Sustainable Farms is an initiative of The Australian National University. Central to our work are partnerships formed over many years working in regional Victoria and NSW: partnerships with farmers and land managers, Landcare and community groups, and natural resource management agencies.
In 2018, The Australian National University embarked on the Sustainable Farms project, a major interdisciplinary project to translate 20 years of ecologically focused farming research into information and tools that farmers can use to better manage their farm’s natural capital assets.
The University aims to provide platforms and investment that enable the co-creation of new approaches to interdisciplinary problem-solving, and to support our academics to realise the possibilities of their discoveries in society and business.
Sustainable Farms was, and remains, driven by these key strategic goals of the ANU: interdisciplinary research and translation of that research to real-world outcomes.
Our work relies on the world-leading expertise of ANU researchers in ecology, mental health, economics and social science, and our project coordination team is based at the ANU campus in Canberra.
Sustainable Farms is supported by funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program, the Ian Potter Foundation, and a number of other philanthropic organisations and industry groups. We thank all our funders for their commitment to Sustainable Farms, and continue to seek partners in industry, finance and government.
Partnerships with NRM agencies and other groups are central to Sustainable Farms.
We work closely with Landcare and community groups in NSW and Victoria, as well as with NSW Local Land Services, Goulburn Broken CMA and North East CMA.
Over the last 15 years, these partnerships have included:
We continue to seek partners and collaborators from within state and federal governments, industry groups, the finance sector and NRM agencies.
Our longest partnerships are with the many farmers who have generously provided access to their properties over the last 20 years. These farmers have enabled our field team to collect biodiversity data from more than 900 sites in the south-eastern wheat-sheep belt. This is one of the largest long-term monitoring and research studies of its kind in Australia.
This data provides invaluable information for farmers and other land managers who need to make decisions to maintain and improve biodiversity in production landscapes.
At the core of our approach is enabling farmers to share the knowledge they have gained through undertaking natural asset management practices on their farms. We work with a number of farmers who host field days on their properties, participate in research workshops, contribute to policy and research discussions, or share their experiences through case studies and stories.
We are keen to hear from farmers and land managers, Landcare and community groups, natural resource management agencies and industry groups who are interested in natural asset management on farms.
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About Us
Sustainable Farms is a research and extension initiative of The Australian National University. Our long-term ecology research on farms, supplemented by investigations into economics and mental health, shows that protecting and restoring natural assets on farms has multiple benefits.
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Our Research
Our interdisciplinary research program aims to investigate the relationship between sustainable farming, financial outcomes, and mental health.
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Farmer Stories
Individual farmers have played a leading role in improving natural assets on their farms. Some of these farmers have shared their insights and experiences with us, and with others around them.
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