A kitchen table discussion between several like-minded individuals has evolved into the formation of Central Queensland's newest independent regenerative agriculture driven producer groups.
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Comprised of around 10 members, the Central Queensland Landscape Alliance began earlier this year to provide information and support to landholders on their regenerative journey through peer to peer support, training and education.
Goovigen producer and CQLA founding member Dale Retschlag has been utilising regenerative farming practices on his property Netley for the last five years, and found it difficult to source information when he was starting out.
"When I started out 'regenerative farming' was still a fairly unknown concept and I felt very lonely doing what I was doing. I had no-one to talk to or throw Ideas off and I think that's a key part of getting people across the line," he said.
"I had some friends and other people that I met along the way who were all keen to change their practices too, but we all struggled for knowledge and support over the years.
"Part of the idea behind forming the group was to bring information into the area, so we basically sat around a kitchen table and formed a plan and worked out what we we needed to do."
Mr Retschlag said another big driver in creating the group had been their desire to improve the connection with the consumer as the end users of their farming products.
"There's too big of a divide between the city and country and we wanted to use this to help promote through education and social media that there's positive farmers doing positive things to produce our product," he said.
"We want the end consumer to have confidence in what we do, in that we're caring for the landscape as well as producing a high quality article."
The group recently hosted their first major event- a two day nutrition farming workshop with Graeme Sait- with people travelling from as far as South Australia to attend.
"It's actually surprised me how many people have expressed interest in wanting to do this stuff since we started, they've come to us and asked 'how do I start, where do I start and what do I do?'," Mr Retschlag said.
"They want to change but they can't get that information from your normal local agronomist or feed shed, so to have someone like Graeme Sait here was pretty special, I didn't think we could get someone of his calbre here."
Mr Retschlag said given the volatile seasons, farming had become more difficult.
"Our seasons have become so erratic so its about making every drop count," he said.
"It's important that we spread the word and get more people doing this to make their businesses more resilient so that they can survive tougher times.
"That's where I think our group can really have a place, being able to provide that support and information."
Mr Retschlag said CQLA was open to anyone, not just landholders.
"Two of our members aren't even farmers, they're just passionate about the landscape and food quality and it's link to human health," he said.
"To be in group like this that are doing positive things, not only for the environment but for mental health, the landscape, the animals and the bank balance is great, everything is connected."
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