Preferred presentation format: Refereed Paper

Affiliation(s): (1) University of Tasmania

(2) Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, Tasmania

Title: Dr Sue Kilpatrick Position: Senior Lecturer Organisation: Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania Contact email: Sue.Kilpatrick@utas.edu.au Contact phone: 03 63243018

Keywords: Learning, farmer groups, natural resource management

Practitioners and farmers are practical people. They are likely to be more comfortable with a process that develops natural resource management monitoring tools and benchmarks than a process of group development and social capital formation. Yet the two are intrinsically linked. Policy makers and extension workers need to understand the link, and how to use a knowledge of social processes when designing the more concrete process of developing and implementing best practice monitoring and benchmarking with groups.

This paper reflects on the experience of establishing and working with farmer groups as they go through a process of identifying environmental issues, setting and monitoring environmental benchmarks and identifying and implementing sustainable farming practices to meet the benchmarks.

Key learning points:

• Social aspects of farmer group development
• Establishing local natural resource management monitoring and benchmarks.