Upskilling the people producers trust: Ruminati and Landcare Agriculture's Train the Trainer program

This month marks four years of Ruminati and Landcare Agriculture working together, and the emissions reporting landscape looks pretty different to where it was when that partnership started. Supply chains are asking more questions, banks are paying closer attention, and new federal guidance due in July will shift things again.

The Train the Trainer sessions exist because the most effective way to reach producers isn't always directly — it's through the facilitators, group leaders and advisors already out there working with farming communities. Get those people genuinely confident with the platform, and the support flows through to producers when the questions start arriving.

This month's session drew people from across Australia, including Dawson Creek Catchment Authority, Holbrook Landcare, RegenWA and others, for a practical walkthrough led by Will Onus. As a cattle producer himself, Will's ability to field the technical questions from both sides of the fence matters in these sessions, and the group used it well.

The questions were the kind you'd expect from people working closely with producers every day. What happens with existing trees and remnant vegetation under current frameworks? Not much yet, though the incoming federal guidance starts to address that. Do organic inputs or regenerative practices count for anything? Producers who've moved away from synthetic fertilisers don't have to report those inputs at all- which quietly improves their emissions intensity number without any additional effort.

Does verification have to be expensive? When data is already standardised and housed in one place, audits that might otherwise cost tens of thousands of dollars have come in at a fraction of that, and in some cases, your own accountant can do it!

As Ang Hammond from Landcare Agriculture put it at the end of the session: "We used to think EBVs were a tricky thing to calculate. We used to think that understanding soil health was a tricky thing. It's all everyday work now."

Since the session, Holbrook Landcare has registered as a Ruminati service provider. Several other groups are working through the same process, and a follow-up session focused specifically on the service provider pathway is in the works.

Get in touch via ang.hammond@landcareaustralia.com.au to register your interest.