In the face of a changing climate, many farmers are looking to fill knowledge gaps that will help them adapt to future challenges and build the resilience of their farms, businesses and communities.
James Bresnehan, mixed farmer and President of the Coal River Products Association (CRPA), a grower group based in the Coal River Valley in Tasmania, is one of those farmers.
"Knowledge is power. The more informed we can be, the more sustainable our business is going to be, and the more enjoyable farming is going to be", he says.
James has built a strong working relationship with Alex Russell, Knowledge Broker at the TAS Farm Innovation Hub (the Hub), who works closely with the CRPA and other Tasmanian grower groups to understand what types of topics farmers are keen to learn about and upskill in. This is used to inform the Hub's Regional Learning Event series, one of the Hub's core activities.
"What we try and do at the Hub is work with partners so that there is actually a collaborative model of delivering information that goes to grower groups and individual farmers, to enable them not only to be prepared for future climate interventions, but also to develop and grow their businesses in all times" says Hub Director Sandra Knowles.
One recent learning event facilitated by the Hub saw climate scientist, Dr Tomas Remenyi, deliver a workshop to the CRPA. With an abundance of climate and other agronomic data available, farmers expressed that interpretation and application of this data can sometimes be overwhelming.
"They [the Hub] bring in experts like me to translate our scientific understanding into useful information that they [farmers] can take action on" said Dr. Remenyi.
"We went through how the different types of scientific inputs had different touchpoints in their operations on the farm, and then they could better understand which types of information they should be using for different types of decisions they were making."
The Regional Learning Events series has delivered workshops that focus on business resilience, as well as commodity-specific workshops to support farmers manage through dry times.
See how the TAS Farm Innovation Hub is helping farmers build drought and climate resilience via their Regional Learning Events series