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The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

RegenAG, its providers and community partners are proud to be hosting a series of 2-day workshops and public talks with “the world’s best farmer”, Joel Salatin. The remaining 2-day workshops are now booked out, as are some of the public talks, however there is still a chance to meet the self described “lunatic farmer” at one of the remaining public events. Details below.

Four young families from across Australia have teamed up to create a not for profit organization called RegenAG.

We have a view to transform agriculture & community through educational programs in farm & community regeneration.

“Our charter within RegenAG is to provide the potential for people to be informed about the regenerative economy, whether it involves their work in agriculture, land management, corporate life, domestic services, manufacturing or other activities that are within the domain of humans…”

This year we will have had over 1300 farmers attend our courses throughout Australia and more than 2000 people attend our public talks with Joel. We certainly seemed to have struck a chord and farmers within our bio-regions are responding.

Joel Salatin of PolyFace Farms is a world-leading example of how a small family farm can become an extremely diverse and profitable local food producer, and how the benefits of local food systems can create resilience, stability and abundance for both local farmers and the wider community. Joel brings a lifetime of natural and profitable farming experience to this, his first Australian lecture series.

Featured in Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and in the films Fresh and Food Inc., Joel and his family at Polyface Farms exemplify successful small-scale farming and the growing relocalisation movement.

Today Polyface Farms arguably represents America’s premier non-industrial food production oasis. Regarding Nature’s design as the best pattern for the biological world, the Salatins learned to arrange the facets of farm life so they don’t operate as independent operations, but rather a system of intertwined cycles.

Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, move cows daily with portable electric fencing, and utilize portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.

An electrifying speaker, Joel is also the author of six books including "Family Friendly Farming", "Salad Bar Beef", "Everything I Want To Do is Illegal – war stories from the local food front", and his latest, “The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer“. He is a full time farmer of the highly successful Polyface Farms, and recipient of the Heinz International Award for Environmental Leadership.

The remaining public talks will be held in Brisbane, Cairns & Mudgee. At these talks, Joel will challenge participants to design and participate in pathways to relocalisation, both as producers and consumers. We also have the pleasure of having Costa, from Costa’s Gardening Odyssey on SBS coming to the remaining three events to introduce Joel.

Details of the remaining three events are as follows:

  • Brisbane QLD: 4th December 2010, Presented by FreeRange Permaculture in association with FoodConnect, with introduction by Costa Georgiadis.
  • Cairns QLD: 5th December 2010, Presented by FreeRange Permaculture with introduction by Costa Georgiadis.
  • Mudgee NSW: 9th December 2010, Presented by Milkwood Permaculture in association with Watershed Landcare, with introduction by Costa Georgiadis.

Locate the above dates in this list for booking.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the man who coined such classic phrases as "allow the chicken to express its ‘chickenness’!"

2 Comments

  1. Many thanks to everyone who came to Joel’s Sydney (400+) & Canberra (300+) talks last week, and also to his Bungendore workshop (110+). They were truly inspiring to be a part of and we hope y’all got a bunch of new ideas out of it!

    We’ve never been a part of something that electrified the room the way Joel does… it’s important stuff, that’s for sure…

  2. Kym and Georgie – This was such a positive and inspirational talk. Joel is the best speaker I’ve had the privilege of listening to publicly. He just has a way of drawing the different threads of food and what it means. And of course we wanted to bring Costa home in our pocket. Thank you for your vision. Can’t wait to see the ideas, passion and power that will come out of last night in Brisbane.

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