Planting the seed for a brighter future

SHE Oaks will house a special guest next week with New South Wales farmer Colin Seis delivering two free workshops over Saturday and the following Monday.

Titled Farming for our Future, the sessions are being facilitated through the Geelong Landcare Network, and will see Mr Seis give a series of talks around what he calls “regenerative agriculture” farming.

“It’s not throwing away a lot of the old traditional farming methods, but really looking more seriously at how the natural agricultural systems work and mimicking that,” he said.

“By doing that and getting our farms functioning as ecosystems, we can start to reduce our fertiliser inputs, pesticides and all those types of things.

“Those things are not only not good for our farms, the landscape, and our planet but also they’re not good for human health as well.”

The workshop will comprise of a three-hour presentation in which Mr Seis will explain his farming philosophy and approach.

This will be followed by an afternoon bushwalk where he will point out the practical methods of his pasture cropping technique, where crops are sown into native grassland rather than bare soil.

Mr Seis has passed on his ideas in various workshops across the globe, and this will be his first in-person collaboration with the Geelong Landcare Network.

With his pasture cropping reportedly being implemented in about 3 million acres across the world, Mr Seis said the approach looks to be becoming ‘a big trend’ for many farmers.

“It’s always interesting how enthusiastic many people are about it, and really wanting to change and do something different,” he said.

“It’s not really a movement but there’s a huge growing interest in a lot of this. Some of the talks that I do in the US, you get up to 1400 people.

“There’s that many people going to these conferences that are all centred around regenerative agriculture.”

With Saturday’s workshop at full capacity with about 50 people attending, a second show has been added for the following Monday, 28 March.

Both sessions will run from 9am to 4pm.