Immerse in the Theory and Practice of Regenerative Food Production incorporating Permaculture, Agroforestry, Vegetable Production, Fungi Cultivation, Bee Keeping and techniques from various Traditional Agricultural Systems from around the world. This hands-on learning experience in our ‘Living Classroom’ at The Farm designed to give participants the experience of learning alongside professional regenerative producers in their working systems. Our systems, which are now over 7 years in evolution, work with natural succession to sequester carbon, build soil, create closed-loop nutrient cycling and yield an abundance of food, fuel, and fibre and farmaceuticals.

This course is ideally suited to: 

• New landholders in the Byron Shire seeking a greater understanding of soils, climate, crop suitability and seasonal planting in our region.

• Land managers

• Aspiring market gardeners and farmers

• Landscapers with an interest in edible foodscapes

• Students of Permaculture/Syntropic Farming/Agroecology that are seeking detailed guidance with techniques and plant patterning in subtropical production systems. 

About the facilitators:

This course is facilitated by the Living Agroecology and Growing Roots Permaculture Teams consisting of:

• Bunya Halasz is inspired by cultures that evolve creative practices of sustaining their material needs in a manner of deep reverence for their natural environment and all of its life forms. Through the lenses of Permaculture, Regenerative Agroecology and Successional Agroforestry, Bunya works as a designer, educator and gardening mentor. His work supports individuals and communities to grow food, fuel and fibre within ecologically regenerative systems as well as facilitating pathways of knowledge and skill sharing through courses and traineeships. 

• Flavia Renata Assuncao is a children’s educator with a Degree in Pedagogy from Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil. She has been working in Schools with Permaculture Concepts creating composts, organic vegetable gardens as well as recycling and social economy programmes with children since 2002 in both Brazil and Australia. She is a passionate writer and photographer with an eye for detail and a beautiful curiosity of the natural world.

• Matt Willis is a dedicated student of Bunya, Flavia, the agroforestry community, and nature. He believes in learning by doing, direct feedback and observation. He loves discovering all the amazing culinary, medicinal, craft and soil building uses of plants—and sharing this with others. Often dreaming of different patterns of food forest possibilities; he loves the art of creating beautiful and resilient edible ecologies

• Kenji Kuwahata

Specialist guest tutors include:

• Dr. Kevin Glencross is a research fellow who has been working in Asia/Pacific and subtropical and tropical Australia on applied research in agroforestry- integrating trees in agricultural systems. He has a particular focus on traditional agroecological systems and publications that address biodiversity conservation, soils and catchment protection, climate change resilience, food security, carbon sequestration, agroecology and ecotourism.

• Mikaela and Bryan from Alchemystic Fungi see fungi as an inter-connective matrix enmeshing all of nature's organisms which they weave into their educational offerings. They freely share their successes, pitfalls, procedures, recipes, ideas and trials. They aim to use practices that touch the earth lightly by minimising single use plastics and recycling waste as naturally and optimally as possible. Through the use of nature’s organic processes and creative innovation they inspire many and continue to shift the paradigm of how we can work more deeply interconnected with nature. www.alchemisticfungi.com @alchemistic.fungi

• Willow Hankinson is an experienced beekeeper for 20 years. He has a passion for natural beekeeping methods that support the health and well-being of honeybees. Willow is also a furniture maker specialising in Kenyan hive construction and has designed several innovative hives to better meet the needs of a bee colony.

There will be a number of field trips in the latter part of the course to broaden the experience of Agroecology in a range of different contexts.

Topics Covered: Enrolling in this course entails a strong commitment to full attendance of 12 days of theory and hands-on activities, 8;30am to 5pm. This training offers guidance - and most importantly, practical skills in:

• Ecological fundamentals (with special emphasis on our local region)

• Incorporating trees and perennial plants into whole farm design

• Wholistic site/site design

• Seasonal vegetable production

• Regenerative soil management

• Integration of animals with intensive horticultural production

• Cabinet timber production

• Apiary

• Plant propagation and seed saving 

• Pruning and microclimate creation 

• Harvesting, Cooking and Food Preparation of Hardy Tropical Perennial Food Plants

• The local regenerative economy

Dates:   

March 7th, 8th, 9th and 21st, 22nd, 23rd

April 4th, 5th, 6th

May 16th, 17th, 18th

All days 8.30am to 5.00pm

Investment:

$1545 early bird (booking before 1st January 2025)

$1645 – full fee

(prices are GST inclusive)

For more information contact:

Bunya growingrootsgarden@gmail.com