Mid Lachlan Landcare
supporting sustainable agriculture and restoring the environment
Visiting students experience local food production
Year 12 food technology and hospitality students from Brigidine College in Randwick spent three days this week touring the Cowra region learning about different types and scales of food production. Students were able to meet the farmers, ask questions and even taste their produce during a packed itinerary visiting a holistically managed sheep grazing property, an organic farm that specialises in wine, olives and figs, a high production vegetable farm, a dairy, olive processors and the Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange. Our local producers shared their knowledge and gave personal insights into how they’re managing their land and resources to improve productivity and farm health into the future.
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- Wooly explains integrated pest management used on organic figs at Rosnay Organic
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- Olives ready for bottling at Rosnay Organic
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- Ed explains how cover crops return organic matter to the soil at Mulyan
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- Spanish onions being harvested at Mulyan
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- Cows line up for milking at Yarallah Dairy
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- La Barre Olive Oil from Billimari Olive Processors
John Holland CRN Partnership Conserving and Improving Squirrel Glider Habitat
Mid Lachlan Landcare recently partnered with John Holland Country Regional Network to undertake threatened Squirrel Glider conservation works along the non-operational rail line between Cowra and Demondrille in Central West NSW. The project will provide additional denning and nesting sites using artificial nest boxes and will include planting of mid and understorey shrubs, particularly Acacia (wattle) species, to improve foraging resources. Seed is currently being collected locally from roadsides and remnants from Cowra to Monteagle.
Spotlighting to detect Squirrel Gliders began a few weeks ago after site scoping identified a number of suitable locations. Then, one warm night during late November we hit Squirrel Glider gold! Two individuals were identified in the spotlight beam.
This site will now be the focus of many of the on-ground works scheduled for early 2015. Watch this space!
Eat Local Dinner Event – supporting our sustainable producers
Mid Lachlan Landcare’s inaugural Eat Local dinner event held in Cowra last week was a great success, celebrating and bringing together a local network of sustainable producers that aim to improve their land while keeping their businesses productive and profitable. The Oxley Food and Wine Bar hosted the event, incorporating into their menu locally grown, grass fed lamb and beef.
Guest speakers Andrew Wooldridge and Scott Hickman both provided inspiring talks that highlighted how important it is to value and respect our productive land and environment. Mr Wooldridge is an organic farmer from Canowindra and experienced soil scientist with the Department of Primary Industries. His talk provided a global context, giving the audience insight into how the human race throughout the ages have put continuous pressure on their lands to produce food and fibre often leading to deforestation, land degradation, erosion and an ultimate decline in living standards.
Mr Hickman highlighted the important role regenerative agriculture has to play within our natural environment for the wider community through clean water and healthy soils. He talked about his personal journey in adopting holistic management and the positivity he’s experienced during his facilitation of a local grazing mentoring project called “Growing the Grazing Revolution”, which supports landholders during their transition to improved grazing management.
Mid Lachlan Landcare will continue leading the way in supporting local, sustainable agriculture. “Our aim is to continue delivering “Growing the Grazing Revolution” and help our landholders with any challenges they may meet along the way,” said Vanessa Cain, Support Officer with Mid Lachlan Landcare. “We’d also like to build community awareness so people can make choices about the products they’re purchasing. There’s opportunity here to market a product that’s special not only in terms of its agricultural and environmental benefits but also socially.”
The success of the evening wasn’t only about the great turnout. The positivity in the room was unmistakeable – the perfect combination of a group of passionate and dedicated locals within the relaxed atmosphere of The Oxley.
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- Eat Local Guests
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- Eat Local Guests
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- Eat Local Guests
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- Andrew Wooldridge
Squirrel Glider surveys turn up gliders and wildflowers
Our spring Squirrel Glider surveys have just been completed with some new nests and beautiful gliders recorded in the nest boxes. Thanks to our volunteers this season – Marc and Dave, both Senior Threatened Species Officers with Office of Environment and Heritage, Tracee and Ruth from Kangarooby Landcare and Mikla from Young District Landcare. Thanks also to Maurice who showed off his climbing skills shifting nest boxes in some very large trees.
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- Glossodia major
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- Marc and Dave from OEH use the snake eye camera
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- Orchid
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- Tracee and Ruth checking nest boxes
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- Maurice climbing a white box tree
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- Squirrel Glider in nest box
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- Creamy Candles
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- Dillwynia
Livestock handling school in Canowindra on ABC Rural’s Country Hour
Growing the Grazing Revolution’s facilitator Scott Hickman recently attended a livestock handling school in Canowindra with dog trainer Neil McDonald. Listen the audio on ABC Rural’s Country Hour here
Squirrel Glider Field Day
Mid Lachlan Landcare and Young District Landcare collaborated recently for the Squirrel Glider Field Day held at Crowther NSW (between Cowra and Young). The field day coincided with National Threatened Species Day held each year on September 7th to commemorate the death of the last Tasmanian Tiger held in Hobart Zoo in 1936. A woodland nature walk at Clover Leigh Golf Club provided an engaging and beautiful location for the day where 120 students from five primary schools attended to learn about local threatened species including how a nest box program is providing alternative habitat for squirrel gliders, and how to identify and monitor superb parrots with the Office of Environment and Heritage’s threatened species team. Students also had an amazing up-close wildlife experience with the Zoomobile from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.
Wattle Day Walk
A beautiful walk and talk organised recently by Young District Landcare showcased an array of wattle (Acacia) species, many in all their golden glory. We learnt about the important ecological role of wattles, ate wattle seed biscuits, busted some wattle myths, and even received our own wattle tree to plant at home. What a relaxing way to spend the day!
School Visit
Visiting agriculture students from Bede Polding College and Nagle College experienced sustainable local production in Cowra and Canowindra recently.
The group visited a number of local properties including a mixed cereal and livestock farm that is addressing salinity issues through implementation of landscape management, a productive holistically managed grazing enterprise, and an olive producer that conducts on-site processing.
Students also got to experience the love from working dog ‘Cherry’!
Cherry the Kelpie
Local site selections for frog surveys
Amelia from CSU, has spent the week selecting sites in the mid Lachlan in order to conduct frog surveys this coming spring. For her PhD she is looking at environmental factors that determine occupancy and breeding activity, and her work will help to inform future management activities. She’s looking for a few
Amelia from CSU, selecting sites in the mid Lachlan to conduct frog surveys
more sites within 30-40 km of Forbes. Contact Mid Lachlan Landcare if you can help or would like more details about her project.
Cranbury, Cudal, Cargo area grazing meeting
Cranbury/Cudal/Cargo grazing meeting with Andrew Wilson from Linert
The Cranbury, Cudal, Cargo area grazing meeting had a good turnout this week with Andrew Wilson from Linert providing great information and answering lots of questions on animal nutrition.
Mat Pearce also demonstrated how his easy and cost effective electric fencing is helping him achieve more recovery time across his property.
We were also happy to welcome representatives from SoilsforLife, a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates positive and sustained change on how we manage our landscape.
Mid Lachlan Landcare 