Several of the team had the opportunity to attend and present at the Australasia-Pacific Extension Network (APEN) International Conference which is aimed towards those involved in rural extension and education, in Launceston earlier in November.

The hub also sponsored three extension officers from our node partners to attend.  The offer was extended to Drought Resilience Coordinators as an opportunity to share knowledge, learn new skills and to improve extension capability as well as the hear about new approaches and techniques being used by other industries and regions. APEN is a great peer to peer learning opportunity for extension officers.

Nearly 100 presentations, workshops and interactive activities highlighted the latest extension research and practices with Dr Jane Oorschot and Kara Worth delivering workshops on their activities.

Dr Jane Oorschot was part of a working party that was formed to develop professional capability levels and development pathways for extension practitioners. Recognising how crucial extension is to achieve broad-scale adoption driven by government and industry programs, Jane and the team consolidated research from over the years from extension industry experts. The APEN workshop aimed to further capture the fundamental skills and knowledge, core technical skills and the fields of practice required to enable effective engagement and facilitation of change. A final report will be available through the APEN Professional Development portal to be used and adapted by various programs and organisations.

The hub’s Digital Ag Innovation Consultant, Kara Worth ran a workshop on ‘AgValuate’, a hub developed tool that empowers producers to assess their innovation readiness. The question-based tool assesses the farm business model across 4 key themes; Human Impact, Economic Impact, Environmental Impact and Technology and Innovation, and then provides a ‘now’ and ‘aspired to’ report to help producers identify areas of their business that would best benefit from agtech uptake and innovation models. The workshop group went through the questions and discussed how the tool would be an additional resource in the adoption journey. The tool will continue to tested with partners and be rolled out to ensure it is meeting producer needs.