Kate Sherren

Landscapes - People - Global change

Category: Agriculture (Page 1 of 30)

Extension profiles published from Australia sabbatical fieldwork

August 11, 2025 /
A road winding into trees with a kangaroo crossing sign.

Dusk in the Lachlan Valley, June 2024

Last year on sabbatical I revisited graziers in the Australian sheep-wheat belt who I had interviewed during my postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian National University (ANU) back in 2008-9. We did farm tours to capture repeat photography of images they captured as significant to their property back then, at the end of the Millennium Drought, and had interviews about the photo pairs. It was without a doubt the most fun I’ve ever had in the field.

Nova Scotia farmer and Dal alumna Maria Duynisveld has been helping me with the transcriptions and analysis, but also put together a few profiles in partnership with some of the participating farmers for the Sustainable Farms team at ANU who helped support the work. Those have all now been published.

Scattered trees and sunset

Sunset in the Lachlan Valley, June 2024

Neil and Marg Stuart‘s profile about their work on their property Glanmire is featured on the Sustainable Farms page of farmer stories, as did Grant and Lizzie Molloy’s profile about their work on Dairy Park.

David and Mary Marsh‘s and Vince Heffernan‘s profiles about their work on Allendale and Moorlands, respectively, are featured on the Box Gum Grassy Woodland page that Sustainable Farms has set up to support this endangered ecoregion.

Really excited to be able to contribute to telling these inspiring stories, and show the value of repeat photography in doing so.

Two people holding a photo of a tree outside.

Grant and Lizzie Molloy doing repeat photography with me on their property, Dairy Park.

New paper: conceptual models as boundary objects

July 9, 2025 /

The final synthesis conceptual systems diagram for NSERC ResNet L1, included as Figure 3 in the Cornejo et al. (2025) NBS paper.

ResNet Landscape 1 postdoc Lara Cornejo led a great new paper, out this week in Nature-based Solutions, called Using a causal conceptual model of managed dyke realignment as a boundary object promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration and co-production. This paper tells the story of how conceptual models served as critical boundary objects in the Bay of Fundy case study (Landscape 1) of NSERC ResNet, and particularly the final conceptual model (above) based on expert knowledge and empirical project results. The process of building the model is discussed in another recent paper discussed here. This model is different from the baseline model we built at the outset of the project based on pre-/non-ResNet research, that did not include any feedbacks or any decision-making components. This model also has a focus on managed dyke realignment, rather than individual landforms like dykes or tidal wetlands. Thanks to Lara for leading this process!

New paper: from sustainable grazing learner to leader

January 2, 2025 /

On New Year’s Eve, a new paper came out online first and OA in Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems led by former postdoc Brooke McWherter, called From learner to leader: exploring learning, motivations, and roles of regenerative grazing mentors. This paper emerged from her collaboration with Farmers for Climate Solutions and the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association, funded by FCS and Mitacs, that followed and assessed the national  Farm Resilience Mentorship Program (FaRM) for adaptive grazing. This paper is based on interviews with half of the program’s mentors that explored their own learning journeys, and how and why they became mentors to others. I a meta move, Brooke also mentored MREM alum and RA Hunar Arora, who is a co-author on this piece.

Two people labelled social supports and mentor pull a learner up a stylized hill showing various stages of learning.

Figure 2 in the new ASFS paper led by Brooke, showing the process of becoming a mentor.

IASNR in Cairns

July 13, 2024 /

The Cairns Esplanade over the mud flats at sunset

I’m belated posting about the International Association for Society and Natural Resources meeting in Cairns, at the end of June, because of the two weeks of family holiday in Queensland and New South Wales that followed it. It was an intense few days, including the hybrid panel-style book launch for Opening Windows, an excellent sequence of two paper sessions and a panel on Regenerative Agriculture (including content from Brooke’s postdoc work as well as a smattering of my grazing work in Australia), and a fun session on the state of the art in ecosystem services in which I presented the two in-review ResNet manuscripts building on surveys in the dykeland and tidal wetland context of the Minas Basin. I attended many excellent sessions, like the day-long series on Place. The conference was as stimulating as ever.

Brooke is awarded the 2024 IASNR Bridge Builder at the Business Lunch in Cairns.

My biggest delight, however, was seeing Brooke awarded the 2024 IASNR Bridge Builder Award at the Business Lunch session. I nominated Brooke for this important award for the leadership she has provided to the agricultural extension space in Canada, far beyond her official commitments to Farmers for Climate Solutions and Canadian Forage and Grassland Association. She has fueled a renaissance of rigorous ag social science among Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and their Living Labs programs across the country. Well deserved, and well-timed, as Brooke finishes her work at Dalhousie and heads off to the University of Nebraska to a dedicated research position in the extension space. Congratulations, Brooke, and thanks for your amazing work at Dalhousie!

The hybrid book launch for Opening Windows at IASNR 2024 with all editors and 7 authors attending.

 

Australia fieldwork

June 17, 2024 /

I have been in Australia for just over two weeks now, revisiting livestock producers I worked with during my postdoctoral fellowship in 2008-2010. I was able to reach just over a third of the original participants, and I have been visiting them on their properties to identify the sites of the photos they took back in 2008, and recapture the same photos. It is fun work, like a treasure hunt. Some landscape changes are subtle in that 15+ years, and some are not (like the 66-turbine Rye Park wind farm; see below – you’ll need to zoom in). Thanks to the ANU Sustainable Farms team for the use of their field vehicle, and to these wonderful farmers for offering so much of their time and good humour.

The Rye Park wind farm at sunset

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