About Us

The Australian Holistic Management Co-operative

The Co-operative promotes Holistic Management practices to enable thriving lives and landscapes. It provides members with support, training, mentoring and ecological verification of their produce. The Co-op is a Hub of the Savory Institute, whose mission is the large-scale regeneration of the world's degraded grasslands through Holistic Management. See our Hub listing. We promote member produce and services, and offer Ecological Outcome Verification, an assessment scheme to measure the health of soil, biodiversity and ecosystems.

The concept of the co-operative arose from the 2016 Dubbo Holistic Management Conference held by Hooves 4 Humus and the Australian Holistic Management Educators Group. In 2017 Farming Together awarded us a grant to establish the Australian Holistic Management Co-operative. The establishment meeting took place in July 2018 and the co-operative was registered by ASIC as NSWC32856 in September 2018. Here is some more on Holistic Management and the setting up of the Co-op. (The Australian Holistic Management Cooperative gratefully acknowledges the financial and other support it received in 2017-18 from The Farm Co-operatives and Collaboration Pilot Program - the Farming Together Program).

Governance of the AHMC

From 1 July 2023 the CEO is Helen Lewis, and the board is comprised of Directors Tony Hill, Ian Chapman, Michael Gooden, Rebecca Gorman and Brian Wehlburg. The Secretary and Treasurer is Dave Ellis.

CEO Helen Lewis is an Accredited Holistic Management Educator and co-owner of Picots Farm, which holistically produces grass-fed and finished beef. Helen's experience over 25 years includes community development, policy advising, agripolitics, agribusiness in Central Australia, holistic supply-chain management, company directorships, and 20 years as General Manager for the $1.2 billion Outback Way project.

Director Tony Hill was the founding Executive Chair of the Australian Holistic Management Co-op. He has extensive experience with governance and project management including roles as President of the Internet Society of Australia, President of the Australasian Research Management Society and Chair of the National ICT Industry Alliance. Tony runs Capital Hill Consulting, which focuses on strategic planning for Cooperative Research Centres, which have attracted grants of $20-$40 million and matching funds of three to four times this amount. He and his wife Jane Keany run Illalangi Farm at Mt Fairy, using Holistic Management principles to build biodiversity and soil fertility.

Director Ian Chapman leads the Hooves to Humus (Savory Institute) Hub in New South Wales and is an experienced farmer, primary producer and VET educator. He and his wife Sharon run Glenroy, a 400 hectare property at Store Creek, 40 minutes drive north of Orange. They produce pastured products such as beef and pork in a regenerative way, and all stock are handled using stress-free techniques.

Director Michael Gooden owns and operates Old Man Creek with his wife Heloise. Old Man Creek is an Angus cattle stud located at Sandigo in the Riverina, NSW. Their aim is to breed animals that have been raised on grass in a cell grazing operation all their lives and they run a regenerative grazing business based on Holistic Management principles.

Director Rebecca Gorman has a background in journalism, and now raises beef on Yabtree West near Gundagai in southern NSW, using the principles of Holistic Management to focus on regenerating soil and improving the land's general biodiversity. She uses the tools of planned rotational grazing, extensive tree planting and Natural Sequence farming.

Director Brian Wehlburg delivers Holistic Management training and consultation across Australia through Inside Outside Management, and is also a board member of Holistic Management International. He has experience as a farmer and grazier both in Africa and Australia and is passionate about the importance of regenerative farming in our way forward.