The Food Machine

Fairfax environmental journalist Matt Cawood has been quoted as saying

“Agriculture is the most fundamental human activity. Without it, we don’t have cities, the Internet, cappuccino. And we are quickly realizing that how we conduct agriculture determines the health of the planet.”

Yesterday Bess Gairns sent me via twitter a link to this video The Food Machine with the comment ‘Amazing would love to see an Australian version’

If you have time ( its runs for 50 minutes) do watch it. Its just mind blowing

Reflecting back on a previous post where I quoted Dr Jude Capper

“We have cars and airplanes. We have treatments for cancer and heart disease. Why is it that in every other business sector we celebrate increased efficiency and productivity thanks to new technology while when it comes to food more and more people want it done the old-fashioned way?”

The key thing The Food Machine reinforces to me is just how much as Matt Cawood reminds us we wouldn’t have if agriculture did business like it did in the 1950’s .

Surely it is time we let the Little Golden Book idea of farming go. It is imperative we acknowledge the world is a totally different place in 2013 than it was in the 1950’s and if we are going to get the best outcomes for our landscapes, waterways, our people and our animals and the economy we have to start were we are at and learn from our mistakes and not focus on where we have been.

Matt Cawood sums it up perfectly for me

“The future lies in developing technology and thinking that lessens our ecological footprint and respects the natural processes that underpin all life,”

UPDATE – once again twitter delivers ( Thank you Alison Fairleigh) we do have an Australian version thanks to ABC24 just loaded today. BTW it only runs for 3.4 mins

Coles Milking the Cash Cow Dry

For those of you who read this excellent blog from Milk Maid Marian will know she has quite a way with words so when I was sent this classic ‘Explaining Ideology With Moo Cows!’ that does the rounds from time with updates on what is topical at the time I knew Marian was just the person to give it an Australian dairy milk prices wars theme.

What a clever little vegemite she is. Less than a minute it took her to put together the Coles Corporation ditty ( see bottom of post )

Subject: The world economy

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM

You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

VENTURE CAPITALISM

You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION

You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

A GREEK CORPORATION

You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks.
You eat both of them.
The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF.
The IMF loans you two cows.
You eat both of them.
The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk.
You are out getting a haircut.

A COLES CORPORATION

You have two cows

You refuse to feed them and complain they make too much noise

You give away their milk while picking the pockets of everyone who passes buy

Eventually, the cows die of starvation, so you get everyone drinking UHT instead

Special Thanks to XQHEQUE for this very accurate cartoon comment

So excited the cows are back

I was so excited when I woke up this morning to see the cows were back and wow what a picture they made.

Mystical Jamberoo Valley after the rains

For too many eastern seaboard farmers sadly last week’s rain was a calamity. For us it was like we had won lotto. My office window overlooks this paddock and every 14 to 21 days up until 6 months ago I could reliably look out the window and for three mornings straight watch the cows strip graze their way down the hill. It has been so long since the cows were in this paddock I had almost forgotten how magical it was

As you can see this morning they were already well down the hill and there was no strip grazing fences to be seen as there was only enough grass for just one feed from the whole paddock

But there was grass none the less and it wasn’t long before the water trough beckoned and I could see the gorgeous girls up close and personal

Below in the distance you can see our young girls grazing on the fresh new shoots on one of our lease properties

The girls wandered off to the midday milking

and it was all action – men and machines everywhere

Making the most of every opportunity to grow the next round of lushest, sweetest grass paradise can deliver to produce nature’s perfect nutrient cocktail for 50,000 Australians every day

Maybe even in the not too distant future it will look like this again

and as HT said its just great to feel like you are farming again

Strangling the host

Here in paradise we have some superb, vulnerable and endangered species of native rainforest and woodland trees

There is nothing more spectacular than the strangler fig and this one is just divine.

In the rainforest the strangler fig germinates only in the branches of a host tree from the seed deposited by birds. Many roots are sent down and they gradually envelope and strangle the host tree leaving the fig in its place. The root structure of this one is quite compelling isn’t it

We have called this area you guessed it Figtree Corner. The cairn in the front is a tribute to Ron White one of our neighbours who was the chair of our Landcare group at the time of his passing. We are growing the native bleeding heart just in the front of the fig. It is one of Erin’s favourite trees.

The strangler fig trees have adapted by starting their lives off as epiphytes, as at the ground level of the rainforest there is little light and a huge amount of competition for water and nutrients meaning that the majority of plants that start off on the ground have to adapt or die. The strangler fig has adapted by using other trees to get itself into the canopy where it is lighter.
Once the strangler fig sprouts roots, it begins to use them to strangle the tree. as well as this it competes with the host tree for nutrients and water, then the strangler fig has a large growth spurt like this one in another spot on the farm, and once it begins to grow leaves they are very large and they tend to cover those of the host plant.

This Morton Bay fig recently lost one of its branches in a storm and it was splitting down the trunk. We thought it would die so one of the neighbours has inserted a “baby’ in a pouch on the trunk which seems to be doing very well

These trees are making me feel old I can remember when I first spotted the Figtree in the third picture and it was no more that a foot long. Scary

Transparency and integrity Coles that is all we ask

As drought morphs into floods I reflect on the week that has been. I popped into ABC Illawarra to do an interview on the Archibull Prize launch and of course got asked for a quick grab on the Milk Price wars. Just a little quid pro quo what harm could that do?.

I haven’t heard the interview but it has almost necessitated me going into hiding. I was inundated by calls from radio stations and newspapers wanting to follow up my comments and then when I declined industry bodies who were asked to comment on my comments.

Coles is in damage control and the consultants have been engaged to tell Coles side of the story. Let me tell you mine in pictures. Pictures, I can now only bring myself to share because I know the rain will bring the grass and a little sanity back

Months of almost no rain has meant we have no grass to feed our cows and this has meant we have had to buy in feed to hand feed all our cows – all 1000 of them ( and yes that is very very very expensive)

Bare hills not much clover to be seen here

This means this mixer wagon goes up and down the road every day, all day bringing feed mixed at the Lemon Grove farm to all the cattle on the home farm and our young stock on our leased properties

In the last week we have had to feed the cows along this fence line as our mixer wagon went in for repair and the loan machine didn’t fit on the feed pad, so we had to sacrifice another paddock for the greater good

Not a pretty site

I look forward to sharing the good news that comes with the rain but back to the $1 dollar milk.

Coles what we need here is transparency and integrity then you wouldn’t need consultants to interpret and press releases for spin.

Firstly acknowledge that consumer well being is not your first priority, in fact your tills and your shareholders are front and centre all the way as this story reiterates ‘ Sydney drivers get slugged as supermarkets sweep profits’

Secondly that what your Down Down Down campaign and the subsequent Milk Price Wars is doing is setting a national artificial floor price for milk that is preventing the true market price of milk being realised. You can blame the export market, the processors and the drought and farmer inefficiencies ad infinitum. Cows are not machines and farmers would all be doing something else if they wanted to make a motza. Please remember Coles real people farm and we just want a fair price.

Transparency and integrity Coles that’s all we ask

Whilst this is a little light hearted relief thanks to @guswhyte it makes sense doesn’t it – after all milk is cheaper than water

The dangers of putting everyone in the same basket.

I have been writing my two blogs for over 12 months now and have yet to have anyone send me a comment that would cause me offence. Now it would be highly unlikely that anyone would take umbrage at the activities of Art4Agriculture. But there is the chance that like the divine Milk Maid Marian this blog may attract the “haters” every now and then. The “haters” in this case being those extremist vegans who think all livestock farmers are the right hand of the devil and its their right of passage to tell you so at every opportunity.

Now apparently the “haters” from both sides have been active on twitter this week which has prompted these excellent posts from Alison Fairleigh and Milk Marian Marian ( note the comment by @JohnKeily1)

Lets not forget the world is full of bizarre people and a couple of things that have happened to me in the last 48hours have highlighted this very strongly.

Just check this out I will guarantee it will have you shaking your head as well. Today I was out and about like last Sunday walking the gorgeous Kiama Coastline this time from Bombo beach to Minnamurra with my trusty camera to add to my weight load . Along the way we spotted this painted on the front of a house.

Obviously some extremist “nature lover” was very unhappy that the occupants of this house had done something?? to a tree in their front yard. Also in front of this house was this little car

It too had fallen victim to the wrath of the “nature lover”. Whilst I was taking this photo the mother of the owner of the car approached me and I got the real story. This little car belongs to her daughter who just happened to be staying with friends next door and had nothing to do with the occupants of the house her car was parked in front of. Well “nature lover” who is the real vandal here?.

After our walk we ventured down to the Kiama Markets. Can there be anywhere more beautiful to hold markets?

You can get 2 bunches of roses for $10, buy extraordinary eclectic pieces made out of spoons and all the gorgeous produce you could think of from the South Coast as well as enjoy food cooked on the biggest barbeque I had ever seen.

You can buy anything and everything at the Kiama Markets

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Well I was walking along minding my own business, taking lots of pictures with my beloved camera.

And out of no where this man invades my personal space and starts haranguing me about what an abomination cameras are. According to him it is an absolute to disgrace to reduce the world to “rectangles”. Well I did engage him for just a moment sharing with him how much pleasure its gives me to be able to record my journey on my camera. But he wasn’t listening and continued to rabbit on in a very loud voice and I walked away.

Now what does all this have to do with animal welfare and vegan extremists you ask. Well yesterday afternoon I had a call from a friend who told me something that really distressed me. Apparently a local farmer parked his ute in the main street of my gorgeous little village of Jamberoo in front of the newsagency and remained there for a least twenty minutes. Now here comes the appalling bit. On the back of his ute he had a dead cow just lying there for all the world to see little kids included. Just what was he thinking you ask and just how much damage was he doing to the reputation of our other local farmers I cant even begin to think

As I said the world is made up of bizarre people who do just don’t think before they act. All I ask vegan extremists is that you don’t lump all livestock farmers into the one basket. Like 99% of the people in this world, most livestock farmers are good, caring, sensitive people with values and it hurts when you attack us.

As for the farmers who feel the need to fight back like Alison says

Some of the best advocates for Australian agriculture and farmers are people living in cities. You don’t have to be a farmer to “get it”. Give credit where it is due and don’t lump all “city people” into the same basket.

and this sage advice from the US

Be proactive, not reactive.

It’s not about engaging activist crazies in fire fights where everyone comes back bloodied. We can reduce their clamour by building a wall of trust with our customers. It’s as simple as talking with them on an ongoing basis, joining them in conversations about food and addressing their concerns.

• Build bridges with people influential in the food community, who drive opinions and are willing to engage in a conversation about food.
• Meet customers on their own turf and invite them to ours. Answer all concerns they have about food, whether the issues seem real to us or not.
• Talk about our desire to continually improve sustainability, quality and safety on the farm.
• Tell your personal story about how you use fewer resources to produce more, and let them know how you care for your land and animals.
• Be transparent. It builds trust. Share values with your customers.

To move public opinion… to counter the activists… “We must open our doors–and maybe more importantly, open our minds–to consumers and their perspectives about food and agriculture,”

as Marian also rightly says

The ethics of food is so complex. Vegans following a conscientious diet are told they are inadvertently starving Peruvians, causing deforestation and even eating with blood on their vegetarian hands. It’s not easy being green and I don’t blame vegans for being so passionate about their choice.

I personally have seen my vegetarian friends attacked by perfect strangers asking for justification of the choices they have made. Like my gorgeous vegetarian friends I am doing my best to walk away from the battles I cant win.

Come on everyone its time to fight the good fight

Coles Please remember real people farm

Today I am re-blogging below this post from Milk Maid Marian which highlights the heartbreaking issues in the Australian dairy industry. Marian makes some very powerful and insightful comments and puts forward some thought provoking and very doable solutions. The question are the right people listening and most importantly will they act?

In my neck of the woods I spoke to my Parmalat Farm Services Officer yesterday who I know has been feeling the strain of working with dairy farmers for the past six months and struggling to deal with the devastation she is witnessing in the Australian Dairy industry. She asked me how our cows handled the heat. I said surprisingly well but then we had learnt from our past mistakes and put in 48 hours with almost no sleep to assist our dedicated team to hose our cows down (and other mitigation strategies) in the 43 degree heat to ensure they were as comfortable as possible and so far it has worked .

I also want to share this video with you.

It is powerful for a number of reasons, but mostly it highlights something Coles seems to have forgotten and that is real people farm and a lot of them are in pain because of Coles marketing strategies.

Coles remember real people farm – Photo by Sylvia Liber

Woolworths on the other hand are getting smart and recognising how important their farmers are and doing something about it . See article here. As Marian warns don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg Coles.

The video also highlights farmer should never underestimate the impact of building direct relationships with their customers which is the very reason why I instigated Art4Agriculture and the Archibull Prize

Back to Marian – this is what Marian had to say this morning ……..

Dairy farmers gathered in their hundreds in south-west Victoria last night for a crisis meeting. What makes it a crisis? Very simply, dairy farmers are working seven days a week for free and petrified of losing our shirts.

Local agribusiness bankers tell me they are busy refinancing and arranging extra debt but land sales are at a standstill around here. Reporting on last night’s dairy crisis meeting, Simone Smith of The Weekly Times, described a “dire picture”:

“Warrnambool-based Coffey Hunt farm accounting specialist Garry Smith said across his client-base, farmers milking mostly between 450-500 cows, average feed costs were up 15 per cent – a $150,000 rise – with the cost of power for the first quarter of the year up 50 per cent.”

“He estimated across his client-base earnings would be 10 per cent down on last year with a combination of cash-flow and income down $260,000.

“Charles Stewart real estate agent Nick Adamson said better quality farms had dropped in value between 8-15 per cent, while others were up to 45 per cent down on peaks of several years ago.”

None of this is pretty and astonishingly, Peter Reith decided to appear on ABC’s The Drum website with a six-point plan that, at first, I thought was a spoof. Take a look and make up your own mind.

It’s not as simple as cutting petrol taxes and municipal rates. It’s tricky because of this conundrum: milk and dairy foods are considered so important that nobody wants to pay what they are worth to produce.

Every day I read comments on Twitter that go something like this: “My kids drink three litres of milk every two days, so I can only afford to buy $1 milk”. I know first-hand how tough it is to feed a family when you’re on struggle street, so I have a lot of sympathy for people in this predicament and it’s impossible to respond with anything other than compassion.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that there is no political appetite for an increased milk price. But the truth is this: dairy farmers should not and cannot fund an ersatz Australian welfare system by subsidising the cost of food. Welfare is the role of government.

So, while my dander is up, here’s a simple list of five tricky things that would make a big difference to this dairy farmer:

1. Deal with the supermarket duopoly
Down, Down, Down is not about you, dear milk drinker. The real reasons for the supermarket war are expressed in corporate ROIs rather than family budgets. At the end of the day, it will be the little people with the least market power – you, the shopper, and me, the farmer – who will pay.

2. Level the global playing field
Julia Gillard announced that Australia would be Asia’s food bowl but guess what? Unlike the world’s most powerful dairy exporters, the Kiwis, we do not have a free trade agreement with China, putting Australian dairy at an immediate 15% disadvantage. Nor do we receive the government subsidies that support our European and North American competitors.

3. Assist with the impact of the carbon tax
Australian dairy farmers are suffering a double whammy under the carbon tax. First, processors are passing the extra cost onto us in the form of lower farm gate prices (because the consumer won’t pay extra and nor will global commodity markets), reducing our incomes by around $5,000 each per year. At the same time, our costs – especially electricity and refrigerants – are rising in quantum leaps each quarter.

4. Support smart farming
Long exposed to the blow-torch of global export markets without subsidisation, Australia’s dairy farmers are among the most efficient in the world, according to research body, Dairy Australia. We can produce very high quality milk at a very low cost because we have invested in research and development. No longer. We are spending less and less on R&D and the Victorian government has just made massive staff cuts to our brains trust, the Department of Primary Industries.

5. Remember, I am the goose that lays the golden egg
I will not be able to continue to deliver high quality milk at such a low price while enhancing the environment and caring for our cows without sacrificing the basic wellbeing of my family and that, I refuse to do.

Got my walking shoes on today

With my 2013 mission to live everyday as if it was your last, today Michael and I joined forces with our good friends Bev and Don to do the magnificent 6km section of the Kiama Coastal Walk from Kiama to Gerringong.

Bev and Don are doing a walking holiday through Spain and Morocco later in the year so now looked like as good a time as any to get fit.

And before you knew it we were off – looking pretty confident at this stage considering all four of us had major surgery during the year

Our section of the walk took as on a ‘dramatic, coast-hugging route between Kiama Heights and Werri Lagoon’.

A popular spot for taking out the tinnie

Looking back to Kiama

The boys were keen to set the pace. Check out that work boot tan

Sadly there were far too many fisherman playing Russian Roulette on the rocks without lifejackets

and illegal squatters Tut tut

Kiama’s very own ‘apostle”

The Kiama coastline at 8am this morning – just divine

says Michael

A little bit of history for you from the brochure ……….

“The Kiama area was once dominated by a vast rainforest known as the Long Brush. By the time the cedar-getters arrived in the Kiama area in 1815, the local Aboriginal people would have been aware of the impending changes to their way of life. Strange and deadly diseases would have already arrived and the spread of the destruction of the bushland was certainly feared.”

By the 1820’s Kiama was supplying 9/10ths of the Sydney Cedar Market. The round insert and reference on the map shows the tiny patch of coastline that still supports the rainforest. As you can see from the first picture the cows in the pastures along the coastline would welcome the return of some trees

“As land grants were taken up, the traditional owners were forced from their lands.”

“Before long the magnificent forests were cleared to provide timber for the new colony, expose the volcanic soils for crops such as potatoes and wheat, and clear the way for dairy farms”*

Kiama Pioneer Butter Factory – Australia’s first Dairy CO-OP opened in 1869

At the half way mark we were all starting to feel pretty confident we were going to make it

Lynne and Michael looking confident

as did Bev and Don

When you see these magnificent cliffs you know have made it and you can pat yourself on the back.

Before we knew it we had reached Werri Beach Lagoon

and Kerrie was waiting to take us to breakfast

and how lucky were we to avoid the queues we saw as we left ?

after tasting the food. (Which dairy farmer chews his nails????)

and drinking the milk shakes and lattes

and taking in the view at the Sea Vista Cafe, Gerringong, we could understand why people were prepared to wait

Such a special day, so many wonderful natural resources to appreciate and along the walk you may be reminded of days past,

Sea caves, rock platform and exposed cliffs

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or you may just enjoy the rolling hills, boulder beaches, sea caves, rock platforms and exposed cliffs that create the dramatic scenery and from May to June and September to November, the walk provides great vantage points for whale watching.

Well worth a visit we can guarantee you !!!!!!!

* BTW You can read the history of dairying in the Illawarra here

New gig takes me to Western Australia and salt country

Part of my prize for winning the Bob Hawke Landcare Award is an honorary position on the Australian Landcare Council.

I will be the first to admit winning Australia’s newest and most prestigious award for sustainable agriculture does not make me an expert on sustainable agriculture everywhere and paradise is a long way from the salt plains of WA for example and has very different issues and needs.

So when I found out this board gets out of the boardroom and visits every state and goes on farm ( commercial and lifestyle ) and talks to people and has two way conversations I knew this was for me

My first board meeting was in Katanning the home of host board member Ella Maesepp

Ella is one of those people I labelled instantly as a “doer” First and foremost Ella is a broadacre farmer. She is the District Landcare Officer with the Katanning Land Conservation District Committee as well as the winner of the Environment Category of the 2004 Western Australia Youth Awards.

What a champion she is. We took a small bus from Perth to Katanning with a number of stops along the way and Ella managed to arrange “great coffee” at just right moment everywhere we went. #legend

In this part of the world salinity is a huge and heartbreaking problem.

The first stop was Wagin the home of the Big Ram

This ram certainly has some assets that make him stand out don’t you think?

Here is some background

We learnt about this region’s endangered species the Red Tailed Phascogale. We have a similar marsupial in Paradise that likes to eat my little chickens. So cute but very pesky

As you can see from this map this little guy was once quite prolific

We also got a first hand report on the community driven Wagin Food & Fibre Hub an excellent example of the risk that comes with a pilot project, and the struggle for funders to balance innovation against that level of risk. ,

Our first farm stop was “Tamar” the property of Adrian and Jill Richardson. Jill also happens to work with Ella in the Landcare Office

Adrian Richardson sharing his story

Located 20kms northwest of Katanning, Tamar runs approximately 3000 Merinos and crops mainly oats, barley and wheat.

This property has got to be seen to be believed. Amazing. They work with the guru that is Ron Watkins.

Ron Watkins runs “Payneham” farm, 15km north of Franklin in south western WA. Ron has looked beyond the traditional farming practices of the area, toward sustainable and integrated farming systems that work within the local ecosystem. He isolated several factors to address but gave priority to turning a salinity problem into an asset.

Ron set out to fully utilise the natural shape of his terrain and harvest surface and sub-surface water flow, aiming to store a large volume of water to combat waterlogging, salinity and erosion. He installed drains along the contours of the property, planted up to 1,000 trees per kilometre protected by electric fencing and fenced off all remnant bushland. Ron also had the foresight to include his neighbours in his projects early on, enabling a complete sub-catchment plan to be implemented. His initiatives have been such a success that he has around 60 farmers nationally seeking his advice on landcare best practice strategies.*

This is what using Ron Watkins farming principles looks like at Tamar

Tamar Farm showed the benefit of whole-farm planning, and implementing according to the plan.

Then it was on to Ella’s farm – Dunbar Farm

Ella and her husband David Potter. Firstly we were treated to a tour of Ella’s house which was designed by Solar Dwelling and owner built between 2010 and 2012. The external walls are straw bale and with two stone mass thermal walls. All stone, timber and straw have been sourced from the property

A feature is the room with a view

accessed via this spiral staircase

From the distance the problems are well hidden by good farming practices.

Up close we saw the devastation caused by salinity and the use of saltbush to help manage the problem .

At Dunbar Farm perennial pastures, mainly Lucerne and saltbush have been introduced to the system since 2005 with improvements in salinity and productivity. Tall what grass and puccinellia have since been added with 4 paddocks currently under a perennial phase, and 6 areas of saltbush have been established and fenced out from the paddocks since 2005

Next up was Craigmore Farms the property of Ian Knapp.

an has also made extensive use of saltbush with excellent results as shown below. Craigmore had a large, flat expanse of bare, eroding, salt affected land.

Before

Following on from the success of saltbush planting of their neighbours ( Ella and David) next door at Dunbar a massive saltbush establishment program was undertaken in 2010 with 20,000 seedling alone planted in that year. Drainage lines were fenced off and planted with tress the following year.

After

The result has been a significant stabilisation of the soil, visible increase in grasses, and a massive splash of green across a once bare area as pictured above. Impressive isn’t it

Adrian Richardson and Ian Knapp however have completely different views on trees, as a result of their different landcare approaches and financial capacity. As Ella commented when there are such different views locally, how do you communicate a shared view to the wider community? Methinks this is a fairly standard issue in all regions. Nine out of ten farmers learn from other farmers and as long as you have farmers like the Potters, the Knapps and the Richardsons prepared to open their doors and share their successes and failures progress will be made

All the farmers highlighted that it is relatively easy to get funding for trees & seedlings, but support for salt-tolerant species is hard to get.

This is because

a) salt tolerant are not the plants that grew there originally, but have to adapt because the soil & groundwater conditions have changed

b) there is often a production benefit to salt-tolerant species e.g. saltbush for grazing.

The majority of the content for above is part of a report by Ella on the field trip and there are at least two more blog posts in this report that I will leave for later. Both are an excellent opportunity for guest blogs posts from the key stakeholders who I know would do a very entertaining job

Ella made the following insightful observations on Drought-proofing

There is a marked contrast between the outcomes that the Drought Reform Pilot was aiming for and actual on-the-ground drought proofing. The Pilot was more concerned with economic / business planning and identifying viable alternatives for when the drought happens, than actually establishing whole-farm systems to prevent on-farm water shortages in the first place.
‘Drought-proofing’ is a diverse term, and the language surrounding it needs to be better defined. It could be interpreted to mean ‘storing water’, or ‘providing sufficient water to crops & livestock’, or ‘building resilience into a farm business’ or many other things!
Full drought-proofing of a farm (improving water capture, store and use) costs big money! (and from me in most cases the kitty just ain’t big enough when the community wants quality food and fibre at rock bottom prices)

Priorities

Salinity still exists and is still a major issue that landholders are struggling with in WA!
Opportunities could be facilitated to share learnings regarding salinity adaptation and management across Australia eg WA, SA, Vic, NSW.
Solutions to problems are diverse and it is important that government / funders / policy makers are prescriptive.
Assessment panels etc need to be aware that their decisions affect people (not just projects) and therefore need make sure there is clear information as to why decisions are made, so volunteers et al understand and feel valued.

Well said Ella

* Extract from http://www.stepcommunication.com/images/pdfs/2004%20National%20Landcare%20Awards%20Booklet.pdf

Farmer Vicki Jones is living the dream

As promised in an earlier post I am now delighted to share Vicki Jones’ presentation from the Naturally Resourceful Conference in Mitchell this month.

I am confident Vicki’s story will move you just as much as it did me

Hello my name is Vicki Jones……………………

Yes Jones one of the most common names in the phone book and I am married to a farmer, so I am Mrs Jones the farmer’s wife. I love what I do as a farmer’s wife and am very passionate about the land.

I suppose this came about at a very young age as I grew up on a cattle property on the western downs and even though I initially chose a different path, I have ended up just where I wanted to be. Lucky I guess or you could say well planned.

For the last couple of years as my involvement in the local land care group grew, I found myself volunteering to be the Chair of Mitchell & District Landcare. I did this because I believe in the foundations of land care and not only does it give us access to factors that affect our land scapes and environment it also allows us to be a part of a very important group of people who also have the same goals and love for their land.

For those of us who are fortunate to own a piece of this wonderful country, land care is a major part of our lives. Most of us get out of bed every morning with the intention to care for our land and to make it better for our future generation. We do this because we have too…. we are the ones with the money on the line, we can’t afford to get in wrong, we have to keep searching to make things better. It is easy for others who do not have any money on the line to have an opinion of what we as farmers need to do, or better still what not to do. However it is those of us that are the resourceful ones that are in the pilot seat of our future and chose this life because we can and it’s what we as people of this land do.

I will just give you a brief background. After leaving boarding school many years ago I went on to study dentistry and worked for Queensland Health on and off for 20 years having breaks for children and other pursuits. Dentistry is not all it’s cracked up to be as nobody likes you and it actually has the highest suicide rate of all professionals.

I did have a career, but as a wife and mother I always put my family first. For the first 10 years of our marriage we worked and lived on Bruce’s family dairy farm near Toowoomba and as seeming to be the theme of a couple of the speakers I heard yesterday, this was also not what it was cracked up to be.

Bruce had always wanted to have his own cattle property. It was his lifelong dream and as I had grown up on the land it soon became mine as well. After working on the family dairy farm for 15 years it became apparent that his dream was not going to happen unless he did it himself.

In one of a few heated discussions with Bruce’s parents, about our decision, we decided to walk away and make it on our own. Bruce’s dad told him that if he left the family farm to go west, that he would go broke.

So with these words from the man he admired most still ringing in his ears he packed up his young family and moved west. We bought all that we could afford, a small cattle property south west of Mitchell.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of how small. The surrounding properties and the regional average is about 20 – 60 thousand acres and we had purchased 2500 acres. So we don’t have a very big ship, but what we do have is our own boat and we can paddle it where ever we chose. And we chose to do the best with what we have. We could not buy this place and run it like both our fathers would have, because it was not big enough and it needed to pay for itself. If it was not profitable it just became and expensive place to live.

“Oolandilla Park” was the beginning of our dream. The only thing a bit tricky was that it only ran 80 head of cattle. The house had never been lived in, the fences / yards were all falling down and in terms of type of country, south of Mitchell was not a best street kind of suburb. As we found out from all of the comments from the locals. So we had some work to do. We were wondering what we can do to give us the biggest bang for our buck, as we realized that something had to change or our dream was not going to happen.

With the help of MDLA, Queensland Murray Darling Catchment & farmbis my husband and I were fortunate enough to be involved in a pilot study being participants in RCS’s Grazing For Profit School in early 2007. Sixteen local farming enterprises attended the course and up to 4 enterprises continued on the Graduate Link and Executive Link modules. We were privileged to have Terry McCosker as our facilitator. We took on this information with great enthusiasm and applied the grazing management principles immediately. This has since proven to not only change our business forever, but also our personal lives. It heightened our awareness of our environment and taught us to love our grasses just as much as our cows.

When we started to measure our ground cover & grasses in March 2007 we found that we had 23% ground cover and 5% desirable grasses.

We immediately changed our grazing management to include rotational grazing of livestock, fenced off dams and boundary fenced for feral goats and kangaroos. Don’t get me wrong we still have some kangaroo’s, we just now have a sustainable level. Before they were in plague proportions and not very healthy. The rotational grazing has allowed us to rest each paddock for 12 months of the year every year.

By changing our grazing management for only 2 years we had been able to increase our desired grasses by 1000% and the litter has improved by 350% giving us an overall ground cover now of 90%. While doing this we were also able to increase our livestock numbers by 325%.

After a while the wattle suckers and a few other species started to come up pretty thick and we became a bit concerned. We had neither the time nor the money to address them.

We left them alone and concentrated on what we did want and not want we did not want and that was grass. As we were monitoring our grass we discovered that the suckers were changing. A scale/moth/grub or something was getting into them and they were slowly dying. Where the woody weeds had been the grass was higher and thicker.

We also noticed that due to the higher stock density that the cattle were now changing their diet to include some of the woody weeds. Things were happening that we know not much about, but however were changing for the good.

During this time we have also been monitoring our microbial activity and water cycle. The microbial activity and fungi within our soils are becoming more evident and the water cycle is increasing positively. This has allowed us to have an increase, in usable rainfall. Rather than having water running away, we now have moisture retention with less rainfall.

We are always on the lookout for worms and what’s happening in the soil and until this year we had not found any live worms, but when we did we celebrated. These things are the life blood to our soils and if we can have an increase in cattle numbers and have worms popping up in the paddock then we must be doing something right.

Until a few weeks ago we did not know that this map existed. Our eldest son was doing an assignment at school and he found the map. As you can see it clearly shows what’s happening with the ground cover and the moisture retention.

Other things that we have done to increase our profitability have been courses such as

KLR Marketing
Low Stress Stock Handling
Advanced Stock Movement and Dog School

One of the courses that we have been attending for the past 4 years is the Livestock Movement course which introduces the working dog into the enterprise. We have learnt so much form these courses and implementing the strategies, has made such a difference to our bottom line that we have fallen in love with the working dog an now have our own registered stud “Dunyellan Working dogs” and have been training and breeding kelpies and collies for sale as a hobby. Like we needed something else to do.

So, the big question is, are we there yet, have we achieved our dream? Well not quite, with everything that we have implemented we are not quite viable, but are pretty close. We do realise that we need to have a larger scale, however with what we know now, we definitely know it’s not about how much land you own but what you can do with it.

Bruce and I have always built our lives on goals and trying to work out in what direction we need to go next, which is the most beneficial to our lives and our business. We know that it does not matter where you are today in this state of your lives or business because that is only a temporary indicator.

This conference is helping to provide the tools for you to take the clay of your life in your hands and mould it to your dreams. Just like moulding real clay, it’s not about the results but the process of the moulding that counts. Look and speak in the direction that you want to be and never look back.

Without these opportunities and courses we would not be where we are today. So, thank-you to MDLA and QMDC for allowing us to move our business forward.