The workshops have attracted over 800 farmers participating in 70 workshops over the past eighteen months. The feedback from farmers attending workshops has been overwhelmingly positive with the workshops obviously meeting some of their farm management and planning needs. The workshops also act as a catalyst for bringing rural communities together to socialise and discuss issues and problems facing farming families on the North Coast. A couple of the landholder groups have embraced the program's 'big picture' concept of linking physical, financial and personal circumstances into whole farm plans and have participated in physical farm planning, soils and computer workshops and plan to attend financial and taxation workshops in the future. The workshops are developed in close consultation with groups of farmers to meet their specific farm management and planning needs.
Workshops create synergy between fellow farmers, extension officers and consultants.
The sum of the ideas of the group is usually greater in value than the the individual ideas alone. It also provides a framework for the farmers to co-ordinate advice from diverse range of sources. The process assists farmers to recognise the total assets of the farm, to deal with the inter-relationships between these resources and to plan for sustainable productivity and profitability. Whole farm planning workshops expose farmers to ecological and land management issues that do not respect farm boundaries such as streambank erosion, gully erosion, rising water tables, wildlife habitat, vermin and weeds. Farming for the Future has been an outstanding success.