In the Essential Energy Lectures and Fashion Pavilion(L36), Milkwood Permaculture is co-ordinating a lecture series with a “must see” line up of interesting speakers on Friday and Saturday, Tim Malfroy will be talking about the importance of bees, the pollination crisis, how to create a bee garden and natural beekeeping for resilient bees.

Costa Georgiadis from SBS Costa’s Gardening Odyssey will be sharing his excitement about future farmers and the power of school gardens. Costa will also be judging this year’s Scarecrow Competition(taking place on both Friday and Saturday mornings).

Authors Matt and Shannida Herbert will be sharing their knowledge on aquaponics and food production. Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, where fish and plants are grown in an integrated system that benefits both the fish and the plants!

Learn how you can get started building your own aquaponics system.

Bruce Maynard will be talking about pasture cropping and nokill cropping. Learn why sowing an annual crop into a pasture does great things to the soil, the pasture and the profitability of cropping, and why 1500 farmers across Australia, USA and Scandinavia are having great results.

Nick Ritar from Milkwood Permaculture will give some insight into regenerative agriculture, a form of farming that reaches beyond sustainability, into practices that regenerate the land and the livelihoods of hose who farm it.

He will discuss pasture cropping, keyline design, biofertilisers, holistic management and other techniques which are being used by regenerative agriculture pioneers today.

On Saturday morning Nick Ritar will be talking about “crap”: In particular “Humanure” and how we can easily, safely and hygienically recycle this valuable nutrient resource to build fertility in our soils.

Watershed Landcare has invited internationally recognised dung beetle authority John Feehan who will be speaking on Friday and Saturday.

Watershed has also invited back Dr. Carole Hungerford, holistic general practitioner and author of Good Health in the 21st Century, who will be speaking on Saturday.

Read the full program here