The Victorian Serrated Tussock Working Party (VSTWP) is providing community groups and organisations – including those in the Hepburn Shire area – with the opportunity to apply for grants to manage serrated tussock.

The grants aim to support community groups and organisations to build their capacity to achieve long-term voluntary management of serrated tussock.

Grants of up to $5,000 (GST excluded) are available to deliver a project which meets the priorities and criteria outlined in these guidelines.

The grants promote collaboration between community groups, local municipalities and the VSTWP in the best practice management of serrated tussock.

A key objective of the grants is to support community groups and organisations that have been actively controlling serrated tussock over a number of years.

Link to the guidelines and application form below, which include how to submit the grant application, contact details and the criteria for assessment.

Grants are currently open for application. For guidelines and to apply HERE

The Victorian Government is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from experienced tree-growing businesses to help regional landowners plant trees and reduce Victoria’s carbon emissions.

EOIs are open for established plantation/vegetation management businesses to become Registered Project Advisors for the Victorian Carbon Farming Program and help landowners plant trees on their properties.

Registered Project Advisors will be able to apply for sponsorship funding to undertake outreach activities to engage with landowners on the potential benefits of growing trees on farms.

The program’s pilot will run in the North Central Catchment Management Authority Region. The project aims to incentivise rural landowners to establish shelterbelts and woodlots that will bring a range of on-farm benefits and sequester carbon to assist meeting the state’s emissions reduction targets. 

Grants will open up for landowners in July 2023.

For more information on the Victorian Carbon Farming Program and to submit an EOI click here. 

In a national first, the Victorian Government has worked with CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, to become the first state to include Plantation and Farm Forestry methods in their online carbon abatement calculator “LOOC-C” (‘look see’).

The calculator will help Victorian landowners, including those residing in the Hepburn Shire area, to learn about opportunities for plantation and farm forestry activities to sequester carbon and generate revenue on their land. It will also link landowners to Victorian Government grant programs to grow trees on their properties.

LOOC-C directs users to select an area of land via a map, and then estimates the total carbon abatement in Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) potentially available under a range of methodologies through the Commonwealth Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) endorsed by the Clean Energy Regulator.

LOOC-C is available at looc-c.farm

The newest editions of cereal and pulse disease guides are now available to download as mobile-friendly e-books from Agriculture Victoria’s website.

The 2023 Cereal Disease Guide and 2023 Pulse Disease Guide rank susceptibility of new and commonly grown grains and pulses such as wheat, barley, oats, lentils, faba bean and chickpea.

The guides have been produced with support from Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and provide updated disease ratings and advice on reducing disease risk this season.

Growers should consult the current disease guide for the latest ratings and definitions to plan disease management.

Agriculture Victoria Cereal Pathologist Dr Hari Dadu said the release of the updated cereal disease guide complements earlier advice this season from Agriculture Victoria.

“They contain the latest disease resistance ratings to assist growers with their crop disease management plans and help prevent grain yield loss this season.

“Within the guide, we advise on how to proactively manage crop disease risk particularly stripe rust, which wreaked havoc in wheat crops last year.

“Choosing a variety that is less susceptible to disease using the ratings in our guide is a recommended step to keep disease at bay.

“It’s also important for cereal growers to avoid managing disease solely through fungicide treatment; the guide has advice on reducing the risk of fungicide resistance through crop rotation,” Dr Dadu said.

For pulse growers, this year’s edition of the Pulse Disease Guide will be of particular interest to growers as it includes new botrytis grey mould ratings for lentils.

Agriculture Victoria Pulse Pathologist, Dr Joshua Fanning, said the varieties GIA Leader, PBA Hallmark XT and PBA Kelpie XT have been provisionally downgraded.

These varieties will need to be monitored more closely during 2023.

“It’s essential for growers to use the latest edition of the disease guide to inform their crop disease management strategy as disease ratings are reviewed and revised annually.

“Last year’s wet conditions were highly conducive for pulse diseases across Victoria and have impacted the ratings of some varieties and some disease ratings have changed to reflect this,” he said.

“Due to the high risk posed by stubble borne diseases growers should not double crop paddocks.”

The 2023 Pulse Disease guide and Cereal Disease guide are both available on the Agriculture Victoria website and from AppleBooks.

A Mallee farmer has been fined $65,000 and disqualified for 25 years from owning any farm animal or being a person in charge of any farm animal after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges and being sentenced recently at the Ballarat Magistrates’ Court.

Agriculture Victoria Program Manager Animal Health and Welfare Compliance, Daniel Bode said Steven Ralston was convicted of 14 charges, including multiple failures to provide proper and sufficient food and drink to his livestock, a failure to treat flystrike sheep and a breach of a previously imposed order by the court requiring Mr Ralston to provide appropriate care to his stock.

The court heard the charges related to a failure to provide food and drink and an outbreak of flystrike in a flock of more than 1320 sheep at Mr Ralston’s properties in Corack and Chinkapook between March and April 2020.

Mr Bode said Agriculture Victoria officers first attended the property in early March 2020 in response to an animal welfare complaint.

Have you ever thought of keeping a couple of backyard pigs? At first, it would seem there is not much to it.

But no matter how many pigs you have, or whether they are pets or for consumption, all pig owners play a vital role in helping maintain the health and welfare of Australia’s livestock and providing quality pork products to consumers.

There are several legal requirements for pig owners that are monitored by state government and industry authorities.

So why the fuss? Pigs are recognised as ‘high risk’ animals for their role in some exotic disease outbreaks.

Swill feeding pigs is prohibited as it may provide the opportunity for your pigs to be exposed to meat and dairy products from overseas that could contain exotic diseases. 

The exotic diseases most likely to be introduced into Australia through illegal swill feeding are Foot and mouth disease (FMD) and African swine fever (ASF).

These are your responsibilities when keeping pigs:

1. Register your property – all properties where pigs are kept need to have a property identification code (PIC). Your PIC can be obtained through our website HERE.
2. Identify your pigs – you need to identify individual pigs if you sell them or have them processed at an abattoir. Pigs over 25 kilograms must be tattooed with your property’s unique code, and pigs below this weight must be ear tagged.
3. Register on the PigPass database – you will need a PigPass National Vendor Declaration (NVD) when you sell your pigs or have them processed at an abattoir. This assists with tracking the movements of livestock in the event of an exotic disease outbreak or a food safety scare. The first step in obtaining a PigPassNVD is to register with the PigPass database. To register, visit www.pigpass.com.au or contact the PigPass help desk on 1800 001 458.
4. Be welfare compliant – if you own or have animals on your land, you have a duty of care to look after them. The Model Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals (Pigs) outlines welfare standards and ‘best practice’ guidelines for pig owners. More information HERE
5. Keep your pigs healthy – there are five things you should do to keep your pigs healthy:

• have and adhere to a herd health program
• do not feed restricted feedstuffs (swill)
• report unusual/notifiable diseases
• only use restricted (Schedule 4) veterinary medicines that have been prescribed by a veterinarian for your pigs.
• adhere to all label instructions on non-veterinary chemicals including dose rate and withhold and export slaughter intervals.

A new initiative known as the Pig Biosecurity Project, which is co-funded by the Swine Compensation Fund, is freely available for all small pig producers, and owners of pet pigs and free-range pigs.

Agriculture Victoria staff will attend these farms and assist the pig owner/manager to complete a biosecurity plan.

During the project we will also collect faecal samples for free testing for round worm and whipworm to increase our understanding of parasites in small pig holdings. The program is voluntary for pig owners to participate.

For further advice please contact your local veterinarian or Agriculture Victoria Veterinary or Animal Health Officer, or in NSW your Local Land Services.

Words: Dr Jeff Cave, Senior Veterinary Officer. Image: Suppled

A new Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) registration for farmers using waste tyres as weights in silage production will help reduce the risk of fire and harm to human health and the environment.

Stockpiled tyres can pose a significant fire risk. 

Tyre fires are hard to extinguish, emit toxic smoke and can contribute to harm in the environment.

Having an understanding of a farm’s tyre stocks will help mitigate the risk and severity they pose.

“Silage production is critical for a healthy agricultural industry,” said Director Permissioning and Development, Con Lolis.

“The registration strikes the right balance between making sure farmers can feed their stock while also helping to reduce the risk of harm to human health and the environment.”

Farmers, or anyone, using and/or storing 5m3 (about the size of a small skip bin) of waste tyres as weights for silage production, have until 1 July 2023 to apply for a registration.

We’ve made the process to apply for a registration as easy as possible.  It’s free, fast and can even be done on your smart phone.

“By having farmers and others, who use waste tyres for silage production, apply for this free registration, we are all doing our part to ensure waste tyres are correctly stored and managed to help reduce the risk of fire or environmental harm,” Mr Lolis said.

Local flood and storm-affected farmers and growers throughout the Hepburn Shire and surrounds are still eligible to apply for financial support via the current flood recovery grants.

Applications for primary producer and rural landholder financial supports related to the October 2022 to 13 January 2023 flood and storm event have been extended to 13 July 2023.

Applications close at 4 pm on Thursday 13 July 2023.

The extension applies to:

1. Primary Producer Recovery Grants: Up to $75,000 grants to support the cost of recovery and get businesses up and running again. Note: This replaces the $10,000 Primary Producer Flood Clean–Up, Relief Grants announced on 19 October. Producers that have received a Primary Producer Flood Clean–Up Relief Grant of $10,000 can now apply for up to a further $65,000 under the Primary Producer Recovery Grant, bringing the total to $75,000.
2. Rural Landholder Grants: Up to $25,000 grants to support the costs of disaster impacts for small-scale producers.
3. Primary Producer Concessional Loans: Up to $250,000 to restore or replace damaged equipment and infrastructure, or to cover short-term business expenses. This loan has been amended to allow primary producers who suffered a significant loss of income as a direct result of the 2022 Victorian floods and storms but who did not suffer direct damage to assets to apply for a concessional loan of up to $100,000.
4. Primary Producer Transport Subsidies: Up to $15,000 to support the transport of emergency fodder or stock drinking water, and the movement of livestock.

To apply for support or for more information primary producers can visit the Rural Finance website.

The National Centre for Farmer Health is committed to supporting primary producers – including those in Hepburn Shire and surrounds – whose properties, livestock or crops were damaged or lost in the floods and storms through the delivery of initiatives to boost farmer mental health and wellbeing.

The centre in recent days has issued a statement highlighting the fact that these include:

• A supportive online community through the #BuildingFarmSpirit social media campaign
• Free access to online psychology support delivered by farmer health trained psychologists
• Support for community events providing social connection and mental health promotion opportunities for farmers, farming families and farming communities
• Distribution of mental health resources and support information.

More information is available on the National Centre for Farmer Health website.

The Hepburn Shire Council is supporting the Trentham Neighbourhood Centre to hold a range of low-cost two-hour sustainability workshops.

The range on offer includes the Beeswax wraps workshop, a hands-on workshop from 1pm on Saturday 22 April. The wraps are beautiful and can be used to wrap most kinds of food.

The Keeping backyard chickens workshop with Craig Castree will guide you through keeping chickens in urban spaces.

There’s a few rules and procedures for raising healthy productive chickens and you can learn them at on Saturday 29 April at 1pm.

The council says those keen to participate are advised to secure a place on their website as bookings are essential. Cost is $10 each.

The Hepburn Shire Council is encouraging local businesses to find out how they may be able to can get involved with the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

The Creswick Trails have been selected to host Commonwealth Games mountain biking events.
 
The Victoria 2026 Goods and Services Procurement Pipeline features more than 1200 opportunities for local companies to win contracts at the upcoming Commonwealth Games, with everything from sporting equipment to medals, transport, security, catering, temporary infrastructure, marketing, telecommunications, IT and more.
 
Local businesses are now being encouraged to Visit the hub or register a supplier profile on the Victorian Government Tenders portal.

From calls to lower speed limits on certain roads and bridges, to bright ideas to establish a new arboretum, this month’s Clunes Listening Post has proved to be a good chance for many to air a wide range of concerns with Hepburn Shire councillors and staff.

A robust number of locals seized the chance to chat with Councillors and staff about Council-related matters.

Listening Posts are held at various locations around the Hepburn Shire every two months.

The next session will be held in Trentham in June with details to be made available closer to the date.

The Hepburn Shire Council has announced that Round 4 of its community grants program is now open until Friday 28 April. 

If you’re part of a community group or not for profit organisation and are looking to fund a new project, the council says it wants to hear from you!

Categories include:
 Active and Engaged Communities
 Quality Community Infrastructure (including small equipment)
 Sustainable Environments
 Children’s Program (specifically for 8 – 12 years)
 Charitable Purposes

Providing an example of the sorts of things grants may go towards, Daylesford Men’s Shed (some of whose members are pictured above) received a grant to create and install Christmas trees along Vincent Street in Daylesford last year.

Those keen to lodge an application are being urged by the council to “take a look at the guidelines and apply on our website.”

The Hepburn Shire Council is reminding local pet owners that pet registrations fell due on Monday 10 April.

If your pet is already registered you will have received a reminder notice in the post.

The council is urging residents who didn’t receive the notice to “please get in touch with our Community Health and Safety Team on (03) 5348 2306”.

By registering your pet you’re doing all you can to be quickly reunited with your furry friend if they go missing.

There are discounts for registration of older pets and working animals and the first year of registration is free for desexed and microchipped dogs and cats.

Do you know someone aged 15 to 25 who would be interested in shaping the infrastructure priorities of the future?

Infrastructure Victoria is updating the state’s 30-year infrastructure strategy and wants to hear from young Victorians as they look at the state’s infrastructure needs over the next three decades.

Registrations to attend the Young People’s Forum in Melbourne on 20 May 2023 are open for people aged 15 to 25 who live in Victoria.

Participants will be paid $140 for their time, and regional Victorians will be supported with travel and accommodation costs. 

Those interested are being urged to Find out more or call freephone 1800 979 787 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.