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February 2020

Chair of Soils for Life, Alasdair MacLeod (centre) with regen-ag practitioners Charlie Maslin, Deputy Chair (left) and Charles Massey, author of ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’ (right), at Bloomfield via Yass in February 2020.

It is a great honour to take the place of Michael Jeffery as Chairman of Soils For Life. Michael has been a tireless and visionary Chairman of the organisation since he founded it in 2011.

Back then, not many people had heard of Regenerative Agriculture and even fewer could explain what it meant. The early years of Soils For Life were spent helping to promote the early pioneers of Regenerative Agriculture and build the foundations for a movement which continues to gather momentum.

More recently, Michael has concentrated his activities on promoting his vision for how farmers can repair the Australian landscape with policy makers and those activities have now been rewarded by the Prime Minister agreeing to properly resource the office of the National Soil Advocate which Michael will lead.

These developments have been taking place at a time when Australian farmers have been struggling with some of the worst seasonal conditions in recent memory. Recent rains give hope that this long drought is at last coming to an end.

Soils For Life will be at the forefront of providing support and guidance for farmers who wish to learn more about regenerative solutions to managing their land. Now, more than ever, it is important that land managers give thought to how they might adjust their management practices to ensure they are better prepared for the next drought which will inevitably come.

The Soils For Life case study programme is just one tool that we will use to provide guidance for farmers who wish to make such adjustments, but we intend to build a much more extensive programme of support to ensure that farmers have access to a wide array of information and experts who will help them on their journey.

I look forward to working with the Soils For Life Board and Executive Team to build this programme over the coming months.

Alasdair MacLeod, Chairman

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2 Comments

  • John Hicks says:

    Regenerative agriculture is an integral and essential part of this whole programme.
    We desperately need handbooks for the different areas Answering:
    “Where would you start?
    What would be your detailed programme to regenerate your land beginning on day one, year one?
    What would you do?
    What would you not do?
    What biological brews would you apply?
    Where would you get them?
    How much would you use?
    Where would you place them relative to the seed?
    How many times in a season would you use them?
    What chemicals would it still be safe to use?
    What would be your fertiliser programme?
    How quickly would you reduce the rates?
    What do you expect the outcome to be this year?
    What do you do in years two, three etc?”
    What would you expect?

  • Thanks for the comment John. This is a really great idea to think about helping people access more specific information. Regards Kirsty (Soils For Life)