The program fostered innovative collaborative models, such as co-operatives, to help farmer, fishing and forestry groups tackle supply chain issues, drought and climate change.
These models also helped deliver triple bottom line benefits including improved farm gate returns.
Farming Together flipped the traditional university and industry partnership approach by placing the farmer as the primary partner, realising unique results.
The team at Southern Cross University is still on a mission to create impact by helping the agrifood sector move towards regenerative farming practices and holistic land management. Our goal is improved soil quality, farm productivity, food quality, biodiversity and climate mitigation outcomes.
In an increasingly uncertain world, collaboration offers strong, secure and powerful solutions. Together we can solve complex problems, achieving far more than we could do alone.
Farming Together is founded on the values of collaboration, respect, understanding and integrity.
Between 2016 and 2019, Southern Cross University delivered the Farm Co-operatives and Collaboration Pilot Program (Farming Together). The program delivered improved farm gate returns for farmers, fishers and foresters throughout Australia, through collaborative business models and co-operatives. We exceeded KPIs by more than 340% in all program deliverables by reaching over 730 groups comprised of 28,500 primary producers across 23 industries in every region of Australia, supporting 51 projects financially and delivering more than 1,000 consultancy services.
The Farming Together team’s exceptional ability to deliver projects with large-scale impact was demonstrated by winning prestigious national awards:
From Farming Together, the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance (RAA) was formed to focus on environmental challenges impacting farmers. Through RAA, SCU used its diverse and extensive knowledge, experience, research capacity and international recognition to enhance and implement changes to education and practices for government, consumers, farmers, and land custodians.
