Holistic Farming & Landcare

Intensive livestock grazing which incorporates holistic management will support and improve grassland biodiversity; destocking can lead t biodiversity decline.

The Textile Exchange’s Regenerative Agriculture Landscape Analysis contends there are significant difference between farmers who adopt RA while CSIRO’s Mark Farrell says the approaches to soil health and quality are similar.

Livestock farmers are being given mixed messages around minimum pasture levels that preserve pasture plant resilience and ecosystem functions.

Regen Ag has emerged over the last five years under the misapprehension of providing a more holistic methodology for profitable farming while improving ecosystem functions compared to conventional or agricultural science based farming.

David Pollock contends there is an argument in some pastoral areas such as where Wooleen station is, for using dingoes as a means to reduce uncontrolled grazing pressure of kangaroos and feral goats because the station livestock carrying capacities are so low due to land degradation that the pastoral businesses cannot afford to contribute to the costs of dog control.

According to 2019 Farrer Medalist, Professor Tim Reeves, agricultural sustainability successes have resulted from the combined efforts of scientists and farmers working together to identify, develop and adapt new technologies and systems to both address continuing challenges to productivity and profitability, and to also seize the new opportunities that continually arise.

Michael Lyons’ Nuffield report recommendations provide an excellent blue print for any livestock business to operate under or at the very least consider seriously.

Small and absentee landowners need to consider a wide range of animal welfare, environmental, infrastructure, technology, cost and time issues when deciding on which type of livestock to buy for their farms.

Given the Animal Industries Advisory Committee failed to understand what constitutes best practice grazing management which protects ecosystem functions, and the Victorian state government supported virtually all its recommendations it is unlikely that the changes to be made to planning procedures for livestock enterprises will make a significant difference.

Precede: There has been a paradigm shift in the way Ian Locke ‘Spring Valley’ Holbrook NSW manages and grazes the

By Patrick Francis Australian Wool Innovations and Meat & Livestock Australia’s recent announcement of three projects to investigate phosphorus fertiliser