Natural Sequence Farming founder in high demand
Colorado where he was keynote speaker at a four-day environmental conference to save the Colorado River.
For six million years, the river has run to the sea from the Rocky Mountains - since 1998 it hasn’t. It stops kilometers from the coastline.
Delegates from Colorado, including local farmers (ranchers), have planned a trip to inspect the Andrews family’s NSF showpiece, Tarwyn Park, at Bylong in New South Wales and the nearby horse stud Baramul in the Widden Valley which is owned by businessman Gerry Harvey who has employed NSF systems at his property with great success.
Soils for Life
Mr Andrews is also in discussions with Australia’s Soils For Life chairman, Major General Michael Jeffery, in regards to working with the national program and is in talks with Western Australian mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest to help regenerate the vast family property, Mindaroo Station, in the Pilbara region.
The Soils for Life program supports innovative farmers and land managers demonstrating high performance in regenerative landscape management.
The program is currently investigating the best possible interventions for the regeneration and sustainable management of Australia’s land and waterways. [www.soilsforlife.org.au]
Major-General Jeffery said his recent discussions with Mr Andrews were to “formulate how to best employ his unique skills, particularly in the hydrological sense.
“One way may be to employ him in an advisory-teaching role drawing on his experiences from Tarwyn Park, Baramul and elsewhere,” Major-Gen Jeffrey said.
“Many of our Soils For Life team have visited Tarwyn Park with Peter. However, the owners did not put the property up to be considered as a case study in the latest round of the Soils for Life work and so it was not considered.
“The next round of case studies will focus on land-use types and regions not covered in our initial report “In
Landwith a focus on Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland and endeavours such as horticulture, intensive irrigated enterprises, dairy, pork production and viticulture.
Tarwyn Park
“Of course, Tarwyn Park was studied by a team led by CSIRO in 2003, producing a comprehensive report. More recently, on May 12, 2012 an International Reference Panel completed a Scientific Valuation of Natural Sequence Farming, based on Tarwyn Park, so there already exists some good science to support Peter’s work.
“Soils for Life has recently documented three case studies that have included elements of NSF within their enterprise.
“We believe these enterprises to be wonderful examples of what can be achieved in landscape regeneration, based on improving soil health, using and conserving water wisely and the integrated use of vegetation within productive, resilient landscapes.
“In each case NSF techniques have been incorporated with other approaches to regenerative land management, such as planned grazing to meet the needs and possibilities of the three different enterprises,” he said.
Major-Gen Jeffrey said the Soils for Life work was important because it clearly focuses on success stories in agriculture and broader landscape management and the sort of efforts and practices that Australia will need to maintain a competitive edge in the global food and fibre markets.
“The program’s work also takes the view that there are production, environmental and social aspects to be considered, cutting across many government department areas of responsibilities and community action on the ground.
“It is this co-ordinated response that is critical and one that we must all work diligently towards.
“The Soils for Life Program seeks to encourage change in how the Australian landscape is managed and we have a long way to go to achieve that objective.
“But we should note the small successes along the way. Clearly the launch of our report supported by a comprehensive website and social media presence have been highlights in 2012.
“Getting the word out there is vital. Building a community of like-minded individuals is also another important outcome to date and one which we will endeavor to expand over the years.
“But perhaps the brightest achievement has been the recognition by political, policy and business leaders, together with Natural Resource Management bodies, of the need to recognise the importance of our soils within a properly functioning landscape where we integrate the management of the soils with the water resource and a biodiversity of vegetation.
“We have practical examples of how this is being done, but we need to encourage the wider adoption of these practices.
“That message is well understood now, and I will be furthering its importance as one of my responsibilities as the Advocate for Soil Health.
“Australia must take up the challenge of regenerating the landscape.
“Water, our key natural strategic asset and healthy soil, with increased carbon content, linked to bio diversity of groundcover, underpin the sustained production of essential food and fibre on which we all depend.
“We have the means to meet this challenge but we must act now as a community and via our committed farmers and land managers.”
Mr Andrews said Natural Sequence
Farming offers a cost-effective approach for dealing with a national challenge - the management of landscapes that are prone to leach salts into water courses and to lose fertility owing to unsustainable cropping and grazing practices.
“NSF has the potential to offer significant environmental, economic and social returns to landholders and communities,” he said.
Peter Andrews has been in farming and horse breeding for 60 years.
He believes that heavy grazing of stream bed banks following European settlement has, mainly by reducing vegetation, significantly increased stream velocities.
This has resulted in gouging of stream beds and the lowering of water tables in floodplains.
Most streams in Australia are incised by deeply scoured gullies and gorges and this has led to a total disruption of the natural fertility cycle and was accelerating the fertility decline of agricultural landscapes.
“These changes in the landscape result in dry spells turning into drought conditions faster than they should, biodiversity being reduced, and in many instances fresh water that once sat on top of saline water being drained off, resulting in salt being released into the stream bed,” he said.
Mr Andrews evolved Tarwyn Park according to his Natural Sequence Farming system which included the reintroduction of a natural valley flow pattern and reconnecting the stream to its flood plain, which would reintroduce a more natural hydrological and fertility cycle to that landscape.
He believed that with a managed succession of the vegetation (mostly weeds), the natural fluvial pattern could be “regrown”, so that nutrients and biomass harvested on the flood plain could be redistributed throughout the property and through the stock.
To test his theories about improved animal health, Mr Andrews measured the growth and performance of thoroughbred race horses.
“Even plants labeled as weeds can serve as pioneering species in in- hibiting nutrient and soil erosion. They collect and supply essential substances for environmental health. Once slashed, fertility is built up and the weeds are replaced naturally by palatable grasses,” he said.
Mr Andrews is constantly reminded of the urgency in addressing the world’s environmental health problems when he is flying across countries and afforded a ‘bird’s eye view’ of landscapes.
“In Colorado I could see the tops of the pine trees dying and it’s the same when I fly across Australia - Tenterfield, New England, for example - the trees are dying, they are yellow, they are starving of nutrients,” he said.
“On a recent flight from Darwin to Sydney there was smoke, atmospheric pollution.
“The Aboriginals were good land managers. Since European settlement, Australia’s biodiversity has been reduced by one-third,” Mr Andrews said.
“Native plants
lost
control
of
the system when the first sheep arrived.”
While employing an holistic view of all the interactions in the landscape, Peter Andrews believes that the health of floodplains and their stream beds can be significantly restored by slowing the rate of water flow, especially after rain events, by a series of physical interventions in the landscape.
Peter Andrews’ NSF concepts are being applied at project sites as diverse as those featuring upland fastflowing water courses to broadacre cropping areas, dry gullies and saltencrusted degraded lands as well as broad stream valleys and wetlands.
“At these properties, human-induced impediments to natural growth and production are gradually replaced by the system built around the natural sequences of plants, animals, water and soils.
“These properties have a solid foundation for increased profitability and long-term sustainability,” Peter Andrews said.
Darren Hardy is a passionate student of Peter Andrews’ Natural Sequence Farming philosophy and hopes to enjoy a career in land management using the NSF techniques. Mr Hardy, 23, is one of a number of young Australians who are forging a future in land management in Australia.
Mr Hardy attended a week-long NSF course at Peter Andrew’s Tarwyn Park property at Bylong in New South Wales late last year. The new course is being conducted by Mr Andrews’ son, Stuart Andrews, and course coordinator Duane Norris.
“Darren completed four of the 10 days of training,” Mr Norris said. “His attendance, along with a number of other young people, gave us real hope for the future.”
The series of two-day intensive workshops discussed how Tarwyn Park works as a functioning farming system; working with sloping landscapes and incorporating contouring; water management and ecosystem services through NSF management; and biodiversity and weed management through NSF management.
Mr Hardy expects to continue his NSF studies this year. “The trainers were such switched on and passionate people,” Darren said. “Two years ago I read Peter Andrews’ second book ‘Beyond the Brink’ and it completely rewrote everything I had learned about the Australian landscape and made me realise how much I didn’t know. So I had to read his first book ‘Back from the Brink’.
“I didn’t realise that such a place as Tarwyn Park existed. The four days spent there were the most amazing and affirming learning experience - we learn to read the land,” Darren said.