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Agri-cultural change and the farming eco-innovator talk by Dr. Rebecca Cross ONLINE

By 03/11/2016November 17th, 2016No Comments

R Cross sheeDr. Rebecca Cross, the featured guest speaker at our 2016 AGM, has provided us with a pdf of her talk ‘Agricultural Change and the farming eco-innovator’. Β Rebecca Cross is a Human Geographer and Rural Sociologist who has an Environmental Science degree and a PhD in Geography, both from the Faculty of Science, UNSW.Β  Her PhD examined the socio-ecological and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainable farming transformations.Β  Her research focuses on the nexus of human/nature interactions, with particular attention to natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, farming sub-cultures, agroecological extension and social research methods.Β  She has been involved in a number of projects related to rural issues, including a historiography of the cotton industry, biodiversity-offsetting schemes, weed hygiene practices, Indigenous enterprise development and landholder collaboration models.Β  She has been a sessional lecturer and tutor in environmental science and human geography at UNSW and agricultural science at The University of Sydney for several years.

This talk introduces a case study from her PhD research of a group of farming β€˜eco-innovators’ who are practicing a range of agroecological practices on their farms including, native grass regeneration, strategic and adaptive grazing methods, pasture-cropping/no-kill cropping and low-stress stock management, amongst others. Β Her research aimed to document their journeys from β€˜conventional’ farming systems to regenerative farming systems. Major transitions in management and practice shaped these journeys, including emotional, psychological and philosophical changes. This is an example of a community of practice that is aiming to integrate production and conservation to achieve personal goals of happiness, well-being and economic security.Β  Their stories have much to teach us about harnessing irrationality, intuition and creativity to realise eco-transformations.

(This talk was also delivered at the XIV World Congress of Rural Sociology, Toronto 2016)

Rebecca Cross presentation for GSLN

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