He has taken this view and applied it to Leap Farm.

After talking to A/Prof Matt Harrison in the last episode, he was inspired to complete a carbon audit of our farm, discovering that we sequester at least as much as 3 times more carbon than we emit.  He did this through utilising the University of Melbourne GHG calculator. He developed a spreadsheet to be able to determine our Carbon Sequestration rate (direct link not yet available, head to our Website where we will post it). While none of the data you receive is robust enough to earn you ACCUs, it will certainly give you enough information about your farm or enterprise to determine where you sit in relation to carbon footprint, and will give you some guidance as to what levers you can pull to improve your carbon sequestration or decrease your emissions. And you certainly don't need a PhD to be able to complete it!

For more assistance with the calculator, you can contact Iain at farmers@gmail.com or A/Prof Matt Harrision at matthew.harrison@utas.edu.au. Kate can be contacted at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or on FB and IG @LeapFarm.

This episode is really about carbon accounting in farming – listening will help you gain a better holistic overview and understanding of emissions from livestock, carbon sequestration in soil, and the dilemma that this presents to farmers.  

Matt, Kate and Iain discuss the need to develop strategies to assist farmers to manage their farm and livestocks  with economics, sustainability and socially acceptable solutions in mind.

Farmers who are interested in becoming involved in Matt's research can contact him via email: Matthew.Harrison@utas.edu.au - his incredibly impressive bio at UTas can be found here.

A bit more about Matthew: his research aims to improve the profitability, sustainability, competitive advantage and social acceptability of agricultural systems. He leads a team that focusses on adaptation to climate change, extreme climatic events and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through environmental, social and economic innovations. Their work also includes disruptive technologies, irrigation, seasonal climate forecasting, and whole farm systems approaches for profitable, sustainable intensification.

Contact Kate with questions or feedback at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or via their webpage 

Angus Stewart is a Horticulturalist with vision, experience and generosity. He shares his wisdom and knowledge freely with us on this episode, and discusses methods such as deep planting and how to create the right environment for tree planting and ongoing maintenance.

You can discover more of Angus's knowledge, tips and tricks at his website Gardening With Angus, and follow him on Instagram where he provides regular nuggets of juicy info on worm farming, composting, Kangaroo Paw management and more.

You can contact Kate with any questions or feedback on email at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or on FB or Instagram @leapfarm, or head to the Leap Farm website.

In a mere 20 minutes, Lauren gives her perspective on where Felds Farm is today, and many of the lessons that they have learnt, along the way. She gives an update on their progress, and how their thinking about the business has matured considerably in such a short period of time.

Find Lauren through social media on Instagram and Facebook, or head to the Harvest Market at Launceston, held every Saturday, to grab some organic veg and have a chat with her while you're there. 

If you have questions for Kate, contact her via email thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com, or on Instagram or Facebook.

Here's a recap on Episode 1 - The Humble Onion, in anticipation of Episode 4 where I catch up with Lauren Byrne of Felds Farm. In this episode, which may have slightly improved audio quality than the original, we hear from Mike and Lauren about their foray into Market Gardening. 

This episode was recorded at the time they moved from some land just out of Hobart to a share-farming arrangement in Lilydale, Tasmania, some 200km away, and restarted their market garden enterprise, Felds Farm. You can find them on Instagram and Facebook.

Our Mates Farm is just down the road. Coreen Ung and Mathew Tack have turned an old, run down apple orchard into a thriving small farm, producing over 50 different varieties of apples, as well as lamb and pork. They believe in being radically transparent, and encourage their customers to come to the farm to understand where their food comes from, and while they're there, become mates.

Coreen takes us through the set up of the farm currently, how they use regenerative practices to manage their orchard organically. She also shares their story of how they chose to become farmers. It's inspirational and brave, and will motivate many of you who are thinking about doing something similar. Its an incredibly heart warming conversation that covers a variety of topics, including how growing food brings you and the community together.

And for great piglet pics, check out their social media: Instagram and Facebook

WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms)

Leap Farm dairy system:

• Once a day milking (in the mornings)
• All kids kept with their mothers throughout the season (during the day)
• The mothers and kids are drafted apart in the evening, with all of them shedded at night on a composting hay floor (deep litter system) that provides heat (like an electric blanket)
• Kids are given a small amount of milk every morning (with a cuddle) for the first 6 weeks of life
• Kids naturally wean from their mothers over the course of the season
• The males and the females who lines aren't desirable for the milking herd are turned off the paddock when they reach a reasonable size and are sold for meat
• Milking (and cheese making) is seasonal - in late autumn/early winter, milking ceases for the season, and both the farmers and the girls get a 3 month break
• And so the cycle begins.

Questions and comments can be sent to Kate at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com, or contact her through Instagram or Facebook @leapfarm

As small producers, we rarely get "a voice" at the table when it comes to discussions about agriculture in Tasmania or even at a federal level. Sprout has become that voice, and has been advocating for small producers in this space increasingly. But they need to know more about us - like where we are, what we farm, our economic worth and how we add value to our community.

Sprout has received funding to administer a survey to get more information about small producers in Tasmania - and they need out help to respond and also pass the survey details on to other small producers, to try and get as clear a snapshot as possible about our businesses. You can find the link here: Sprout Survey

For more info about Sprout Tasmania, head to their website. If you have the ability, please join as a member  to help keep the organisation able to advocate for us. You can also find Sprout on Facebook and Instagram. 

Season 2 of the Curious Farmer is going to look a little different from last Season - there will still be great interviews with interesting farmers, gardeners, scientists, chefs and more, but there will be more opportunity for you to ask questions - whether they be about how we farm and what we do to build carbon in our soils, or specific questions about goats (we get a lot of questions about goats...). So forward you questions to me via email at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or through our social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook.