Hi Landcarers

Hoping that you receive some of the forecast rain on Friday and Saturday at your place.

As you may know, Soil C Quest was featured in a 20 minute documentary that recently one the Best Documentary category at the Scinema International Science Film Festival. Last night the Sydney screening was held at Paddington and several of the other capital city screenings have been sold out.

The film was Directed by Frank Oly, and Written and Produced by Tegan Nock. Many of you will be familiar with the Soil C Quest Story, but the description for the film describes it as a story about farmers, the soils they work and a piece of powerful knowledge that nearly slipped through their fingers. Grassroots follows Guy Webb and his friends, unlikely heroes on a quest to bring a genuine climate change solution to the world.

The Jury’s comment was: This story of farmers turned accidental activists is one you want to share with everyone you know.  It shows that science shouldn’t remain in the arena of labs and academics – instead it shows that people who need this technology can go out and fight for it.

Next week’s article will provide some insight into the evening and the other interesting films that were also Award winners.

Another important event coming up, hosted by the Central West Local Land Services is the Biodiversity for Profit Conference. This is a unique one-day conference to educate landholders about how they can improve and profit from effective natural resource management on their farming enterprise.

Keynote presentations will be delivered by industry professionals supported by scientific research and complemented by Central West farmers demonstrating the capacity of biodiversity services to improve farm profitability, including: improving soil structure; fertility and production capacity; farm resilience against climatic changes and weather events; opportunities to profit from conservation agreements.

Speakers include Dr Kate Andrews, Executive Officer for NRM Regions Australia, the collective body for Australias 56 regional NRM organisations and also a consultant, a visiting lecturer at ANU’s Fenner school for Environment and Society, and a director on the Board of AgriFutures Australia.

Anne Williams runs a 2500 hectare no-till dryland operation near Coonamble and with her husband Ray and son Ben they have been replacing chemical fertilisers with organic amendments designed to help improve soil biodiversity, structure and water holding capacity since 2007.

Dr Neal Hughes is the Manager of the Climate and Water Economics section at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) and will be speaking on a range of water, climate and agricultural issues.

Many of you could be familiar with Colin Seis. He and his son Nicholas own the 200 hectare property ‘Winona’ which runs 4000 merino sheep that are managed using holistic planned grazing and cattle. Col will also be speaking and reflecting on his pasture cropping techniques developed over 20 years.

Stacey Avard from the Biodiversity Conservation Trust will be speaking about the Government’s new reforms and how plants and animals are protected in NSW.

Conference Master of Ceremonies will be Chris Russell, who is an agricultural scientist who has spent the last 30 years working in various technical and commercial roles in over 30 countries.

The event will be held at the beautiful Lazy River Estate, Dubbo. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea provided. You can register via the Central West Local Land Services website

For more information about anything in this article, please contact Central West Lachlan Landcare on 02 6862 4914, cwllpo@hotmail.com, facebook or our website at centralwestlachlanlandcare.org

 Until next week, happy Landcaring!