"The Fuel & Drought Crisis" Workshop
A 2 day workshop on increasing soil health with low cost natural strategies.
Capacity building - LEP23_013LPG
The issue
Upper Mooki Landcare Inc were provided an opportunity to bring Kevin Elmy, a popular Canadian Soil Health Educator, to Warrah Creek NSW in April 2026 to educate landholders on strategies to improve soil health.
The challenge was to provide a low cost workshop with an international speaker who could focus on low cost soil health strategies in the midst of rising prices for fuel alongside drought conditions for farmers.
The solution
The solution was provided for the group by a successful application to Tamworth Regional Landcare Small Grant Program, which enabled funding for one day of Kevin Elmy's fees.
The second day cost was enabled by a sponsorship offer from Carbon8, a charity which delivers farmer-led regenerative programs. The sponsorship provided cash, technical support, and also sections of the program.
These funding supports enabled 23 participants to attend at a minimal cost
The impact
Kevin Elmy provided excellent, engaging presentations in the classroom and from a soil pit on building healthy, biologically active soil, improving fertility and reducing synthetic inputs while retaining strong yields by fixing soil systems. He provided very specific information on soil microbiology, balancing the carbon:nitrogen ratio, and the fungal:bacterial ratio.
Kevin emphasised the importance of soil tests that included minerology. A significant message was "Biology runs the chemistry and the plants run the biology for the soil to become balanced".
Mike McCosker from Carbon8 engaged with Kevin Elmy to share methods of farming that regenerate nature instead of mining from it. He gave a demonstration of making "PooBrew", a natural spray fertiliser containing cow manure, molasses, probiotics, milk and water that can be made at minimal cost.
Learnings
Feedback provided was overwhelmingly positive.
All attendees expressed intentions to implement practices such as multispecies cover cropping, making and applying biological soil amendments like PooBrew, improving soil biology, conducting further soil testing, and enhancing pasture management.
There were suggestions for future events, including holistic management, biodynamics, detailed practical sessions on multispecies cropping, more on soil and pasture management, financial aspects, natural sequence farming, and further scientific explanations of organic soil amendments. Participants also wanted more on composting, pasture renovation, and integrating trees into pasture systems.
Overall, the event was well-received, with constructive feedback aimed at refining future offerings and supporting continued learning and collaboration in the farming community.