Soils for Life Blog

Support to change

9 May 2013
Soils for Life

support organisations, such as Landcare, Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) or other Natural Resource Management (NRM) organisations. Our case study participants also emphasised that presentations, field or open days are excellent opportunities to visit other enterprises and learn, also creating a forum for information transfer and peer review. These activities encourage cumulative learning, and knowledge sharing can be empowering. Such activities also create a community - even if it is separated geographically - which is essential to support widespread adoption of change. ....

Making the change to regenerative landscape management

25 Apr 2013
Soils for Life

Lana and Gunningrahcases studies for examples of Holistic Management in action and how underlying causes were identified for treatment, rather than just addressing visible symptoms. Care about the land as a resource Invest in the landscape and you can get more out of it. Manage production to suit the capacity of your land. Adjust stocking or change or integrate enterprises to enable regenerative practices and sustainable production. Our Dukes Plain case study provides a ....

Supporting natural cycles with Holistic Management

11 Apr 2013
Soils for Life

field day wrap up will be coming soon, but in the meantime this post will look at how Holistic Management has been applied by the Wrights and some of the benefits they have achieved. Adopting Holistic Management On his 3350 hectare property, Lana, and accompanying 780 hectare Kasamanca, Tim Wright has been applying Holistic Management practices for almost 20 years. After experiencing falling profit margins and increasing susceptibility to drought in the early 1990s, he was motivated to change ....

Inherent resilience in biodiverse perennial pastures

28 Mar 2013
Soils for Life

Tallawang. Read Craig’s own experience of how the resilience in his pastures as a result of his regenerative farming practices enabled him to effectively manage the climate extremes experienced at the beginning of 2013. On 19 February, Nicky and I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with the self confessed lunatic farmer Joel Salatin [of Polyface Farms in the USA]. It was a refreshing insight into his views on a wide ....

Making the most of vegetation

14 Mar 2013
Soils for Life

maximising ground cover, some of our case studies have demonstrated strong production and economic benefits from making the most of revegetation on their properties. What trees can do for you… Trees can improve agricultural production by providing shade and shelter that protects stock and crops from wind and extremes of heat and cold. Vegetation contributes to an effective water cycle. Together with extensive, slow biodegrading litters, diverse woodland communities reduce surface wind speeds and extreme temperatures that would ....

Improving pastures

28 Feb 2013
Soils for Life

essential ecosystem servicesthat nature provides. Ensuring continuous ground cover is particularly important to restoring landscape health. In our last post we mentioned that livestock grazing accounts for use of 55% of Australia’s land area [1]. While overgrazing is a well-documented cause of landscape degradation, regenerative practices, such as planned grazing and intelligent use of livestock has been demonstrated to restore groundcover and landscape health (watch this presentation by Allan Savory). By adopting these practices, we therefore have the opportunity to ensure a thriving landscape across more than half of our country. The innovative farmers in ....

Biodiverse vegetation - challenges and opportunities in agriculture

14 Feb 2013
Soils for Life

1]. It is this landscape degradation and related global challengesthat drive Soils for Life to encourage change in landscape management. As remnant vegetation continues to deteriorate, the land and soil degrades as topsoil is lost and erosion occurs [2]. Poorer soils are then unable to support regeneration of healthy vegetation and nutrient cycles break down. As discussed in earlier posts, nutrients are necessary ....

Success in managing for rainfall variability

7 Feb 2013
Soils for Life

Gunningrah where he discusses the outcomes attained on his property by changing his practices to effectively manage rainfall received. (Read Part One) PART TWO The results of the changes on Gunningrah We thought that the changes resulting from the grazing and stream interventions would have been slow, and maybe not noticeable to the eye for some time. This couldn't have been further from what happened on all fronts. First, the grazing management changes… With the whole farm change in the manner in which animals grazed, the resulting changes to ground cover and infiltration rates were quite rapid. The first thing we noted was that our 55 dams we once relied upon for stock, were no long reliable. A decade ....