Our 2025 Property Management Planning workshop series in the Huon Valley has wrapped up for this year! The new and improved 2025 program was a great success, with 26 farmers from 15 farms across the Huon, Channel and Coal Valley attending. The five-workshop program was tailored to the needs of small producers and helped build their knowledge across a suite of property management topics and supported them to develop a personalised management plan.
Small farms have different needs to larger properties, and this program has been designed specifically for properties up to 100 hectares. The popularity of small farms in southern Tasmania, nestled within a landscape that still retains many areas of native bushland, means that this program is helping to build a network of cooperative land management strategies across broader production landscape.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Practical sessions on farm – such as soil, pasture and revegetation
- Farm Tour of Deep End Farm – looking at sustainable property management
- Hearing from a range of different networks that support small-scale production and sustainable land management
Participants heard from a range of experts on key land management topics, including agriculture and environment specialists, staff from NRE Tasmania’s Water Management Branch and Game Services Tasmania, and weed and NRM specialists from Huon Valley and Kingborough Councils. One of our participants also provided valuable insights from his on-farm experience of over 20 years and expertise in weed and fire management.
Our final workshop took us to Deep End Farm in Geeveston, where farm owner Dave Rolph shared lessons he’s learned on his journey to being a sustainable small-scale producer and his insights as a former PMP workshop participant. During his tour of the farm, Dave showed us some of the sustainable improvements he and his partner Cassandra have implemented, such as planting shelter belts for stock, creating biomass contour swales to slow water down and keep it on the farm and regenerative grazing approaches.
Soil and pasture experts including Jason Lynch from Pinion Advisory and Peter Ball from the Derwent Catchment Project provided useful management tips on strategically managing soils and improving pastures. Environmental rehabilitation specialist Axiel Meiss discussed the different methods employed to revegetate farms including how to propagate and utilise existing native plant seeds on your farm.
Our final workshop took us to Deep End Farm in Geeveston, where farm owner Dave Rolph shared lessons he’s learned on his journey to being a sustainable small-scale producer and his insights as a former PMP workshop participant. During his tour of the farm, Dave showed us some of the sustainable improvements he and his partner Cassandra have implemented, such as planting shelter belts for stock, creating biomass contour swales to slow water down and keep it on the farm and regenerative grazing approaches.
During our network session, participants found out more about the great initiatives and organisations in Tasmania that are helping farmers improve their resilience and sustainability and heard from SPROUT Tasmania, Landcare Tasmania, Regenerative Agricultural Network Tasmania (RANT), the Southern Tasmanian Association of Meat Producers, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy (and its Land for Wildlife program) and Resilient Farming Tas (part of Tas Farming Futures).
WHAT’S NEXT?
NRM South is running three more annual New Property Management Planning Programs, the next one is planned for the Coal Valley region in 2026. Watch our socials for more information coming in spring 2025!
This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program.