Sixty-one per cent - four hundred and sixty nine million hectares - of Australia is managed by farmers, including livestock, dryland and irrigated agriculture.
AUSTRALIAN farmers have been recognised as the main custodians of the nation’s land mass. A Federal Government report recently identified that agriculture occupied 469 million hectares, or just over 61 per cent of the continent.
That includes livestock grazing, dryland and irrigated agriculture...
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Livestock 1-5-6
New breed is producing some of the world's finest wool
There is a distinctive breed of sheep at Kyabra Station near Kentucky, NSW - branded Coolmeina. Peter Lytton-Hitchins, a dynamic thirty- year-old, is manager of Kyabra Station and developer of the Coolmeina sheep breed. He spent a mere 12 years using a breeding pool of 85,000 sheep to create the breed.
Peter, who has passionately embraced cutting edge eco-agriculture, grew up on his parent’s 1,000 acre sheep station south of Sydney where, amongst...>
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Farmers’ Markets 3-4
Accreditation scheme working for farmers’ markets in Victoria
Janet Barker talks to Victorian Farmer’s Market Association representatives about a new VFMA accreditation scheme ... >
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Biodynamic Agriculture 7-9
Biodynamics - at the cutting edge
Hugh Lovel explains Biodynamics including a little history on Peter Escher and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer
There should be no mystery about how bio- dynamic agriculture works. It is cutting edge science and is the most modern of all methods of agriculture, no matter that its roots go back 85 years. Yet, its modern outlook fails to connect with those whose scientific paradigm is still in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...>
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On Farm 10-12
Organics in the Ord
Beverley Prideaux looks at farming in the Ord, WA
Does the leap of faith into certified organics need a reality check? .... Bluey’s story
For Bluey Stoldt, 20 years of conventional farming on the Ord River in WA’s far north, didn’t prepare him for his first foray into marketing certified organic grapefruit, pumpkins and melons....>
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News 13-14
Apple growers wait for Chinese imports crunch
AUSTRALIA’S1200-strong apple and pear growers are on watchdog alert as the Federal Government prepares to hand down its decision on importing fresh Chinese apples to Australia.
The government is currently preparing an Import Risk Analysis (IRA) for apple imports from China.
The IRA describes in detail the condition under which Chinese apples can be imported into Australia. And according to Apple and Pear Australia Limited’s (APAL) chairman, Darral Ashton, the final IRA document could be handed down “within a month or two”.....>
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News 16
Organic goatmeat exports increase
Goat is the most widely consumed red meat in the world but it’s not often you see it in the window of your local butcher shop in this country. While goats are classed as an emerging industry in Australia, goat production has the potential to become one of the fastest growing, with more than $100 million of meat shipped overseas in 2008-09 ....>
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Aquaculture 17-20
Raising ropes - and hopes - for a bountiful harvest
From high above Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay, the buoys marking Lance Wiffen’s 27 hectare mussel farm in Pin- nace Channel look like tiny dots in the wide expanse of blue water. Down at sea level, the scope changes. Lance’s company, Sea Bounty is the largest mussel producer in Victoria. Besides the Pinnace Channel lease in the bay’s southern reaches, he has another ...>
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Climate Change 21
Understanding soil sequestration
Graeme Sait speaks on the benefits of soil sequestration
Graeme Sait of Nutri-Tech Solutions says that storing carbon in the soil as humus is the only viable solution and there is an urgent need for this fact to be more widely accepted. He took time out of his busy schedule to explain soil sequestration to Acres Australia readers and help further understanding of the issues involved ...>
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Livestock 22-23
High fodder and wool yields the talk of the Riverina
SEVENTY-two-year-old NSW Riverina pastoralist Sam Chown is a happy man. The production yields from his 2,100-hectare sheep property at Temora, just outside of Wagga Wagga are at record highs. But Mr Chown has, perhaps, just one regret - that he is not 30 years old again because the “best years for his farm are yet to come”.
In the past eight to 10 years, Mr Chown has progressively phased-out the use of chemicals on his farm in favour of slow-release fertilisers and organic soil conditioners. His barley fodder yields have increased by some 500 per cent and the quality and quantity of his wool production has skyrocketed... >
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Marketing 24-25
Award winning on-farm value-adding
Dr Errol Seymour and wife Irma value-add at Drovers Rest
While many aspire to sustainability on the bush block, and some do eventually achieve a degree of self-sufficiency in the vegetable garden, providing enough for themselves and neighbours, very few reach commercially viable production of certified crops. Even less will then take it to the next level with on-farm processing and national distribution... >
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Marketing 25
Mavis’s kitchen is ahead of the pack
Farming biodynamically and organically for Mavis’s Kitchen, Uki NSW
According to the Aus Food News, organics, simple home style cooking, regional eating and ‘real’ food are food trends to watch for 2010, as people look to reconnect with food.
If that’s true then Charlie Ebell and Peter Clarke, proprietors of Mavis’s Kitchen at the base of the magnificent Mount Warning at Uki in northern NSW, are ahead of the pack... >
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Industry News 28-29
NASAA Report – by Rod May, NASAA Chair; BAA Report by Anne Tillett, Manager BAA; BFA & ACO Reports by Holly Vyner, BFA General Manager, OFA Report by Andre Leu, OFA Chair. >
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Industry News 30-32
Organics Olympiad 2009 - a win for Italy
John Paull reports on the Organics Olympiad
The latest Organics Olympiad reveals 26 countries as global leaders in organics, with Italy as the overall leader. Australia, with 12,023,135 hectares under organic management remains the organics world leader based on area. Australia accounts for 37 per cent of the world’s certified ....>
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Practical Science 33-34
Turning water into food
Wendy O’Hanlon reveals the story behind CSIRO scientist Richard Stirzaker’s new book 'Out of the Scientist's Garden - a story of water and food.
Canberra-based CSIRO Principal Research scientist and backyard gardener, Richard Stirzaker, has combined his twin passions of science and gardening to produce a book titled Out of the Scientist’s .. .>
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Sustainable Farming 35-37
Permaculture and biodynamics - putting it all together
Hugh Lovel says that in quantum physics, any time a particle has multiple available paths the particle goes down all available paths simultaneously. This is believed to account for the astonishing, near-perfect efficiency of organic processes like photosynthesis. Hugh Lovel and Shabari Bird visit the following successful agricultural enterprises: Bill and Rhonda Daly of Young, NSW, Steve and Tania Martin of Walkamin Qld, Shane and Shan Joyce of Theodore Qld, Tony Coote and Toni Dale Bungendore, NSW and Ray and Judy Unger of Peak Hill NSW. >
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Health 38
Tamanu Oil, Graeme Sait explores its restoration, regeneration and healing properties.
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Soil Biology 39
Testing, not guessing.
Hugh Lovel speaks on the benefits of soil testing and analysis >
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Marketing 40
Organic farming industry ‘blossoming’
A detailed report on the organic industry has been prepared by business information analysts IBISWorld who say the Australian organic farming industry is ‘blossoming’ with demand estimated to be growing by 20 per cent to 45 per cent annually . . . >
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Marketing 41
Innovative farming couple invent Moon Calendar wheel
When builder Ray Scott and his wife Jean, pictured above with the perpetual Moon Calendar, decided to venture into commercial vegetable growing in the 1970s they needed all the help they could get. They had mixed success in the early... >
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Marketing 43
Biological rock phosphate based fertiliser proves a winner with farmers
Rock based magnesium phosphate fertiliser (FCMP) distributed by TNN Industries, a biological and sustainable agricultural fertiliser manufacturing company, has received enthusiastic reviews from farmers across Australia .... >
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44-49
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