Sustainable Agriculture Facilitaor (SAF)

Sustainable Agriculture Facilitator (SAF)

The role of the SAF is to engage and inform farmers, landholders, community groups, and agricultural industries within their NRM region about climate-smart and sustainable agriculture practices. This supports the achievement of sustainable agriculture outcomes that address climate change and environmental stewardship.

Key areas of focus include:

  • Promoting best practices in natural resource management (NRM), biodiversity conservation, and carbon markets.
  • Encouraging practices that reduce emissions, enhance farm resilience, and build climate adaptation.
  • Sharing government resources, policies, and programs, including tools, funding opportunities, and relevant training.

 

Building Partnerships & Networks

The SAF plays a critical role in fostering partnerships and connections among stakeholders to drive collaboration and shared solutions. They connect farmers, landholders, community groups, and industry members to address common issues, identify opportunities for co-benefits, and align efforts. This also includes engaging extension officers, Regional Soil Coordinators, Adoption Officers within the Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs, Carbon Farming Outreach Program advisors, and Natural Heritage Trust grantees.

 

Supporting Sustainable Agriculture Projects

The SAF actively supports the delivery of sustainable agriculture initiatives by assisting with events, communication activities, and communities of practice. They connect stakeholders and engage First Nations peoples and organisations to integrate local knowledge into sustainable farming practices.

 

Climate-Smart Agriculture Program Outcomes

The SAF contributes to three key outcomes:

    1. Climate Change Resilience: Adoption of practices that reduce emissions and enhance on-farm climate resilience.
    2. Carbon and Biodiversity Opportunities: Support for farmers and industries to access carbon and biodiversity markets and align with sustainability frameworks.
    3. Sustainable Growth: Empowering farmers to drive agricultural growth while implementing practices that protect natural capital and biodiversity.

 

Key Annual Events

Grazing Forum

Each year, the Grazing Forum attracts more than 100 landholders, keen to discover and learn about a wide range of grazing related topics such as herd management, genetics, pasture and weed management, biosecurity updates and managing climate variability by adopting improved grazing management practices. 

The Forum is developed specifically for graziers and provides one of the only local opportunities for networking amongst grazing industry representatives, professionals, service providers, and producers. Since 2017,  these major events have been live streamed and recorded, which can be viewed on Reef catchment’s Youtube channel. Furthermore, event presentation pdfs covering several topics can be found on Reef Catchments Resources tab.

2024 Grazing Forum, Paddock to Sale – All things in-between

Soil Symposium

Soil health is one of the biggest challenges facing the region’s agricultural producers and the SAF program enables delivery of the annual Soils Symposium which provides information from leading industry experts.

All presentations of the Conference are recorded and available with videos from Field Days, on  Reef catchment’s Youtube channel. Presenter PowerPoints and information shares will be freely accessible on the website Resources tab.

 

 

Additional  Grazing  Resources: 

 

 


Program Activities

The SAF program strongly encourages workshops that are directly related to environmental outcomes while supporting industry specific activities that foster agricultural productivity. Reef Catchments in conjunction with the SAF urges producers and growers to reach out and guide topics of interest to ensure diverse and targeted capacity building activities can be provided to the agricultural sector in the region.  

Other activities facilitated and/or supported by the SAF role include: 

  • Workshops on holistic management for graziers. 
  • Workshops on seasonal forecasting tools and mitigation strategies. 
  • Soil workshops for all land managers. 
  • Climate Smart Agriculture programs 
  • Educational programs at local schools 

Science Week 2024 – Mirani State School

 

The SAF, in conjunction with Reef Catchments, work within the Mackay Whitsunday Isaac regional partners, and collaborates with numerous groups including: 

  • Women in Agriculture (MWI) 
  • Local schools and many other agricultural and industry groups. 

 


Peer 2 Peer Groups

Working with those who work in the agriculture industry and providing a platform for those to connect and learn. Just like the: 

  • Women in Agriculture (MWI) 

For further information about the above group please contact the SAF. 

 

Women in Agriculture Mackay Whitsunday Isaac logo

Women in Agriculture (MWI) – Peer to Peer Group

 

The Australian Government has invested $40.7 million in a national network of Sustainable Agriculture Facilitators (SAF) under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program, funded through the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT).

Related resources

Project contacts

Kellie Harmsworth

View Profile