Tired of battling pests and diseases?
Create a pest-resistant landscape for your farm and garden
Create a pest resistant landscape for your garden and farm
It's disheartening putting so much effort into our gardens and farms, only to get our fruit and veggies destroyed by some sort of pest or disease.
Commercial pest controls are available, but they are not cheap. It's also often difficult to know which ones to use - there are so many different products, bugs and diseases...
Come to our one-day workshop - ‘Create a pest-resistant landscape for your farm and garden’ and you'll
- Reduce your pest control costs
- Get more reliable rewards for your efforts
- Grow healthy food for your family, instead of feeding the bugs
by creating your own pest resistant landscape.
You'll also have the joy of bringing Nature back to your garden and farm again!
Who will benefit?
Experienced farmers and gardeners and and new growers. The type and size of the property doesn't matter - back yard growers, community gardeners, hobby farmers and large scale commercial growers all benefit.
Market Garden at The Eden Project, England
With standard practices relying on 'conventional' or organic pest control techniques we're stuck on a treadmill of continuous inputs. Developing pest resistant landscapes involves putting in some initial hard work, but there after life gets easier...
"There are lots of beneficial insects that provide pest control services, and these natural pest control services have been estimated at about $400 billion annually globally"
Dr Nancy Schellhorn, CSIRO, Australia
"Nature has already provided many of the tools needed to successfully combat agricultural pests"
Dr Miguel A. Altieri, United States
why this ecological approach makes sense ….
Have you ever asked yourself – why do we spend so much time and money trying to stop pests destroying our food plants when we don’t we need to control pests in natural areas?
Unfortunately the environments we have created to grow food don't benefit from checks and balances provided by the diversity of beneficial connections in natural ecosystems.
Relying on commercial pest controls and biological control agents is our band-aid solution. It's become the norm.
The good news is that it doesn’t need to be this way. Researchers and innovative growers are finding practical ways to reduce pest and disease problems naturally by creating pest resistant landscapes.
At the workshop participants will learn about the different techniques being used and will design a pest resistant landscape for their properties that:
- Doesn't create extra work
- Is appropriate for the property size – from back yard to commercial farms
- Builds onto the existing strengths of their landscape.
Participants don’t need to be experts to create pest resistant landscapes, but experts - top scientists and successful food growers from around the world – have contributed to developing the design guidelines we use.
story behind Learning from Nature
Hi, I am Dr Wendy Seabrook, the CEO of Learning from Nature.
When I bought Hill Top Farm, I wanted to find an easier way to grow. I had been growing organically for many years but was intrigued by the benefits innovative growers were getting by improving ecological functions in their gardens and farms.
These growers were reducing their costs, by bringing Nature’s free ecological services back. As an Ecologist, it seemed the logical way to grow.
My challenge was how to do it?
I knew I needed to find tools and techniques that would work well for my growing conditions and production systems.
What started out as an exploratory journey for myself, became a bigger project to make it easier for other growers to join the innovative farmers and gardeners already obtaining amazing benefits from using this ecological approach.
I am excited by the innovative ideas and rate of change, as people realise the benefits that come from restoring Nature’s free ecological services.
practicalities ….
I partner with community groups, schools and regional organisations to deliver these workshops.
Partners generally have extensive networks and media contacts for promotions, and organise registration, the venue and catering.
My role is developing and delivering content relevant to the participants. I can help by supplying text, images and videos for promotional tools like posters, fliers, Facebook postings, and so on.
I charge $1,750/day ($1,500 for organisations without Government funding), plus travel and accommodation if required.
Contact Wendy to discuss running this workshop for your community
wendyseabrook@learningfromnature.com.au
phone on +61 7 4069 505
Learningfromnature.com.au
