Ecological Farming Handbook
Regenerative agriculture is the best way to grow. The challenge has been how to do it.
In the Ecological Farming Handbook, by identifying the fundamental principles underpinning the successful regenerative practices used around the world, the message is straightforward - bring back Nature's free ecological services to our farms. These are the ecological functions - nutrient cycles, water cycles, solar energy capture, and beneficial connections provided by functioning agroecosystems.
Bringing back these FREE ecological services you'll:
- Reduce your fertiliser, pest control and other input costs
- Boost production in good times and get less set-backs when the weather plays up
- Gain opportunities increase your income streams growing additional products within your production systems
Understanding this 'eco-logic', you'll have the know-how to develop techniques that work well for your unique growing conditions and production systems. Established regenerative practices will become the source and inspiration for your ideas, rather than recipes to follow.
What’s more, you'll supply vital ecosystem services – biodiversity, carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, and reduced fertiliser, pesticide and sediment runoff. Not because you have been lucky enough to receive a grant or incentive payment (although these are always useful) – because these services are supplied naturally as by-products from repairing the ecological infrastructure on your farm.
Are you ready to try this easier way to grow?
Wiro Bound Printed Version
Price: AU $78 - including delivery
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Pay with credit card or PayPal.
The Eco-logical Farming Handbook is sold by and securely delivered via FastSpring. A publication from Learning from Nature, Hill Top Farm - working with Nature Pty Ltd
ISBN 9780646987149 26/4/2019
Licensed PDF
Price: AU $34
Sales tax or VAT may apply.
Pay with credit card or PayPal.
The Eco-logical Farming Handbook is sold by and securely delivered via FastSpring. A publication from Learning from Nature, Hill Top Farm - working with Nature Pty Ltd
ISBN 9780646987149 26/4/2019
Need more information about the approach to regenerative agriculture used in the Ecological Farming Handbook? Then read on…
Why this Ecological Approach to makes Sense
Leave your tractor in the shed. Give the job of making good soil structure to the experts – your soil organisms.
Save money on commercial pest controls with a team of technologically advanced, highly motivated insect and bird pest controllers.
Give the microbes and other organisms in your soil ecosystem the job of managing your fertiliser regime.
Sustainably intensify your production by growing more with extra solar panels.
Ecological Farming Handbook - benefit from Nature's FREE Ecological Services
While a small number of farmers around the world benefit from using traditional practices maintaining functioning agroecosystems, the majority of us are not so lucky. Substituting for these free ecological services by cultivating soil, applying fertilisers, and pest controls has become the norm – virtually everybody does it!
This interventionist approach defines current ‘conventional agriculture’, whether we use ‘chemical’ or ‘organic’ inputs.
When we realise what we can achieve by getting our ecosystems functioning again and understand the principles of how to do it, we break this ‘intervention habit’.
Most agricultural soils, for example, don’t show the customary signs of soil degradation – salinity, erosion and compaction, but are degraded because they lack functioning nutrient recycling systems and soil structures promoting plant growth.
Carbon and organic matter in the soil are useful metrics to track our progress, but we need to get our ecosystems ‘tuned up and running’ for these to improve!
Ecological Farming Handbook - a Reliable Pathway to Follow
Using this ‘eco-logical’ approach to regenerative agriculture, we address the root causes of our problems and use the ecological principles to design and trial effective techniques, learn and share our experiences, and respond constructively to newly emerging issues and threats. Established regenerative practices like cover cropping and agroforestry designs become sources and inspiration for ideas, rather than recipes to follow.
Nature provides the technology, and we combine the expertise she has developed over 400 million years, with human ingenuity, to grow nutritious food in economically viable ways.
Suburb Value
With the 'Eco-logical Farming Handbook' you get much more than a repackaged list of regenerative practices.
You benefit from over 12 years of research clarifying and validating the ecological principles underpinning successful regenerative techniques and translating this 'eco-logic' into an easily digestible grower-friendly format.
With the know-how to repair your ecological functions, you can use the 'Inventory of Tools', together with the links to videos showing other growers' experiences, to help you get your agroecosystems 'up and running' again and firing on all cylinders!
Get your Ecological Farming Handbook
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ISBN 9780646987149
Lower production costs
Colin Seis has reduced his production costs by 75% by getting his nutrient cycling system functioning again. He uses 70% less fertiliser on crops and hasn’t fertilised his pasture for over 30 years. Yet his soil tests show increases in major and micro plant nutrient availability.
Drought-proofing
We're improving the water cycle on our farm by combining Holistic Planned Grazing with Silvopasture.
See the benefits in our dry season. The legume trees provide extra forage and nitrogen fertiliser. Our pasture is productive and drought-proofed.
Pest-resistance
Hydroponic growers, Graham and Fiona Grant used to regularly spray synthetic pesticides. Now they only use organic pest controls as a back-up.
They have created 'functional biodiversity' by providing suitable food plants and habitat to maintain populations of beneficial insects.
"Thank you so much for writing your book. It is a most concise, yet comprehensive guide to regenerative food production systems I have come across. I have had contact with several of the people referred to in your book, but it is difficult to bring all of the different ideas and practices together. The Handbook does that brilliantly."
Peter Stray, President of the Geelong Landcare Network, Victoria, Australia.
"This beautifully Ecological Farming Handbook book presents really practical ‘hands-on’ information for farmers wishing to improve both the overall productivity and the sustainability of their land.
Dr Seabrook draws on the experiences of farmers around the world and her own at Hill Top Farm in tropical Australia, where she is transforming degraded land into fertile pastures and multi-layered production systems. The effects are dramatic.
She emphasises the need for individual farmers to think about what they want to accomplish, and then use eco-logical principles to achieve it.
The Eco-logical Farming Handbook shows us how to work with nature to improve soil fertility, minimise pests and diseases, reduce the impacts of drought and so to maximise production - all this, without reliance on expensive agrichemicals.
This farmer-friendly, wildlife-friendly, and climate-friendly approach is applicable around the globe from resource-poor smallholders to large-scale enterprises."
Prof Roger Leakey, Vice President of International Tree Foundation, former Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Development at JCU Cairns, and former Director of Research at The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).
"Wendy Seabrook is on the money when it comes to regenerative agriculture. Her teachings and advice are being shown to markedly improve lands used for farming and cropping. I especially enjoyed reading her 'Eco-logical Farming Handbook' where every page is full of information that creates more 'wow moments' than I thought possible! A great read."
Charles Alder
CVO / CEO EcoForce Australia,
Co Founder of Rural Aid
"Extraordinary."
Jessica Peace, Organic vegetable producer, UK.
"The great thing about the Eco-logical Farming Handbook - we are on a journey and understand where we want to go."
Martin Lines, UK Chair, Nature Friendly Farming Network.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will this approach work in my climate?
Farmers from the cold north of Scotland to Africa's hot, sultry tropics and arid landscapes use this ecological approach. The ecological principles are the same. Tools, techniques and species differ as growers adapt these practices to their climate.
Does the size of my property matter?
Size doesn't matter. Smallholders, market and community gardeners, large-scale crop and grazing operations improve their soils and reduce crop losses by repairing their ecological infrastructure.
Will the 'eco-logic' work with what I grow?
Yes, the fundamental principles are applicable whatever your climate and production system. There are orchardists, dairy farmers, market gardeners, grain producers, grazers, and even hydroponic growers already getting amazing results.
Will my yields drop?
Farmers often experience higher and more reliable yields. With less impacts from pests and diseases and fewer crop losses during tough times. They also create opportunities to increase their income streams by stacking new enterprises within their production systems.
Why I am passionate about getting this Ecological Farming Handbook to farmers
"I've farmed and worked with farmers for over 30 years, but do so now by learning from Nature."
"It's crazy to ignore millions of years of innovation, particularly as Nature has carried out research in every climate and growing condition on the planet!
It amazes me that I didn't realise earlier how many jobs we do, and fertilisers, pest controls and other inputs are unnecessary when we get our ecosystems functioning again. But then virtually everyone was doing the same; believing that it was impossible to grow food without these interventions.
We didn't realise what we had lost. Take a look at any healthy natural ecosystem in your region. Does anyone need to spread mulch, compost and other bio-fertilisers, control pests, weed or mow?
Valuing Nature for what we can learn, and combining this wisdom with human ingenuity, we get our farms' ecological functions working again.
It's eco-logical! And the most powerful tool we have to solve the climate and ecological emergency."
Reduce fertiliser costs – feeding your plants with a functioning nutrient recycling system
Boost production - growing more photosynthetic panels
Drought and water-proof your farm – with a functioning water cycle
Reduce labour and pest control costs - creating functional biodiversity and other beneficial connections
Create opportunities to sustainably intensify your production
Wiro Bound Printed Version
Price: AU $78 - including delivery
Sales tax or VAT may apply.
Pay with credit card or PayPal.
The Eco-logical Farming Handbook is sold by and securely delivered via FastSpring. A publication from Learning from Nature, Hill Top Farm - working with Nature Pty Ltd
ISBN 9780646987149 26/4/2019
Licensed PDF
Price: AU $34
Sales tax or VAT may apply.
Pay with credit card or PayPal.
The Eco-logical Farming Handbook is sold by and securely delivered via FastSpring. A publication from Learning from Nature, Hill Top Farm - working with Nature Pty Ltd
ISBN 9780646987149 26/4/2019