I’m building Blackwood Valley Eco. It’s a family business. We are regenerative farmers. We take eco-tours through our bush. This blog will be a logbook of my personal journey through this, building social capital, building a customer base, working on sales, understanding business structure. If following a young guy with big ambitions is what you’re into, subscribe to this blog today.
I’m 23 years old. I went to primary school and high school in the local area. Then, I moved to Melbourne for university. I jumped between degrees, uncommitted because I was trying to find what I loved to do. I was never going to settle. Probably because of social media influences like Casey Neistat, Jordan Shanks, etc. I tried an arts degree and hated it. I tried computer science and that didn’t work either. I felt incompetent in these fields. I didn’t have patience because I wasn’t passionate.
I dropped out of uni in late 2019, convinced I would pursue political commentary. In 2020, I spent every waking minute learning about politics. That’s how it felt, anyway. The pandemic only helped this. Cooped up in my room, I was in my element. Then, I fell out of love with politics. There is only so long you can love the toxicity of that space. I then found regenerative agriculture.
I wanted to make my dad a Father’s Day gift in September 2020, but I couldn’t go home for COVID restrictions. I made him a video. A plan for how he might fence off a dam that he always wanted to be fenced off. This research sent me down the path of regenerative agriculture. What a rabbit hole. From multi-species cropping to time-control grazing, complex systems and soil science. I was fascinated. I needed to come home.
2021 was spent mostly on the family farm, Blackwood Valley. My dad and I would help my uncle to feed the cattle, and we would run little trials of rotational grazing on certain paddocks. The first one we did was in the “middle paddock”. It seemed to work. No one had ever seen it so green. It was growing well in the middle of winter. We did some multi-species trials with a local company called SoilKee. By the end of the year, we were rotating every mob, giving paddocks between 20- and 40-days’ rest. Things were going well.
In 2022, we are continuing with regenerative agriculture at Blackwood Valley. We have plans to fix up roads, do soil testing, lay better water pipes, plant a bunch of trees and continually work on our time-control grazing. But agriculture is just one part of the vision for Blackwood Valley. We are starting an eco-tourism business, my dad’s dream business of twenty years coming to fruition. Taking tours through the warm temperate bushland on the property, we are keen to share the beauty of Blackwood Valley with the world.
This is our story. This blog will be a varied one. I will discuss the techniques of regenerative agriculture. I will also discuss personal and business development. I’ll take you on a journey with me, as I grow this business from the ground up, telling stories along the way.