Business | The Conscious Farmer

HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?

21 August 2015 / 0 comments

We often hear about how changing climate will affect future generations – our children and grandchildren. This is very true, but we should also realise that it is already affecting us – especially as farmers. Agricultural production is highly influenced by weather, so our businesses are likely to be one of the first affected by climate change (as it affects our weather). Information coming from Australia’s CSIRO (the federal government agency for scientific research) supports this. I learnt this and more when I spoke with Mark Howden of CSIRO recently.

What we often think of regarding climate change is an increase in temperature, and this is true with regard to overall climate and long term average temperatures, but climate change also has other effects on climate. Changes in climate have resulted in more erratic weather events that can affect our agricultural production and increase risk of crop loss. Such erratic weather events place crops at risk of damage; think frosts, drought, hail, intense storms, increased winds etc. Continue reading “HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?” »

CARBON TRADING – now more relevant to you all!

16 June 2015 / 0 comments

Carbon! I usually talk about how it helps our production and how to get more of it in the soil. There is however another aspect to carbon that I haven’t touched on yet. This is the opportunity for farmers to earn money from trading carbon – either storing carbon or reducing the emissions of carbon (and other greenhouse gases). For some, this may be adding extra income to their farm business, while for others the income might be an added bonus to putting carbon in the soil, which they know will benefit their production in many ways.

I don’t know about you, but in the evolution of the Carbon Farming Initiative in Australia (what the last Government called the agriculture component of carbon trading), I felt a bit like switching off from the politics involved with it. As a farmer, I felt – “Just give me something that’s easy to work with on-ground!” This is why I am grateful for people like Louisa Kiely of Carbon Farmers of Australia. Louisa has contributed to the hard work for us, to help get our industry to a point where there are now some usable aspects of the Australian Governments’ carbon reduction scheme. This is why I’ve chosen to speak with Louisa about where things are up to with carbon trading and the now called Emissions Reduction Fund. Continue reading “CARBON TRADING – now more relevant to you all!” »

A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MINDSET

2 February 2015 / 4 comments

If we want to be successful business people it’s not all just about doing the right thing in the paddock. We need to be good planners, good budgeters, etc, but something we often overlook is our mindset. The good thing about improving our mindset is that it not only improves our businesses, but also improves all aspects of our lives! Derek and I have been on a path of improving our mindset – and I suppose mindset is fairly apt to regenerative farming, because we are in essence regenerating our minds and this can have really great outcomes for our business.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that we only use 10% of our brain. Now I’m not sure if this is right, but what this is getting at is that we rely so much on our conscious minds and forget the role of our subconscious. (All of our teaching, schooling and universities are all aimed at developing the conscious mind). The subconscious mind is where our emotions come from (among other things), most of which are generated as a reaction to things around us, and are ideas and reactions formed from earlier life experiences. Some of these reactions will be positive and supportive while some of them hold us back. It is highly useful to be aware of these reactions when we are communicating and making business decisions. The tricky thing is, and what I’ve come to realise, is that we are rarely conscious of these reactionary emotions and THIS is what can make them difficult to identify and to change or improve, ultimately leading to an undermining of our success.
So we have to actually be more CONSCIOUS in the short term in order to re-train our subconscious in a more supportive manner. “Consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so that you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than being run by programming from the past.”¹ Continue reading “A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MINDSET” »

LET’S DIP OUR TOE IN THE WATER

6 November 2014 / 0 comments

If we want to grow our businesses and improve our yield/ profit/ fulfillment, we need to always be looking for a better way of doing things. It’s great to learn new ideas and become enthused about a new system, but if we don’t act then nothing changes. I’d like to encourage you to try something different this season. Or have you already tried something different on your farm recently? In trying something different I don’t necessarily want to use the word ‘trial’ as this tends to indicate multiple plots tested under the reductionist mentality – where one input is changed and the outcome or yield tested accordingly. With the complexities of nature’s systems, to alter one input and look at the effects sort of misses the point of many of the processes used in regenerative agriculture. The symbiosis created from changing several things can be of great benefit and missed in the reductionist scientific model.

Doing something different may mean you have to be a little brave. Continue reading “LET’S DIP OUR TOE IN THE WATER” »