Jon Wright in the paddock. The Woodstock area farmer is looking forward to challenging ideas about farming this Wednesday.
Local cattle stud Coota Park Blue-E will host a Beef Field Day on Wednesday August 8 featuring a line-up of thought-provoking and topical talks. Organiser Jonathan Wright of Coota Park Blue-E said there is a variety of talks intended to stimulate and challenge the mind.
From conservation to animal behaviour, politics to mental health, the program includes eight talks on topics to get you thinking.
“It’s set up with 20 minute talks and 10 minute question time, so it’s about creating discussion, rather than having talk after talk,” Mr Wright said.
The field day will feature a talk by local Alison Osbourne of Grounded Consulting, titled ‘Call me a Greenie and I’ll thump you. Tell me I am NOT a conservationist and I’ll thump you. The quandary for the farmer - where do I fall’.
“Farmers may have originally been very threatened by the ideology and aggressive nature of the Greens and now it’s evolving that some of the greatest conservationists are farmers themselves,” Mr Wright said.
“Traditional conservationists had an opinion of what farmers were like and farmers had an opinion of what conservationists were like. Now we realise there’s a lot of common ground [in what they want to achieve].”
Alison Rutledge, who lives near Woodstock, will speak on the topic ‘Bridging the gap between dem city folk and we countrypreneurs’.
Ms Rutledge started ‘KT’s Farm Blog’, in which she follows what happens on their farm week to week, written from the eyes of her young daughter, called KT.
“She’s got that being used in schools all through the city so the city families and city schools check in each week and see what’s going on.”
The blog makes city residents more aware of issues challenging farmers and allows them to empathise with and grow their understanding of farmers.
Pip Job of the Little River Landcare Group will give a talk titled ‘Biodiversity Vs “The ARFwit” (The Anally Retentive Farmer)’.
Mr Wright said: “It’s just looking at the challenge farmers have in accepting and encouraging biodiversity while still having the challenge of what the neighbours think of them treating their farms like a garden, and being obsessed by pretty farming.”
A talk called ‘It takes a community to raise up a man’ by John Harper of the Mate helping Mate programme will deal with issues of mental health in the rural community.
The Coota Park Blue-E Beef Field Day is on Wednesday August 8 from 10am to 3pm at Coota Park. RSVP by August 6 2012 by calling Mr Wright on 0429 450 326 or 02 6345 0326, or emailing bluee@activ8.net.au