With prime agricultural land getting gobbled up by houses and mining the challenge for Oz farmers is to produce more food using fewer resources to generate less waste and reusing/recycling that waste whenever we can
For dairy farmers that requires us to grow more grass per hectare (ha) so we can graze more cows per ha to produce more milk per ha which also means we are reducing CO2 emitted per ha. Here is a very novel way of increasing stocking rate. Love it
Thanks @peterholding for sharing
By the way other ways Oz Farmers are looking after our scare natural resources and getting more food and fibre from less
- soil testing and nutrient mapping to allow them to use less fertiliser per ha.
- getting more crop per drop
- Placing nitrogen fertiliser at depth in cooler times in wet soils to maximise nitrogen efficiency (and thus minimise losses to the atmosphere)
- Planting water use and fertiliser efficient, drought tolerant perennial pastures
- Assessing and optimising nitrogen fertiliser use and use of alternative sources such as legume rotations.
- Using lower emissions machinery and assessing and improving existing machinery and irrigation pumping performance and investigating alternative fuel sources.
- Improvements in soil management through stubble retention, reduced tillage and reduction in spraying operations
Measures of success
Farmers are able to increase their productivity:
• per hectare of land
• per unit of nitrogen fertiliser
• per ML water
• per unit of CO2 equivalent emitted
