We wish to formally invite you to participate in the upcoming International Conference of the Australasia-Pacific Extension Network, to be held from the 12th to the 15th of September 2017, at the ‘The Ville’ Hotel in Townsville. The conference is on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef and Tropical Rainforests.

Our conference will also be hosting a range of international delegates from the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), who will be participating in a 3 day pre-conference meeting at Ingham, in the Hinchinbrook region.

The theme of the conference is ‘Facilitating balanced change for rural and urban communities’. The conference is an international meeting for rural advisory practitioners, researchers and academics that combines the best extension research and practice from developing and developed countries.

Key themes for the conference are:

Gender balance and affirmative action
Planning, monitoring and evaluating
Developing agricultural innovation systems
Building social capital and resilience
Incorporating new media in extension
Policies and trends in rural advisory services
Achieving health, NRM, production and social outcomes

For further information concerning the conference please visit the conference page on the APEN website.

While you are in the region, consider staying a little longer to experience what the region has to offer. There is lots to see and do! In North Queensland we have both wet and dry tropical agriculture and a very large marine park that is managed for a range of uses. We will showcase the integration of production and natural resource management extension in the wet and dry tropics that focuses on achieving outcomes that meet the environmental needs of the rainforest and reef as well as the economic and social needs of dryland and irrigated agricultural production in the tropics.

We look forward to hosting you in the beautiful tropical regions of Hinchinbrook and Townsville, in 2017.

See you at the 2017 GFRAS APEN International Conference!

Lawrence Di Bella

Conference Convener
Lawrence Di Bella is the Manager of the Hebert Cane Productivity Services Limited (HCPSL). During his working career has been employed by BSES, Terrain NRM and HCPSL on 2 occasions. Lawrence manages a team of ~15 staff focusing on technical services, research, development and extension in the Herbert cane growing region in North Queensland. Lawrence has had the opportunity to travel to review cane and agricultural industries in South Africa, Swaziland, PNG, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan and the USA during his employment history. He was also a guest speaker at the Global Forum for Rural Advisor Services (GFRAS) in Kyrgyzstan in 2015. He has a keen interest in sustainable farming (especially sustainable cane farming) and agronomy.

2017 GFRAS APEN International Conference in Tropical North Queensland, Australia

Lawrence Di Bella

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