Biological Farming Roundtable

Today’s podcast is co-hosted with Agroecologist David Hardwick at the first ever cane regenerative farming forum held in Ingham, Queensland.

A key presenter and leader at the event was Simon Mattsson, who operates a 190 hectare property at Marion, 30 kilometers west of Mackay, producing sugarcane, soybeans and chickpeas in rotation, in a controlled traffic farming system.

Simon is a Nuffield scholar and a passionate soil health advocator who believes the biggest difference between the really resilient successful farmers and the rest, is their ability to take advantage of nature’s free resources, sunlight, rainfall, carbon and nitrogen.

This is our after-dinner conversation with Simon Mattsson.

The post Episode 12 – Multispecies, inter row cropping & introducing cattle into regenerative cane farming appeared first on NutriSoil.

Today’s conversation is with mixed farmer, Col Harper, from Ariah Park NSW.

This is my conversation with Col Harper, an ethical grain and sheep producer, and my good friend.

The post Episode 11 – Increasing Carbon With Regenerative Agriculture appeared first on NutriSoil.

David Hardwick is an agroecologist and has over 20 years’ experience in farming and food systems. David develops and delivers extension projects helping farmers gain tools, and information to transition to low chemical, ecological and profitable farming systems.

Today’s conversation pivots around acceptance of change in agriculture and how mastering a whole farm system is the key to agroecological success. Just one part of the jigsaw missing can be the difference between success and failure.

In the show David talks about soil structure building and refers to the following utube link with Terrain NRM. There are 8 short video links in the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbjFxvVeQo&list=PLgBNGL5zqSA2Yx2RD6w_vhnzr2DTXzswi&index=1

We also talk about the Regenerative Cane Farming Forum coming up on the 18th and 19th of March in Ingham, QLD where David and I will be co-hosting the podcast, interviewing farmers at the event. Spaces are still available. Click on the link below to find out more.

https://www.regencane.com.au/

To find out more about David’s courses visit his website Soil Land Food.

https://www.soillandfood.com.au/

The post Episode 10 – Agroecology – A New Mindset in Agriculture | David Hardwick appeared first on NutriSoil.

David Hardwick is an agroecologist and has over 20 years’ experience in farming and food systems. David develops and delivers extension projects helping farmers gain tools and information to transition to low chemical, ecological and profitable farming systems.

Today’s conversation pivots around acceptance of change in agriculture and how mastering a whole farm system is the key to agroecological success. Just one part of the jigsaw missing can be the difference between success and failure.

In the show, David talks about soil structure building and refers to the following youtube link with Terrain NRM. There are 8 short video links in the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbjFxvVeQo&list=PLgBNGL5zqSA2Yx2RD6w_vhnzr2DTXzswi&index=1

We also talk about the Regenerative Cane Farming Forum coming up on the 18th and 19th of March in Ingham, QLD where David and I will be co-hosting the podcast, interviewing farmers at the event. Spaces are still available. Click on the link below to find out more.

https://www.regencane.com.au/

To find out more about David’s courses visit his website Soil Land Food.

https://www.soillandfood.com.au/

This is the NutriSoil story with Graham Maddock and his daughter Rachelle Armstrong.

From a traditional dairy farmer, Graham became a shell of himself after being doused in insecticide in a farming accident. After twelve months of illness following the accident, Graham made the decision to remove synthetic fertiliser and pesticides from his farming system and started using vermiculture, a product produced through large worm farms. Using this natural system, over time, Graham was able to raise his pH from 3.8 to 6.2 without the use of lime. Together with his family, they built the largest worm farm in Australia, supplying broad acre farmers with a natural alternative to synthetic fertiliser and lower chemical applications. NutriSoil is part of building the Regenerative Agriculture movement, challenging corporate power who have provided misleading information about the effects of chemicals used in farming systems. Along with many others, NutriSoil is educating farmers about the effects of chemicals in farming profitability, human health, and the environment.

The post Episode 9 – From Chemical Farm Accident to Australia’s Largest Worm Farm appeared first on NutriSoil.

Brooke French and her daughter Katie who is 13 years old, operate a 932 acre sheep and cattle property in Brungle Creek, NSW. From a passionate herbicide user who took pleasure in seeing her weeds die, Brooke’s mindset about weeds and synthetic fertilisers has been turned on its head. A change of perspective can change your farming practices so dramatically. In this conversation we go deeper, we talk weeds, hay, droving, personal development and we even talk about men! This is a great conversation with an amazing woman, who against the odds, did not feed out hay in the 2018 drought.

The post Episode 8 – Girl in the Arena with Brooke French appeared first on NutriSoil.

Nick and Lucy Kelly farm a 2000Ha cereal and livestock farm in Newdegate, WA. Using plants and animals as the tools, Nick has transitioned the farm from conventional to a holistic regenerative system. Multispecies summer covers are sown, with French White Millet as the main species, and plant senescing is now the key trigger to sowing the following winter cash crop. A mix of perennial multispecies summer active plants are progressively being sown, synthetic fertilisers have been removed, and herbicides have been drastically reduced. Results are increased profit margins, plummeting frost damage, increased soil aggregation, and earthworms returning to the system. Listen to Nick and Lucy’s story as they travel the road together to a profitable, no chemical, regenerative pasture cropping system.

The post Episode 7 – Building a Holistic Regenerative Farming System with Nick and Lucy Kelly appeared first on NutriSoil.

Jeff, his wife Jenny and son Jarrod Andrews operate a 1000 Ha sheep property in Blighty, NSW. Using NutriSoil, a worm based fertiliser, for 15 years and low levels of Nitrogen (N), they turn off 6500 lambs per year.

The Andrews are breaking the boundaries with using low nitrogen inputs in their corn crops. They use under 11 units of nitrogen and grow crops that are comparable in yield to those grown with 100 plus units of N.

The combination of low amounts of nutrients, in a stable form, mixed with a living worm solution allows the corn to engage with the soil and microbial life. In this system, insoluble nutrients are made soluble and the plant’s natural defence mechanisms are enhanced, all while building humus for future soil health.

Adding nitrogen with a carbon source and worm solution also stabilises nitrogen in ammonium form for longer, reducing the harmful and costly effects that high nitrogen input systems can have. This includes acidification of soil, volatilisation of ammonia, nitrate leaching into the waterways and losses of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere.

The Andrews have developed a profitable, low input, closed system, that is good for their soil, animals, human and planet health. We recently had Jeff and Jarrod facilitate at the April Biological Farming Roundtable. Please listen to the podcast to learn about their low input and profitable farming system.

The post Episode 6 – Low input, closed, profitable system appeared first on NutriSoil.

Suzanne Lewis is an ethical sheep producer that is passionate about low-stress sheep management and explains, that a healthy sheep is a happy sheep. Suzanne explains the benefits such as increased sheep weight, fertility, and meat quality, as well as decreased worm burdens, that result from low-stress sheep management.

Suzanne manages 1400 x white suffolk composite ewes and trade merino wether lambs. Suzanne’s husband Evan operates a no-till cropping enterprise which incorporates multispecies cover cropping. The two systems complement each other by the integration of the sheep grazing cover crops and stubble for soil and animal health.

Not only is Suzanne an ethical meat producer, she is also a part-time teacher with the school of exercise and nutrition sciences at Deakin University and talks about the connection with healthy soils, healthy animals, and healthy people. Suzanne explains to us that the gut microbiome and soil microbiome act in very similar ways and that microbial diversity is key to both human and soil health.

The post Episode 5 – Calm the Farm appeared first on NutriSoil.

In this episode, Nakala interviews Tom Briggs who, along with his dad Colin, operates a mixed cropping property near Rutherglen, Victoria. The father and son team have strong regenerative farming values and while being moderate synthetic input users, are now two years into a longer-term plan to remove synthetic fertilisers from their system. Listen to this impressive young man as he tells their story of using a systems approach with minimal tillage disturbance, multispecies cover crops, companion planting, biological inputs and animals to replace synthetic fertilisers.

The post Episode 4 – A Five Year Transition with Tom Briggs appeared first on NutriSoil.