Sustainability Festival in Korumburra

The Sustainability Festival held at Coal Creek in Korumburra on Sunday was an interesting exercise. We spoke to quite a few people about sustainable farm practices as well as some lengthy discussions about Deep Ecology, Regenerative Agriculture, Brittle Landscapes and even riparan vegetation.
It's always great to have one-on-one discussion on these topics because there are so many misconceptions about 'sustainability'.
I'll always remember the views (expressed to me a few years ago) of a sandminer about the sustainability of his business. He genuinely believed that his business was sustainable because he would move to another site when the sand resource was finished! Unfortunately that's the view of most people in business, and probably the majority of the rest of the community.

Sales of eggs weren't great on Sunday. We sold a bit of our garlic but surprisingly not a single chillie ristra. Had a number of enquiries about 'what is a chillie ristra' and of course the answer can be seen on the left. It's a bunch of chillies strung together, hanging to dry. Ours are very hot and we have a great time adding them and our garlic to the beef and lamb also grown on the farm.
The Sustainability Festival was run for the first time by South Gippsland Shire Council and it worked OK as a first event, but they will need to attract more people if it is to work long term. We like to support this type of initiative but there have to be enough patrons to make the event 'sustainable' in terms of sales. We need to at least cover our costs to make it worth the effort.
Check out some of the info on the Friends of Bass Valley Bush website and blog at http://bassbush.htmlplanet.com/