NATURAL SEQUENCE FARMING - LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

 OVERVIEW OF OUR APPROACH

• We begin by getting to know you and your goals. This typically includes meeting you in person and doing a walk through of your property, as part of our broader conversation.
• As part of a thorough site review, we will prepare a landscape function site assessment based on mapping, any data you have (including property maps, photos and videos of rain events, erosion, etc), and your goals. 
• Discuss  options and together co-create a high level design, including any steps  we would take immediately. The design includes indicative mapping but  also links to your management approach so that you can integrate your  goals with production and agroecological function. Where appropriate involve or liaise with other colleagues like Peter Andrews, Stuart Andrews or other partners. I note that it's not a fixed plan but a design that we treat as dynamic, based on how the landscape responds.
• Once the full design has been developed agree  full budget and any additional costs we identify up front such as machine hire, plant purchase, construction materials, compost/manure etc. 
• Get started, watching how interventions and NSF management performs as we go. By working together on the interventions, practices and management we will make key decisions in implementation that cannot be reflected in a design, and we will discuss NSF in more detail along the way. 

NSF  prepares the landscape to perform under stress, particularly rain  events. To get it working well is a testing, co-creation process. We have to watch how interventions behave, what nature  does, and respond as we go. Wherever possible, we leave room in  any project to do things like:

• observe how the landscape should be functioning based on ancient ecological processes and biological landforms
• develop interventions and NSF practices iteratively, observing how they perform and how nature responds
• and make any necessary modifications over time. 

At  any of these points, we're looking for how the biological landforms  (steps), perform during rain and stress, including factors like biomass production,  biodiversity and succession, etc. It can take time to build up  enough biomass, fertility and in some cases ground cover for the  landscape to perform properly, so we also factor that into timing and  order of interventions. You don't know fully how an intervention  will perform until you see it in action, eg especially in rain events, and so the pace of projects should work with this natural cycle. Interventions are most resilient and successful when layered over time so that they work with the self-organising properties of the landscape.

I was raised with a resourceful and inventive father whose approach to farming and a reverence for nature was dismissed by community as radical weird hippy stuff. He advocated for mountain stream water and household water tanks for the local water supply. He was a commercial beekeeper, with 500 hives. We had goats, horticulture, fruit trees and a desire for self sufficiency.

For many reasons, I went away from that background. Six years of boarding school, became a qualified automotive mechanic and then began to study mechanical engineering. The mechanistic perspective was not for me. Agroecological studies and commercial Beekeeping  for 15 years influenced much of my thinking in recent times and brought me back to a point where I could appreciate my upbringing. 

For six years now,  I’ve worked closely  with the founder of Natural Sequence Farming, Peter Andrews, on a range of projects, including  at Baramul, Mulloon, and his property Bungonia. 

I also apply NSF on my block at Mount Rivers,  translating the big catchment and property concepts into a smaller scale NSF design suitable for market gardening. This includes developing and refining macro scale landscape repair techniques on a micro scale. 

In my consulting and my work for myself, I’m interested in novel ecosystems (newly evolving ecosystems that feature natives and exotics)  and how they create high performing landscapes by getting the link  between NSF interventions, landscape stewardship and production working well.