IN THIS ISSUE:
Tailor making responses to dryland salinity. Understanding capacity building issues is an important part of a major project currently underway is taking a more rigorous approach to salinity investment by identifying the most effective way of responding to dryland salinity in different situations.

Do farmers need training brokers? CVCB research has come up with a model for training brokers as well as a training manual.

What’s VET? We hear the term a lot when the subject of training comes up. But what does it mean. The CVCB provides a short description.

CVCB research. A complete listing of CVCB research completed and in progress.

CVCB research gets thumb’s up. A workshop presenting CVCB research to sugar industry representatives gets a positive response.

Work out there. SRDC describes a cultural audit it is conducting and Land & Water Australia provides an update on its Knowledge for NRM project, which is investigating ways to improve knowledge connections between NRM regions and information providers.

Handy links.  Links to websites with useful tips for capacity building and working with groups.

Steering Committee. 
The Cooperative Venture is managed by a steering committee comprising representatives from the partners. The committee is as follows:

Kevin Goss (Chairman), CRC for Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity

Jane Fisher, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation

Ruth Nettle, Dairy Australia

Paul Comyn, Australian Wool Innovation

Victor Dobos, Grains Research and Development Corporation

Tony Clancy, Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation

Ian Bamford, Meat & Livestock Australia

Elwin Turnbull, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia

Michael Lester, Land & Water Australia

Alison Reid, Murray-Darling Basin Commission

Tracy Henderson, Sugar Research and Development Corporation

Bruce Pyke, Cotton Research and Development Corporation 

John McKenzie, John McKenzie and Associates (Program Manager and Executive Officer)

Contacts
For more information about the CVCB and its activities contact:

Jane Fisher, RIRDC, phone (02) 6271 6498, email jane.fisher@rirdc.gov.au

John McKenzie, John McKenzie and Associates, phone 0402 018 318, email john.mckenzie@rbbs.net.au

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Website
For information about the CVCB and projects go to website Cooperative Venture page.

The framework also considers the choice between capacity-building activities, such as extension or technology development, and other responses, including incentive schemes, regulation, direct engineering works, land retirement, and informed inaction.

Understanding capacity building issues 
The framework has the potential to be a powerful tool, not only for policy makers but also for community and regional NRM organisations such as catchment management authorities, as well as being a useful guide for extension and research agencies and individuals involved in helping landowners manage dryland salinity.

Understanding capacity building issues is an important part of this framework. The project is asking, when should capacity building be the investment choice of catchment managers dealing with dryland salinity? 

As part of the project, the team is examining the capacity needs of catchment management organisations and their service providers. 

"SIF3 demands a higher level of rigour and improved data and analysis," said David Pannell. 

"We want to understand where there are capacity gaps in the organisations that we hope will use the framework."

The project is working closely with two catchment management organisations, the North Central Catchment Management Authority in Victoria, and SCRIPT (South Coast Regional Initiative Planning Team), a regional NRM agency on the south coast of Western Australia. 

"We have already presented some preliminary recommendations to North Central CMA regarding their salinity investments," said David Pannell. "One important finding is that they need to target their on-ground works more tightly to key assets. Another is that they need to think more carefully about where extension can be relied on as the main tool for delivering land-use change. Currently much extension is being undertaken in areas where the desired new land uses are not sufficiently attractive for landholders to be willing to adopt them on a large scale."

"We have also identified some areas where the CMA is in need of improved capacity, including in the integration of technical and social information. We think that SIF3 can really help in this regard."

A third component of the project is looking at the demographic changes under way in rural Victoria, and attempting to identify the implications of these for salinity investment strategies. 

The SIF3 project is being funded by CRC Salinity and the CVCB. Collaborators are DSE and DPI Victoria, The University of Western Australia, North Central CMA (Victoria) and SCRIPT South Coast Regional Initiative Planning team), a WA regional NRM body. For more information about SIF3, go to website http://cyllene.uwa.edu.au/~dpannell/sif3.htm

Do farmers need training brokers?
There are a myriad of courses and workshops are available to primary producers, but how do they decide which ones are most appropriate for their situations? 

Research by the CVCB has come up with an innovative approach. Sue Kilpatrick and Amabel Fulton have looked at how training brokering is done now in the agricultural sector and come up with a model for the future. 

So, what is a training broker? A good way of describing a training broker is as a "middle person" who finds out what training a farmer is interested in and how they want to do that training (e.g. on farm or at an institution like TAFE) and then linking them to training providers who can most effectively provide that training. This already happens in some areas.

As well as describing the model and how brokering arrangement are organised now, Sue and Amabel have developed a manual for people who might be interested in brokering training. The manual can be downloaded from the CVCB’s website at http://rirdc.gov.au/capacitybuilding/trainingbrokers/
 

WHAT’S VET?  When the subject of training comes up, inevitably the word “VET” crops up too. But what does this mean? The following might provide guidance for those who are unsure.  The education sector in Australia is divided into three areas: schools, VET (Vocational and Education Training) and universities. Programs in the VET sector are competency based and are mainly aimed at skilling people for the workplace. Completion of a VET qualification results in a Certificate, Diploma or Advanced Diploma. A degree in, say, agriculture is not considered as VET although some graduate certificates and graduate diplomas are considered vocational. Each industry sector, e.g. agriculture has its own training package which contains a number of qualifications that covers the range of occupations in the sector. These qualifications are made up of a choice of competency standards which describe the individual tasks or duties relevant to that sector. Competence is assessed by on-the-job practical demonstration or recognition of prior learning.  Competency standards are developed nationally so if training is delivered against these or retrospectively “aligned” they can have national relevance. This means that an aligned VET course on, for example, some aspect of extension, will meet the same competencies no matter where it is held.

CVCB RESEARCH
For an up-to-date listing of research completed and being undertaken by the CVCB go to website http://www.rirdc.gov.au/capacitybuilding/projects-feb06.pdf

CVCB research gets thumbs up
Earlier this year the CVCB presented summaries of five key projects to sugar industry staff in north Queensland. The idea behind the day was to explain the highlights of the research and obtain feedback from industry participants as to how useful the research might be to them in their jobs. Overall, the workshop was rated by the participants as very worthwhile, and they identified three projects as being particularly relevant to their jobs. The projects were:

WORK OUT THERE
Conducting a cultural audit in the Herbert sugar industry
While we are used to hearing the term "audit" used in association with economics, most of us would probably not be familiar with the term "cultural audit", much less how to do one! However, it can be an important aspect of benchmarking in capacity building projects.

The sugar industry has provided an example of a project being done in Queensland in the Herbert sugar region to better understand the social, historical and power structures that inhibited the industry and community in working together towards a better future. They have called this a cultural imprint study and it is similar to a cultural audit.

The Sugar Research and Development Corporation funded the study which was undertaken through a partnership between growers, harvesters and millers with the assistance of three social researchers. The first task was to bring out the existing cultural, social and historical patterns of doing business for the community to examine those that facilitated working together and those that provided barriers to cooperation. 

The three social researchers initially worked independently to provide effective triangulation to the study - one interviewed local historians to understand how the culture developed, another interviewed a number of ‘wise owls’ (informed people) across different industry and community sectors, and the third ran workshops with different groups. The information gleaned was brought together, common themes and behaviours highlighted and then the results were workshopped with others to test the conclusions and draw implications. These were then presented to the broader industry and community to create discussion and commitment to build on the identified positive behaviours.

The project has just entered its second phase where a suite of tools which are seen to promote more effective partnerships and address issues more effectively and collaboratively are being used. These tools will then be assessed and modified for broader use.

For additional information on the Herbert Cultural Imprint Analysis, visit www.srdc.gov.au/ProjectReports/CSR030.htm or contact Tracy Henderson at SRDC on phone (07) 3225 9443. 

Knowledge for Regional NRM
Knowledge for Regional NRM is a national Land & Water Australia project funded by the Natural Heritage Trust. Over the last year, the Knowledge for Regional NRM project has been investigating and testing ways to improve knowledge connections between regions and national research and information providers. The Australian Government has provided funding for a further two years. Some of the knowledge exchange solutions that the project will be focusing on in this second phase include:

Sister Regions. The Knowledge for Regional NRM project is looking for regions interested in region to region mentoring via a sister region program. At the recent North Australian Natural Resource Management Forum in May, many regions were enthusiastic about a more formal process of sharing their lessons and four regions have expressed interest in being part of a trial. 

Regional Knowledge Needs. Knowledge for Regional NRM is collecting regional knowledge needs to be accessed through an online database. The project has been reviewing regional plans, investment strategies and other relevant documents in order to identify current knowledge needs and communicate them to researchers, facilitators, policy and other regional bodies. This is in direct response to suggestions made by regional bodies.

Knowledge Management for Regions. The project is working with three pilot regions to help them to manage their knowledge sources and future knowledge needs. The project is learning and documenting how support and training could be delivered to other regions about developing their own strategy to manage knowledge. 

For more information contact Melissa Morley, Project Manager, phone 02 6263 6000, email melissa.morley@lwa.gov.au

Inquiry into Rural and Regional Women’s representation
A discussion paper for the Australian Government Inquiry into Rural and Regional Women’s Representation, and public submissions in response, are now available on the DOTARS website. The discussion paper focuses on area where governments and industry could adopt strategies to address the lack of diversity on rural and regional bodies of influence. A final report is being written at present for presentation to the Australian Government in August. To read the discussion paper and public responses go to http://www.dotars.gov.au/regional/development/women/index.aspx

HANDY LINKS

The Social Footprint
For those who are really interested in how to do a social or cultural audit, the following website might be up your alley. The Social Footprint http://www.sustainableinnovation.org/the-social-footprint.html is a corporate sustainability measurement and reporting method that quantifies the social impact of organisations on people. It is similar to the Ecological Footprint, which is a method for measuring and reporting the ecological impact of societies and organisations on the environment. Unlike the Ecological Footprint, though, which measures a population's use of and impact on natural resources (i.e., natural capital), the Social Footprint deals with impacts on social capital. 

The Social Footprint differs from the Ecological Footprint in another very important way. Unlike natural or ecological capital, which is limited and which humans do not create, social capital is produced by people and can be grown virtually at will. When confronted with gaps in social capital available versus social capital needed, we can always create more social capital of the type required. 

Thus, the gaps that must be closed in the case of social capital are not sustainability gaps between fixed resources we have and fixed resources we use; they are gaps between non-fixed resources we have and non-fixed resources we need to satisfy current demands. The extent to which a society or an organisation contributes to closing such gaps in accordance with its per capita share of the burden is what the Social Footprint measures, be they positive contributions or negative ones.