At the expo he will speak on the use of marketing tools in aiding the bottom line for farmers, and protecting farmers from losses which can occur for the unwary.

After the drought years of 2006 and 2007 many district farmers seeking to take advantage of forward selling to maximize the benefits of a high price for December deliveries suffered losses when confronted with no production and the commitments of contracts.

Mr Bartholomaeus will give the ‘good oil’ on how to avoid this scenario.

At 10.30am Rangelands Australia Professor John Taylor, and recent graduate David Taylor of ‘Myola’, Trundle, will introduce rangelands ‘Learning for a sustainable future programs and courses specifically designed for mature-aged people who use and manage the rangelands for grazing, and those who support them such as advisors, facilitators, consultants, etc.

Study can be done from home or intensively at a convenient location, with strong support from Rangelands Australia staff and local rangeland supporters. Courses are designed to develop independence, creativity, knowledge and problem solving skills, and prepare people for the current and future challenges of making a living in the rangelands.

As local graduate David Taylor says: “The course content is extraordinarily relevant to the issues in the bush and exceedingly thought provoking”.

People already undertaking the courses have given very good feedback, finding the material to be highly relevant and practical. Students say these courses are different in that they are based on real needs, have an emphasis on learning applied to real issues, and are more practical.

At 11.30am Dr Maarten Stapper will speak in regard to soil structure and its links to agricultural viability. Dr Strapper has lived, studied and worked in the Netherlands, Canada, USA, Iraq and Syria, and in Australia since 1982. He has an agricultural engineering degree in farming systems and catchment management in semi-arid tropics. He also has a PhD from the University of New England, Armidale, in wheat production systems, linking crop physiology with agronomy and daily weather in simulation modelling.

Dr Strapper worked from 1983 to 1988 at CSIRO, Griffith, on irrigated wheat and introduced irrigation scheduling, a nitrogen fertiliser calculator and the first crop monitoring program for farmers to support their management decisions. He then moved to Canberra to work on dryland wheat systems and the management of high-yielding irrigated wheat. Since April 2007 he has worked as a private consultant assisting farmers in the transition of thinking and management from industrial to biological farming systems.

As a farming systems agronomist Dr Strapper has quantified production in many wheat paddocks in dryland and irrigation districts in south eastern Australia.

In that work he has become aware that most problems start with the soil and thus the search for solutions should commence there.

Current soil problems are the result of gross oversimplification of fertilisation and ‘plant protection’ practices that use harsh chemicals and ignore the delicate balance of microbes, trace minerals and nutrients in the soil.

The main focus of Dr Strapper’s work is helping farmers improve the profitability of their operations by harnessing the power of natural soil processes, improving their use of inputs and understanding those practices that negatively impact on soil health.

A healthy soil produces better crops and pastures, requiring less fertilisers and agro-chemicals for similar productivity, plants becoming more drought and frost tolerant, and providing healthier, mineral denser feed and food.

From 12.15pm, Dr Bob Holloway will introduce fluid fertilisers and the nutrition made readily available to the subsoil. Bob has spent 40 years in agriculture, beginning in 1965 at Roseworthy Agricultural College. He graduated in 1967 with the Hazelgrove prize in theoretical horticulture and the Rudi Buring memorial prize in practical horticulture. In 1968 Bob completed a postgraduate diploma in agricultural technology, specialising in agricultural communication and agronomy. He spent most of the seventies working in agricultural communication and agronomic advice.