Climate Smart Farm Planning

This course is perfect for those new to farming or anyone wanting to elevate their knowledge in climate smart farming and how to improve their natural capital for a more sustainable future.

Name of Project: Climate Smart Farm Planning 

Funded by: Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate Smart Agriculture Program

Partners:  

Timeframe: Current (2025–)

Status: Currently accepting EOIs for 2026 Participants

Project Manager: Kirby Leary

Project Summary

This comprehensive program is aimed at fast-tracking farmers’ learning by focusing on the main Natural Farming Assets (NFAs) (water, soil, biodiversity, pasture), how NFAs contribute to a successful farm business, poor management practices that threaten NFAs & strategies for improving & protecting NFAs for productivity benefits & climate resilience.

The 2025 program is currently underway and led by whole farm planning legend Pete Ronalds. The course is set to include several on-farm workshops focusing on natural asset management, a Stocksense workshop focusing on biosecurity and farmer health & safety, as well as a guided, whole-farm & action planning workshop. 

Each on-farm workshop will have one major theme (water, soil, biodiversity, pasture) but will demonstrate how the owner manages their natural capital within the farm business as a whole. Special focus will be on strategies being adopted to address & profit from climate change.

The owners represent a range of different approaches to NFA management (conventional, organic, regenerative) and enterprises (cattle, equine, pigs, sheep, wine, agroforestry) broadening the program’s appeal & giving participants more information on which to base their future decision-making.

Participants will tour each farm to see the hard infrastructure (fencing, yards, lanes, dams/troughs, sheds, stock-handling facilities etc) and NFAs, and how each element fits within & contributes to the business.

To fill out and EOI for 2026 click here

Course Highlights

2025

Our 2025 course began in August with a visit to Cape Liptrap to look at water management and an introduction to farm planning. During the farm tour we explored how the property owners worked towards their goal to maximize grazing potential while preserving and enhancing the underlying natural assets.

Over the following 5 sessions each week we focused on a new topic and explored a different farm. Property owners generously shared knowledge and stories about how they came to be successful and improve the health of their farms.

It’s been brilliant – I loved every session and got even more out of it than I expected, and I’m a flower farmer in a room full of cow and sheep farmers, so this is high praise. The duration and structure of each session, and Wednesday timing, was perfect for me.

Natasha

Course participant

This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust.