Agroecologist and soil fertility specialist David Hardwick will be the first speaker kicking things off at the Barossa Improved Grazing Group Conference – Building Resilience 2018. David, from Soil Land Food in Albury NSW, says with climate change and narrowing profit margins, graziers should look to their soils to improve the resilience of their business.
“It isn’t good enough these days to understand what’s going on above the ground, you also need to understand the fundamentals of soil health, from microbes to soil structure and soil chemistry,” he said.
“More and more people realise the importance of soil health. The next step is to understand how you can go about improving the health of your soils.”
Mr Hardwick will also be conducting a pre-conference workshop on Understanding Soil Health, where in a practical way he will cover why it is so important for graziers to focus on soil health, and some key principles to help achieve healthy and productive soils in any landscape. Register your interest for the workshop to hear more.
We’ll also be digger deeper into combating soil acidity to improve soil health with Brian Hughes. Brian is a PIRSA Rural Solutions principal soil and land management consultant working and sustainable agriculture subject matter expert. He has led several soil acidity projects including GRDC, Landcare and NRM projects addressing acidity and treatment options in the northern Mount Lofty Ranges.
Register now to hear from David and Brian, along with our keynote speaker Mark Aiston and our other subject matter experts Peter Toome, Mark Branson and Rehn Freebairn, with our own technical experts Georgie Keynes and Brett Nietschke.
Building Resilience is supported by Meat and Livestock Australia, and the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board and the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Programme and the NRM Levies.
