Regrarians WYSIWYG #CAD #FarmPlanning 23 Years On We did this design & helped install it for Campbell Mercer and his family at their ‘Manna Hill Estate‘ at the turn of the century. In 2001 our team used CAD software to design the entire layout of olives, agroforestry, internal road &…
Off the Contour #27 – James Anderson’s misquoted reference in the lineage of rotational, rational and planned grazing
Essays relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Volume Second, The Second Edition, by James Anderson, Farmer at Monks-Hill, Aberdeenshire, Edinburg, 1777—A misquoted reference in the lineage of rational, rotational and planned grazing By Darren J. Doherty, CPAg (AIA) James Anderson (1739-1808) of Monks Hill, Aberdeenshire (UK), was a Scottish farmer,…
Off the Contour #25 – A holistic future or will Jeremy Clarkson be proved correct?
Monday 6th January 2020,Darren J. Doherty, CPAg (AIA), Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia The fire season here in SE Australia has some months to run and has so far proved to be unprecedented on a number of levels. Will the enormity of this latest conflagration actually result in large scale landscape management…
Off the Contour #24 – #KeylineSuperPlow History
1994/95 Our dear friends Nada & Tony Smark (then of Woodbrook Farm) bought us our first Yeomans Keyline Plow in return for us designing & developing their first vineyard & forest (which was a Keyline vineyard & forest – see picture below!). What is a ‘Regrarians Keyline Superplow’? History Since…
Off the Contour #23 – Fertile Landscapes SuperPlow Project
Over the last few years Franck Chevallier (France) has developed a open source (OS) subsoiler which is designed to be able to be built by local metal workers using readily available materials. In 2016 Regrarians’ Darren J. Doherty instigated the formation of a working group to develop formal CAD plans…
Off the Contour #22 — Producing chickens like cows
by Darren J. Doherty 2016 marked 40 years since Earl Butz (1909-2008) resigned as USA Secretary of Agriculture, however his vision for ‘getting big or getting out’ and ‘planting fence row to fence row’ has continued unabated — as have the terms of trade decline for producers and the decreased…
Off the Contour #21 – Extensivising Intensive
Credit: Jason Hagan, McIvor Farm (2014) Extensivising Intensive – Strategies to Mitigate Risk for Intensive Animal Husbandry Systems Recent rulings by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) have classified that some producers in Victoria are managing ‘intensive animal husbandry’ systems. Despite the immediate uproar, particularly focussed on ‘right to…
Off the Contour #20 – Transitioning to a Regrarian Farm — Compare that with the costs of Modern Agriculture
I was struck (again) this morning by a note a client sent to be relating to the cost of developing a site following a design we’d completed together. These clients have a broadacre holding that is in conversion from annual cereals to perennial grassland, tree crop woodland (aka ‘Savannah’), shelter…
Off the Contour #19 – #AfterTheFire?
We had a post by Adam Snow on our excellent Regenerative Agrarians Facebook Group that I thought would be great to turn into an ‘Off the Contour‘ post. This is by no means a complete appraisal of what can or could be done #AfterTheFire. What I have done though is…
Off the Contour #18 – The Regrarians Platform Outlined
Since 2006 Regrarians Ltd. originator and co-founder Darren Doherty has developed what since 2012 is called the Regrarians Platform. This determines the broad topics that we address as part of our global strategy, trainings, consultancies & designs. The genesis of Regrarians Platform lays with that great Australian, the late P.A. Yeomans, and his renowned…