Well, I'm at the farm in Byron Bay
and this is one of the best examples of
successional agroforestry
On the east coast of Australia, in my opinion.
Today there's a course
It's the last day of a 12-week course
run by Evan and Bunya
It's all about how to grow food
in this successional agroforestry
multi-layered food forest system
Using the principle of succession, natural succession.
You just see walking through here
this amazing multi-layered and very organised
food forest maximized for for food production
and an economic
economically viably run
System just here.
It's just really incredible
My name's Bunya
and along with Evan
and some of the other guests tutors
We've been facilitating a 12-week course
a day a week, which is designed as a
a hands-on traineeship in agro-ecology
where we're sharing
Hands-on experiences in the living classroom
we've got here at The Farm
working with
15 students for the last 12 weeks
From various different backgrounds
some of which are currently land holders
that are looking at ways to increase their productivity
and diversity and build the
Integrity of their ecology on their farms
and a number of other people who are
kind of entry-level
coming in to learn about farming and
Throwing them straight in the deep end
and it's been an amazing group dynamic growing
to learn together and to work together every day
so a big focus of our production here
in the two acres we're working with
we're a couple of years established
with an agroforestry system
where we're evolving a
Conventional annual Market Garden system
into an integrated polyculture
Hi, my name's Kevin, Kevin Glencross,
I'm a Researcher
I'm interested in
the sort of systems that we're looking at here today
So this system here is a really interesting one
One of the things we're really looking to develop
are these multiple strata so what i'm doing here
we've got some young eucalypts
planted with bananas
and we've got things like coriander and eggplant.
So we've the whole range of plants
You wouldn't normally find growing together
But the idea with the Eucalypts
Generally Eucalypts and veggie gardens are seen as
sort of the antithesis of each other
but the Eucalypts here are
doing the job of creating a bit of microclimate initially.
So it just really it's been a hot dry season
a lot of these trees that actually have a bit of protection
are doing better than plants out in the open
The big thing is we're just committed to the doing and
really trying to engage more people are really wanting to
to do it also and
empowering empowering those people
as much as we can, that's the big thing
It's just that learning getting in with plants
doing that learning and actually knowing
that what I'm teaching can actually empower people then
With real sound advice and not stuff that I read
2020 will be running a few 12-week courses again.
Yeh landholders, students..
anyone wanting to really deepen
their experience
And really ground
ground in their theory
in this in the real practical
Doing of the process
It's all
Process based.
Yeah, anyone who
Just wants to hit the ground and get stuck into it, really.
that's the key people were looking for
So we can then learn from them in the long run too