Futureprofit in Queensland: The Positive Impact of an Adult Education Program on the Sustainable Farming

The Property Management Planning (PMP) campaign in Australia is a major government initiative, aimed at improving the financial and resource management sustainability of agriculture, that has been running since 1992. The basis of the campaign since 1995 has been the provision of an integrated, whole-of-system, eight workshop series to groups of five to ten participating families. This paper reports on an evaluation of the outcomes of the program in the slate of Queensland, where the program has the generic title of'FutureProfit. The evaluation study was based on individual, semi-structured interviews with 46 participants from 23 families in the first four groups to complete the program, in southern and central Queensland. All families and individuals believed they had benefited from the program, through enhanced sensitivity to natural resource management issues, improvements to their business management knowledge, analysis, and planning skills, and through exposure to experts infields such as accounting, banking, and law. Many also reported social benefits including improved communication within families, and between families within groups. Realisation of commonality of problems was leading to group approaches to solutions, such as shared input-purchase and labour-hire schemes. Success of the program is attributed at least partly to the adult education principles it incorporates. The PMP/FutureProfit program is making a positive contribution to sustainable farming in Queensland, because it is able to address, through its holistic approach, ecological, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability.