PROTECTING OUR PRODUCTIVE SOILS

Summary: This project will engage and support farmers to build capacity to better manage hillslope erosion on mixed cropping farms and soil acidification on intensive grazing enterprises. The project will utilise awareness-raising and capacity-building workshops, demonstration trials on commercial farms, and one-to-one farmer support to achieve practice change on the ground and improve the sustainability of natural resource management across our productive landscapes.

Project Description: This project is about taking landholders through the process of change management, to better manage the threat of hillslope erosion by water and soil acidification to our productive soils. Beginning with increasing awareness and knowledge, the process then follows through to developing skills to better equip landholders to manage soil erosion and acidification. The final stage in the process is ultimately adopting a changed practice on the farm, with one-to-one support available to farmers ready to implement a changed practice to better manage these threatening processes. With this in mind, most awareness raising events and demonstration trials will occur during years 1-3 of the project, to provide a solid foundation of engagement in addition to on-ground resources to demonstrate and encourage various practice changes. Adoption of changed practices, being the final stage in the change management process, will occur mostly in the latter half of the project during 2021-23.

Regional Land Partnerships projects are supported by Cradle Coast Authority, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.