#Strongwomen. "I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful – for all of it." Kristin Armstrong
Having the courage to be a voice for things that matter to you can be liberating .
Finding a safe space to find your tribe and have the confidence to have conversations with people who have diverse views can be scary.
Its also an opportunity to learn how to have polite discourse. We are the product of our life experiences and learning to acknowledge the emotion, be curious and invite joint problem solving is a rewarding journey.
I am still a work in progress.
“Freedom of speech does not give you libellous freedom. Trolls, stalkers, haters, and bullies all need to check themselves — social media is not and never has been a place to threaten or libel — and if people are using it that way (and have no doubt, they are), they need to do some serious reflection as to why they are behaving that way.” Source
They have different motivations for their choices, different needs, and different career and life goals.
I am also a volunteer and I know its human to want to feel appreciated
I also know fair is not equal and the world does not always make it easy for people to feel valued for what they do.
For the last six weeks I have been struggling with a choice that has to be made.
My number one priority is that choice ensures that the people who are doing the heavy lifting on behalf of our organisation are being valued.
I looked forward to me making fair decisions that value the people I value.
I also know that if all participants in the conversation are going to move beyond where we are, we have to be willing to look towards a new future and what each participant needs to get there.
“The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations.” Kwame Christian
Today I would like to express gratitude for the people and organisations we work with that are committed to genuine relationships
Farmers are in a unique position, everybody who eats is a customer. If farmers were customer focused what could they change about the way they engage with agricultural education in schools ?
I was a kid who spent most of my time in the classroom looking out the window wondering when I was going to be inspired. Its been a joy for me to find myself in a position to design and be part of a team that delivers agricultural education programs that begin by asking students what they want to learn about
In 2020 what they want to learn about can be put into six categories.
I love asking the teachers what inspired their students choices. People can have a big impact. In Queensland the choice for schools to investigate dairy is being driven by the dedication of a young dairy farmer called Brian Cox ( if only the dairy industry could clone Brian)
When you ask young people to share with you what they care about its easy to understand why they want to take a deep dive into water (and sustainable fashion)
The interest in peri-urban agriculture varies depending on where the school is located and often what agricultural education programs they have participated in, in the past. The dairy industry has a lot to be grateful for in the work of John Hutchison and Deanne Kennedy
Investigating careers in agriculture is (in the main) being driven by passionate agriculture teachers and students who feel agriculture as a subject is highly undervalued by the education system and they want to see it get the same respect as other science subjects such as physics and chemistry
Farmers are in a unique position, everybody who eats is a customer. If farmers were customer focused what could they change about the way they engage with agricultural education in schools ?
Australia is the hottest, driest inhabited continent. So dry 35% of our landscape is classified as desert
If Twitter is a benchmark, there is no shortage of people with opinions on what we should not grow
I am the program designer of an initiative that is building a smarter agriculture sector through the next generation.
We see people as agriculture’s greatest resource and our programs are supporting agriculture’s succession plan by:
Identifying and training agriculture’s emerging leaders who we call Young Farming Champions. We provide our Young Farming Champions with a smorgasbord of opportunities to apply what they learn and multiply their impact.
Our work with schools has shown us that young Australians are highly capable of solving tomorrows problems today. In 2020 the foundation principle of The Archibull Prize model is inviting students to identify agricultural issues important to them and their region, spend three to six months doing a deep dive into their identified issue and putting their solution forward to our judges in the form of a Sustainability Action Project report and as an artwork.
Part of our organisation’s commitment to the students and teachers is to collate the latest research on their area of investigation and connect them with experts in the field
Agriculture can be incredibly grateful for the gaps in documented research the student’s area of investigations have highlighted in 2020. The big one being peri-urban agriculture. Australia is the most urbanised country in the world. 89% of Australians live in our cities. Most of those urban areas are located on our most productive soils and it appears no-one has done a significant body of research on how we can support dairy farming on our urban fringes.
The other interesting topic that is proving challenging for me is Regenerative Agriculture. It is a term that means everything and nothing. It is a farming concept all farmers aspire to. Everyone wants to build organic matter and water holding capacity in their soils. It is not new. Once Australian farmers realised that European farming principles did not suit our fragile soils our farmers have been looking for better ways to farm. There is no one size fits all. To learn from the experts and each other ( 9 out of 10 farmers learn from each other) our leading farmers come together in producer groups across the country
To show the students the diversity of farming systems and landscapes and how farmers are learning from each other and experts I invited farmers to share with me the Best in the Business Grass Roots organisations (with websites) they belong to. Here is my work in progress list
Sustainable Farming Systems for High Rainfall Areas
“Is the spring coming?” she said. “What is it like?”… “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Meet Penelope. She is a petite little thing. She likes to climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
She likes to play peekaboo and wink at me through the fork in the lemon scented gum. She maybe the centrepiece but it is the frame- the bark on the tree that reminds us “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Picture perfect in paradise this morning The cows, the ocean ,sunrise and the Chinese fringe flower in full bloom and no filter #lovewhereilive
I have always wanted to be a better person than the person I am. I have found I am not alone.
I am grateful to have found a tribe of young people who wanted to learn how to be the best version of themselves they can be and had the courage to start a movement to pay it forward.
One thing I have learnt is the importance of starting where people are at . If you want to have community impact then help them identify their wants and needs (collect data) go on a journey together, experiment, collect more data, tweak, experiment and signpost success.
Each year young people’s desire to “Learn how we can all be kinder to each other” is moving closer to the top of the list.
To help teachers empower them to do this we reached out to our international brains trust.
This beautiful suggestion is inspired by Dale Carnegie
Supporting students in their drive to make the world a kinder place
Invite each student in the class to share a two-minute story of a time in their life they remember when some-one has been incredibly kind to them and how it had affected them.
Then ask the students to identify themes from the stories.
Follow this by asking them to identify the kindest person they know and what qualities/characteristics they think this person has that show they are kind.
Ask the students to share these qualities/characteristics on the whiteboard or similar.
Then ask the students
“Now that we have all been inspired by stories of kindness how can we as individuals bring more kindness into the world.”
Invite them to put forward their ideas
Our team is looking forward to the teachers and students feedback on this idea because we know the best way to drive change is to role model and signpost the behaviour you want to see
We can all be role models. I am personally looking forward to the day politicians become disciples to the theory of change and the concept of signposting the social norms we can all be proud of.
The recent Primary Industries Education Foundation survey of students found:
*59% of students learn what they know about food and fibre from their teachers.
* Media and family/friends are also significant influencers of students.
At Picture You in Agriculture we also survey teachers and our research shows that young people who hold very strong opinions about animal welfare and environmental stewardship get their strong opinions and images and perceptions from the media.
The language that farmers use in the media and the animal wellbeing and environmental stewardship policies they align themselves with are pivotal to maintaining consumer trust.
It is also pivotal that the politicians who claim to represent farmers give very serious thought to the language they use.
I am 100% confident that every farmer in Australia wants the best outcomes for koalas as much as every Australian who wants to leave a legacy for our children we can all be proud of.
Smart farming means nurturing the landscape that feeds and clothes us and finding the delicate balance required to share it with our unique plants and animals
The Primary Industries Education Foundation (PIEFA) recent survey results of young people and their knowledge of the origins of the food they eat and the natural fibres they use suggest we may need a new roadmap for agricultural education in Australia.
Agriculture has been documenting the problem for a long time and the results from his survey appear to show little change in knowledge of the paddock to plate process since the 2011 PIEFA survey.
What could a successful customer centric business model for agricultural education look-like?.
Agriculture is a business so let us have a look at best practice business principles
Find out what customers want and how they want to buy it.
Debate and adjust your offering to better match what customers want.
Align your business model to how your customers want to buy. Don’t start from how you want to sell. Start with a new understanding of the real customer need, their search process in finding you and their most desired learning model
What does success look like?
If you are a wool producer or a cotton grower would a program that achieves this excite you?
or this
If you want to raise awareness of the diversity of careers in agriculture would a program that achieves this excite you?
This result is particularly interesting as the PIEFA survey (see page 16) noted that according to their survey “Agronomist was the most poorly understood career and many students would not be exposed to this job title although it is significant in broadacre cropping industries.” It would appear from our program impact studies there is great merit is showing young people who they can be in agriculture.
If your want to get teachers excited about careers in agriculture would a program that achieves this excite you?
Who is already doing it well?
The only way to know who is doing it well is for industry to measure the impact it is having in schools. As the PIEFA survey shows its time to measure OUTCOMES in preference to OUTPUTS
Would it be smart to work with the people already doing it well and help them multiply their impact?
This is a no brainer and there is no shortage of people/organisations already showing huge success. Time to signpost those people
Some examples include:
A great collaborative model of aligning your business with what your customer wants to buy are the industries who are building partnership with the Centre of Excellence in Agriculture located at Western Sydney University.
If you want to engage teachers, invite teachers to help you design your offering. I have personally found working with teachers a very rewarding process.
Being customer orientated is a mantra for Australian Wool Innovation (AWI). Understanding what young people care about and want to learn about has led them to create a new series of resources on the eco-credentials of wool and a series of soon to be available factsheets on the following on Microplastics & biodegradability, Natural capital and Greenhouse Gas accounting
AWI will also shortly be releasing as series of great case studies around wool producers that use restorative land management practices and how that positively affects the environment. You will find them shortly on their Learn About Wool site
A mega shout out from me to the farmers in Western Australia behind the new AGZero2030 initiative. As the PIEFA survey shows young people see acting on climate change as a high priority and the AGZero2030 team is setting the bar showcasing what WA Farmers are doing
Should the world of agriculture be concerned about these statistics? • As per the 2011 study, 30% indicated yoghurt is made from something other than animal product. • One in six students did not know that bacon and scrambled eggs are animal products. • One in four students do not know that leather shoes are made from animals • Over 30% of students did not know that books or pasta are made from plant material. • Over 60% of students did not know that denim cotton used to make jeans is a plant material.
“The mobile phone is the most complex engineering feat on the planet. You don’t need to know how it works to value it”
Perhaps another question we could ask ourselves is what outcomes do we want from agricultural education? Is knowledge of the paddock to plate process what we want to monitor and evaluate? What else could be more important?
What I know is young people are very interested in learning how to ensure that the safe, affordable, nutritious food our farmers are producing is getting to ALL the people who need it. We can all be very proud this is front of mind for young Australians. Read their stories here
Success will come from a focus on a bottom up approach driven, informed by the wants and needs of farmers and teachers and a genuine desire to collect data, experiment, tweak and signpost success
Its biodiversity month. I think it might be a very good idea if we make it biodiversity decade as I am VERY embarrassed to say Australians can lay claim to being the worst global environmental vandals in the last 200 years. Read all the bad news here and see the statistics here
Australia has experienced the largest documented decline in biodiversity of any continent over the past 200 years. Under the EPBC Act, more than 50 species of Australian animals have been listed as extinct, including 27 mammal species, 23 bird species, and 4 frog species. The number of known extinct Australian plants is 48. Australia’s rate of species decline continues to be among the world’s highest, and is the highest in the OECD Environmental Performance Index
Recent natural disasters including drought, the bushfire crisis and flooding have further damaged this continent’s fragile biodiversity.
The river is like our refrigerator that keeps fresh the meat. The forest is like our drug store that has our medicines. It is like a supermarket with all of the food and things we need. Why would we poison our water or clear the forest? Paiakan, a Kayapo Indian, Quoted in Knudtson and Suzuki, Wisdom of the Elders, 1992
Australian farms have an important role to play in improving and protecting biodiverse ecosystems and its pivotal the sector strike that delicate balance of improving environmental outcomes while concurrently remaining profitable and increasing climate resilience to meet growing demand. You can learn more about what farmers and the agriculture sector are planning here
There are simple things we can all do and its starts with awareness.
Lets talk about it more. For example
Its biodiversity month and our surveys have show over 50% of Australians have heard of the term but aren’t sure what it means.
I have been working in this space for 15 years and I had no idea that our track record over the last 200 was so abysmal so lets talk about it more.
2. We can stop squabbling about it. We can say NO to it being used as a political football. Its not a left and right wing issue. Caring for the environment means you care about a massive part of what makes Australia unique and it makes economic sense. Smart people protect their waterways and nurture the landscape that feeds us
The National Party environmental vandals were also happy to keep the message simple. In NP terms, protecting the environment means Left wing radical greenies running the country, losing your jobs and being forced to give up your ute. Source
The Federal Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Streamlining Environmental Approvals) Bill 2020 is environmental vandalism in the extreme. It completely ignores Professor Graeme Samuel AC’s interim recommendations to accompany changes to the Act with stringent national standards and an independent regulator. And it hands decision-making to state and territory governments who have shown time and time again to be conflicted and incapable of protecting the environment. Source
3. And we can all show leadership. Does leadership get any better than this?
59% of students learn what they know about food and fibre from their teachers.
