The Dirt – DECEMBER 2024

Welcome to the November 2024 edition of our monthly newsletter, The Dirt, where we dish the dirt on the latest comings and goings of Sprout Tasmania.

Sprout AGM

First up…our AGM for 2024 is not far away, and we’d love you to come along to meet our board, the Sprout team and other like-minded Sprout family. Members and non-members are welcome, so feel free to bring a friend.

Last year we invited Tony Scherer, our co-founder to join us in the hot seat to share his perspective on how things have changed over time for farming in Tassie. It was so good, we’ve invited him back and asked that he bring along some guests to join him.

Where and when?

The Sustainability Learning Centre. 50 Olinda Grove, Mount Nelson
Friday 15th November – 5.30pm until 7pm
Tickets available for booking from Friday the 1st November
RSVP by COB Wednesday 13th November.

Agenda:

Grab a drink and a nibble
Annual Report tabled
New board members nominated and officially voted (for those who are new since the previous 2023 AGM)
Q&A with Tony Scherer and guests talking about small scale grape growing and wine production.
Time for mingling and connecting.

Growing Good

Right folks, tickets are now on sale for this year’s event.

As many of you know, Growing Good is our annual fundraising event and we can’t overstate the importance this event has become for us. The money we raise at Growing Good literally allows us to advocate for the small-scale farming sector, so we really you to turn out and show us the love you have for our work.

Anyone and everyone is welcome – eaters, farmers, potential sponsors, politicians… if you have an interest in food and farming (let’s be honest here, that’s every single person) then this is an event for you. It’s a fun night, it’s impactful, and bloody tasty!

Where and when?

Growing Good will take place on Sunday December 1. Doors open at 5pm.

This year the event is a cocktail style bash, held at Restaurant Maria on Brooke Street Pier, in nipaluna/Hobart. In the kitchen we have Stephen Peak, Christian Ryan, Lilly Trewartha and Tom Westcott, who together will be cooking a number of dishes to be served throughout the night. It is a stand-up event, but as with all Sprout events expect a good amount of food. There is also a selection of high tables and stools available, for anyone needing to sit down.

Ticket info:

Sprout members – $100 per person (join as a member here)
Non-members – $150 per person

Growing Good Auction:

The Growing Good Auction will be live throughout the night. As always, this is an online, silent auction, and the items being auctioned off promise to be bigger and better than ever before.
If anyone has a prize they would like to donate for the auction, please do get in touch. We love big ticket items like unique experiences, as well as smaller things like signed books, delicious wine, and vouchers.

The Small Producer of the Year Award

At Growing Good we will be presenting the winner of the 2024 Small Producer of the Year Award with the traditional wooden spoon, carved from wood taken from last year’s winners, Fat Carrot Farm.

Remember, this award is nominated by you, the local community, to recognise and award a farmer in Tasmania who you think is doing a great job at ‘Growing Good’ in your local community.

In particular we are looking for farmers who are:

producing amazing food, fibre or flowers
contributing to and engaging with their local community
collaborating with others and sharing knowledge
striving to leave the land they are on in a better state than when it came to them.

Nominations close on November 17. Head here to nominate!

We’re hiring!

Ok, this is big! Yep, that’s right, we’re looking for the new me. Or perhaps two of them. An army of little Ollie’s perhaps?

All jokes aside, we are on the hunt for a passionate and driven individual to join our team and make a meaningful impact in Tasmania’s small-scale agricultural sector.

As many of you know, Sprout supports local farmers and growers by providing mentorship, resources, advocacy and a vibrant community dedicated to sustainable and innovative farming practices.

So, if you’re committed to fostering resilient food systems, have a strong interest in small-scale agriculture, and are eager to contribute to the future of Tasmanian farming, we encourage you to apply. Join us in our mission to support and empower small-scale producers across the state!

Snapshot details:

This work will be part time up to 16 hours per week, and you can be located anywhere in Tasmania.
We are looking for a range of skills, including admin, communications, connections to the producer sector and event management, a love of food and farming.
We are being open and flexible in this call out, to see who comes out of the woodwork and how these skills align with the role.

Please send expressions on interest, preferably with a cover letter and CV through to our CEO, Jen Robinson at jennifer@sprout.org.au

And, we also need help at the board level and are keen to find a new treasurer. Key responsibilities for the role include:

Overseeing and managing the financial health of the organisation.
With the CEO, develop and monitor budgets to ensure financial stability.
Prepare financial reports and present them to the board.
Ensure Sprout is financially compliant.

The time commitment involved is approx. 10 hours per month and includes monthly board meetings online, AGM and other annual events, strategic planning session 1 x pa.
Position Description available on request, please email our Board Chair – kateplaschke@sprout.org.au

Grounded – free ticket offer

It’s not long until Grounded folks! As you may have seen, I (Ollie) am helping with the event and have been featuring in some of the promo videos shot by the ever wonderful Lady Jo Adams. It’s been good fun, although things are getting serious as we getting closer to the event and the to-do lists get bigger!

Sprout will have a presence at the event, so if you’re attending make sure you say hi to Jen at our stall. It’ll be next to the innovation marquee, where lots of cool tech will be on show (think drones, ActiveVista gear, virtual fencing and TIA’s Quoll, Bilby and Bandicoot!).

In exciting news, Matthew and the Grounded team have kindly donated 5 tickets for Sprout to pay forward to any farmers who financially would otherwise not have the opportunity to attend. To have a chance of being selected, we simply ask you to complete the below form, explaining in 250 words or less what being gifted the tickets would mean for your farming journey.

Submissions close on 15 November 2024.

Small-scale Tasmanian meat processing – an update

On Monday we will be launching our service kill meat processing survey, to help us understand the current and potential demand for livestock processing by way of service kills across Tasmania.

This survey is for any farmer of livestock for the consumption of meat, in Tasmania, where they retain the ownership of their product.

This includes:

those who are already processing and selling their meat, using a service-kill abattoir.
those who would like to explore selling their meat but haven’t ventured down this road yet.
those who are using home-kill for their own purposes.

What are we hoping to understand?

The questions are designed to gather information about level of demand (current and potential), location, species type, full supply chain data including transport to and from abattoirs and butchery services.

STAMP Petition

You may have seen that the The Southern Tasmanian Association of Meat Producers (STAMP) have created a petition to the Tasmanian parliament calling on the Government to introduce legislation to facilitate and encourage best practice on-farm, local and regional slaughter, meat processing and waste
disposal.
They need as many signatures as possible. If you value access to local, ethically produced meat and live in Tasmania please consider filling out the e-petition.

The Sprout Producer Program

We recently wrapped up our last field days for the SPP 2024 cohort, and we went out with a bang! From getting bogged in a paddock, to beer tastings, to a workshop with Bonnie Tuttle inside in a tennis pavilion, to compost turning with Tony, it was another cracker of a weekend.

A huge thank you to the last of the SPP 2024 producers we visited – Mollie at Wattle Wind Farm, and Elicia at Government House – as well as Fi Hume (Arundel Farm), Jane and Ashley Huntingdon (Two Metre Tall), and Tony, Mike, Lauren and Tyler (Rocky Top/Felds Farm/Constance Farm), for allowing us on to their farms.

There’s still work to be done this year, so the cohort aren’t slacking off quite yet. But we would like to take this opportunity to give the group a massive shout out. To a person, they’re some of the most passionate, dedicated, switched on producers we’ve had the pleasure of working with. These are challenging times to be farming (when has it ever not been!), but knowing that we have food growers and land stewards of this calibre leaves us feeling very positive.

SPP 2024 producer feature – Underwood Park

Underwood Park is a 110 acre farm nestled in the Snug Tiers south of Hobart, Southern Tasmania. Surrounded by towering native eucalypt forests, the region is rich in native fauna.

Underwood Park is run by Angela Escolme and Josh Phillips, who have called Tasmania home for over 10 years after they met through the University while studying their PhD’s in ore deposit geology. Both hailing independently from the rural parts of the UK, rocks brought them to Australia but the Tassie lifestyle kept them here! Sharing a love of travel and adventure, they decided to put all that to one side and spend all their ‘spare time’ establishing Underwood Park, their sustainable beef farm, and raising a family.

The farm is a labour of love that is starting to bear fruit. The property required significant improvements to infrastructure (including fencing, water lines and dam repairs) before they could begin rejuvenating the tired pastures with carefully managed animal impact. Whilst taking maternity leave, Angela has thrown herself into the day-to-day activities including moving cattle around the property with kids in tow. Drawing on her childhood experience on a dairy and sheep farm and learning something new every day about pasture and animal husbandry. Josh keeps the lights with his day job but mucks in whenever extra hands are required and has championed the major farm infrastructure improvements.

Angela and Josh have a shared vision for Underwood Park to be a truly sustainable part of the local landscape, food system and their family life.

Since 2020, Angela and Josh have been working to restore the farm’s ecological function and biodiversity through regenerative agriculture practices – specifically holistic cattle grazing.

Through ‘farming with nature’ they aim to produce delicious and nutrient-rich beef for the local community in a kind and sustainable manner whilst building biodiversity above and below ground. Regenerative grazing involves moving cattle onto fresh pasture daily with grazed areas left to recover for sufficiently long periods before grazing again. In keeping with their sustainability principles, no synthetic fertilisers are used on the farm and animals are free of growth hormones and antibiotics. The couple are also currently working to protect and enhance the farm’s native vegetation, creeks and dams by fencing livestock out of these areas and other revegetation projects.

Underwood Park offered farm-direct spring beef boxes for the first time in 2023 from their mob of carefully sourced traditional Beef Shorthorn cattle. The farm caters to the growing demand for sustainable, local, grass-fed beef from customers who are seeking paddock-to-plate traceability and ethical practices when feeding their family.

You can find details of all this year’s participants here.
And information on all the SPP alumni here.

Upcoming Free Market Gardening Webinar

Ok, thanks for making it all the way through this month’s newsletter. Lucky last is news of a very cool free webinar.

Due to overwhelming demand for NRM South’s recent Market Gardener workshop, they are offering a free online webinar for anyone who is keen to find out more about improving your soils, interpreting soil tests and boosting productivity in your market garden. Declan McDonald will once again be joining us to share his expertise in solving complex soil issues, and we will also be welcoming Stan Robert from Fat Carrot Farm and Mitch Thiessen from The Agrarian Kitchen.

The webinar will run from 3:30-5pm on Wednesday 6 November. Register your interest here: https://events.humanitix.com/a-deep-dive-into-soil-health-for-market-gardeners
This project is being delivered by NRM South through support from the Tas Farm Innovation Hub and funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Ok, that’s it for now. As ever, do get in touch if you have any questions or issues. We’re always here to help.

Thanks as always,
The Sprout Team.