REX® Online Farm Planning Course

Since it was incepted in 2012 the Regrarians Platform® (‘RP’) has provided people around the world with a planning process that is holistic, inclusive and thorough. Its 10 layers are adapted from the 8 factor ’Keyline® Scale of Permanence’ that the renowned P.A. Yeomans outlined in 1958 and forms the basis to all of Regrarians Ltd. trainings, farm planning consultancies and media outreach.

A RP farm plan is not just a design on a map — its a detailed and holistic process that brings together the contexts of an individual, their family, their team and their community with that of the climate and the landscape and region they’re operating in.

“…If you’re not designing your life then someone else is…”

~ Javan K. Bernakevitch

Striking words from Javan, words that hit the chord of how important it is to establish what Regrarians’ founder, Darren J. Doherty, calls the ‘climate of mind’. The Holistic Context is a potent framework for refining what is truly important in you, your family’s and your teams lives and how that is expressed in the enterprises you work on and the landscapes and communities you work in.

A RP farm plan is not just a design on a map — its a detailed and holistic process that brings together the contexts of an individual, their family, their team and their community with that of the climate and the landscape and region they’re operating in.

The development of a Holistic Context is a critical part of the pathway to creating an achievable farm plan. Within the Regrarians Platform it becomes the benchmark against which all land management and enterprise decisions are made. Develop the understanding about what you really stand for, what makes you and your family (and team) happy, how you can work most productively and how you can build a foundation of landscape, enterprise and community wealth.

The advent of the free Google Earth Pro software has been a boon for land managers the world over—its become a ‘universal translator’ of sorts between all manner of more sophisticated and expensive software and has democratised the power or geography. Learning how to use it effectively and understanding its limits are important steps in building a farm plan. Its also important to set up your Google Earth folders from the start and Regrarians Platform layers are the natural order of these folders.

Understanding the ecosystem processes of your landscape and how these interact with the built elements are critical to building an effective farm plan. Using your farm map as a base and applying some simple and yet effective site analysis techniques will help you now and into the future as monitoring landscape function is a key component of holistic land management. We’ll introduce you to the brilliant ‘Bullseye!’ monitoring methodology that our original Holistic Management® Certified Educator (HMCE) Kirk Gadzia co-authored. Also to the great work of another experienced HMCE and Regrarians Ltd. associate in Graeme Hand, which will help you understand landscape function better.

“…My training in this design system came from Keyline® design’s modern day emissary, Darren J. Doherty of the Regrarians…”

~ Andrew Millison

A primary step in the Regrarians approach to farm planning is to use Keyline® Geographic Analysis to understanding the principal landscape elements. Once established these elements inform the placement of most of the design features that make up the Development layers of the Regrarians Platform. Using the Keyline Geographic Analysis is at once liberating and powerful as the landscape ‘speaks to you’ (P.A. Yeomans), ‘telling’ you where to put different elements such as water, road, tree, building and fencing systems.

We have 2 webinars for this topic due to the depth of information.

“…Water is the principle planning medium. Water comes before roads and fences and everything. If you get the water right, you get the roads right and you plant the trees in the right place, and no-one does that…”

~ P.A. Yeomans, 1979, ‘Nationwide’, ABC TV (AU)

The development of the water layer starts with understanding what sources of water are available, their quality and quantity. Also taking stock of existing water storage, distribution, treatment and delivery infrastructure, while strategising and then planning any expansion or further development to provide for future needs. 

Agroecological systems vary greatly—a myriad of natural and created forms. Nearly all economic landscapes are part of forest complexes and in the Regrarians Platform, the integration of all forms of biota, particularly those of which have an enterprise based upon them. 

Sketch out the broad concepts for development and designation of landscape & management treatment options & processes

The placement of Fencing as relatively fixed infrastructure is a hallmark of our domestication of many species, particularly livestock (and humans!). Traditional systems are expensive to build and apply. The advent of electric fencing revolutionised our ability to manage landscapes, allowing us to follow topographic patterns and natural animal behaviours.

Soils are the foundation of life and therefore an important focus; we need to take care of the whole to support its foundation. Regrarians’ focus on determining the most cost-effective treatments to regenerate soil from the many that exist.

The economy layer is driven by our analysis of the previous layers, particularly 1•Climate and 2•Geography. This analysis and our consequent planning focuses on driving the economic engine of the various capital flows (Soloviev, E & Landau, G 2008, pers. comm.) that, like soils, are fragile and form the basis of the regeneration of the whole

Energy is vital to fuelling all of the elements that drive any system. We therefore focus on organising energy generation & storage systems that regenerate rather than atrophy—bearing in mind their cost-benefit in a rapidly evolving field.