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Advocacy and Projects

The Regenerative Agriculture Alliance’s advocacy approach places the farmer as the primary partner – deeply valuing their lived experience and expertise.

The Alliance’s Government Policy Group (GPG) brings together a cross-section of leading agricultural membership groups, meeting four times a year.

The GPG exists to progress ideas, formulate recommendations for Government, and implement actions it deems important for the future of regenerative agriculture in Australia.

The first RAA meeting was held on 21 March 2019, with the second meeting held on 21 November 2019 on National Agriculture Day, both at SCU Lismore, with the leaders in regenerative agriculture from across the country attending. The purpose of these meetings was to develop recommendations to Government for key strategic, long-term solutions for rural and regional Australia’s environmental stability and economic prosperity; assisting rural Australia to be more resilient to changes in climate.

Our recommendations are:

1. Establish a national Regenerative Agriculture Advisory Group to work with the Minister
2. Deliver innovative, pro-active Government incentives schemes supporting regenerative agricultural practices
3. Develop a credible and cost-effective natural-capital accounting framework and environmental measurements
4. Introduce financial incentives for farmers to build and maintain carbon stocks through biodiversity, increasing soil carbon, tree cover and/ or ground cover
5. Recognise the relationship between soil health, plant health, animal health and human health.

Education Projects

In February 2020, Southern Cross University will be starting the first intake of the world’s first regenerative agriculture degree. The degree was championed by the Regenerative Agricultural Alliance (RAA) and members of its Industry Advisory Group.  RAA exists to improve the holistic health and wellbeing of Australian landscapes, farmers and communities through research, education and collaboration.

Extensive consultation was undertaken with Southern Cross University to develop a regenerative agriculture degree that builds ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking to improve agricultural resilience and address complex real-world challenges. Find out more about the degree.

 

Members include:

Regenerative Agriculture Mentorship Program (RAMP)

In 2021, the Regenerative Agriculture and Farming Together team was successful in applying for a NSW Government Environmental Trust Tier 2 grant. The grant supports the development of a state-wide mentoring program consisting of a number of knowledge hubs of mentors and mentees. The project will go for 3-years and have two cycles of mentors and mentees and:

• Participants will be invited to be involved from across NSW,
• Are based around agricultural industries, and
• Will enable groups to attend local face-to-face events to connect and share experiences and resources with each other.

The mentoring program aims to facilitate and support farmers to make the transformational change from traditional to regenerative agricultural principles and practices. As founding members of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance and the associated Industry Advisory Group, we will identify members to become mentors and match them with committed mentees. The stories of these ‘knowledge hubs’ will be documented and shared as case studies with our extensive, well-established networks to further promote regenerative agriculture adoption. Overall, the program aims to reduce the human-induced impacts of climate change through utilising environmental education in the agricultural industry as a critical enabler in transformative principle and practice change to significantly shift our future paradigm.

Read the Press Release