Sheep Farmer Rob Shares More

This is the 2nd half of Rob's Talk at Nourishing Australia's Event in Armidale.

Rob - Walcha Farmer talks about Health

Rob Blomfield from Walcha was one of the speakers at Nourishing Australia's event at Armidale NSW. Even though I have never met Rob he is a typical sheep producer passionate about both his land and his sheep.Over the next 2 days I will feature 2 videos of his talk about some decision he made about his health and how that changed his life.

Farmers Taking a Holistic Approach

Farming has always been a moving organism if you think about it, yet we have tended to farm in a linear fashion using methods that come from another environment.This can work for a while however eventually environment will win out, you cannot fight nature.
When Allan Savory came up with Holistic Management with decision making tools that reflected working in harmony with nature,he recognised we have many many balls in the air to manage at once.
I have over the last 15 years seen some quite amazing results for the biodiversity of the land,where farmers have taken on a Holistic approach.Today many of these farmers run a low cost very profitable business,yet they are building topsoil,increasing carbon,carrying capacity has increased and the people are living the life they love.

Over 20 years ago Terry McCosker of RCS introduced this concept through his 7 day "Grazing For Profit School",People like Bruce Ward and Brian Marshall introduced Allan's Holistic Training shortly after.Now there are also many others here in Australia teaching these concepts.
Here is a recent video produced by the Savory Institute that will give you some insight in to Holistic Management.

The Sheep Farmer & His Banker

First let me thank Jesse for comments on my choice of video posted last night,that video does not represent my views on how farmers should be perceived.The creator of the video however had some perceptions on farmers and I think it is always good to know what others are saying.
Sometimes however you will find I post the often weird off topic things just because......

Ok that said today I am posting a video that tells a story about a sheep producer at Moulamein and his relationship with his banker.Even though the video it was put together by a bank, there are some great things spoken as well as some great images into one sheep producer.

What is a Farmer ?

So in this Australian Year of the Farmer let's start with the defintion of a Farmer ; according to Wikipedia :
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain. A farmer might own the farmed land or might work as a labourer on land owned by others, but in advanced economies, a farmer is usually a farm owner.

My take on it is this every human on the planets is a consumer of food produced by a farmer, when it is the food they produced themselves then they are the farmer.Farmers make up a small demographic yet they feed 100% of the people on planet Earth.

So a Farmer is a "Food Producer" who not only feeds the world,he/she also manages most of the land resource on planet Earth.Farmers have great respect for the land and water resources and I like to think of farmers as caretakers of the resources for future generations.
Here is a short animated video of What is a Farmer :

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2012 Australian Year of the Farmer

In 2012, we celebrate the Australian year of the Farmer. What a great way to acknowledge the role farmers play in the life of Australia.They are stewards of the landscape, producers of food and fibre for the nation as well as many other countries.

Several years ago our landcare group at Ivanhoe embarked on a project to promote farmers to

city folks. The first year we spent 3 days in Sydney running small workshops for school kids.We were inspired enough to go back to the Sydney Royal Easter Show with a small theatre that held 16 people at a squeeze.The 8 minute show featured a slide show of the outback and was run by outback people.There were many conversations with people who stopped by, in fact we had 16,000 visitors go through that slide show which ran back to back.

We learnt many things which were different to our expectations. City folks showed nothing but interest and admiration for rural Australia and the people who live there.

What an opportunity we have to create awareness and relationships with the people who may not have had an opportunity to learn where their food comes from.

We have 12 months to plan what each of us might do to contibute to Australian Year of the Farmer. How will you celebrate the Year of the Farmer ?

Here is a great video promoting the year featuring Glenn McGrath.

If video stop/starts, press pause to let it load.

To read more visit the Year of the Farmer Website :
http://www.yearofthefarmer.com.au/