2022 Upper Hopkins LMG President’s report

Jack Tucker, President 

Time flies and we are back around at our Autumn newsletter already.

Thank you once again Ayesha for putting together another fantastic publication!

As some members may be aware this will be the last newsletter with Ayesha as our facilitator. Sadly for the Landcare community but excitingly for Ayesha she informed me last week that she has accepted a role with Nature Glenelg Trust, as a Wetland Ecologist. NGT is a fantastic organisation, and this is a wonderful opportunity for Ayesha, so on behalf of us all congratulations to her!

I can’t thank Ayesha enough for the work she has done since commencing with us in 2019. She hit the ground running and has really helped us take the group forward.

Ayesha will be continuing with us until the end of the month, allowing her time to tidy up any loose ends.

We have just recently advertised the position left vacant by Ayesha online via Seek and NRM Jobs, and Kelly and CC are organising the recruitment process. Please don’t hesitate to contact CC, Kelly or myself if you have any queries or comments.

Now we have come through summer, the benefits of the extremely wet Spring, which seemed to drag on forever are really becoming apparent in terms of the health and vigour of remnant and new vegetation, and biodiversity in general.

Throughout Summer comments about the swarms of dragonflies and brown butterflies were common right throughout the district. Stubble Quail are in numbers not seen for many years, as are waterbirds and reptiles, particularly snakes, which have benefited from the boom in the frog population.

Recently I was driving in the evening and for a decent distance the road was literally moving with frogs. A closer inspection revealed three common local species – Spotted Marsh Frogs, Eastern Banjo Frogs and Common Froglets. After a short walk I found the source, which was a pool in a seasonal creek, and small frogs of all 3 species were crawling out of the water en masse! I had never witnessed anything like this before and it was an amazing sight!

I have touched on this before, but seasons like the one we are currently experiencing really showcase how incredible, and how critically important our local seasonal wetlands are!

For anyone who is lucky enough to have a wetland on their property, I can’t stress enough how worthwhile it will be for themselves, and future generations if it is managed for the best possible conservation outcomes. Looking after a wetland does not necessarily mean fencing it off and forgetting about it. Like native grasslands, to function at their best, wetlands can respond well to removal of biomass either through strategic grazing or burning.

In terms of natural capital, and considering the rapid development of ecological accounting frameworks (carbon and biodiversity in particular), intact, functioning wetlands could easily become more valuable to a farm business bottom line per Ha than the arable land surrounding them. Please contact our group or the Glenelg – Hopkins CMA directly if you are seeking any information or assistance in preserving wetlands under your management.

NOW (before the Autumn break) is an ideal time to:

• Finalise site selection for proposed re-veg works and rip lines in preparation for planting.
• Order tubestock from your chosen nursery. Remember it is always important to request local provinence stock where possible.
• Fox and rabbit baiting.
• Tidy up Gorse control. Now with the majority of grass dried off and brown, it is really easy to locate any Gorse missed during Spring spraying or any seedlings which have germinated since. 
• As always, please spread the word about our group, as we are always keen for new members (and a new facilitator if anyone knows one…!).

Happy Landcaring!

Jack

Saline Wetlands field day

Aggie Stevenson, Senior Biodiversity Officer

On Thursday 9^th February, a field day was held near Willaura. The key focus was on the Endangered Adamson’s Blown-grass (Lachnagrostis adamsonii), however it also encompassed general saline wetland management. The field day saw the 25 participants visiting one of the saline wetlands with a known Adamson’s Blown-grass population, near the Hopkins River east of Willaura. A broad range of speakers participated in the field day, including: Dr Steve Sinclair (ARI), Dan Lees (BirdLife Australia), Tara Hopley, Laura Simmons and Rebecca Miller (Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria) and Dr Austin Brown. A Welcome to Country was provided on-site by Eastern Maar representative Paul Kelly, during which time, three Wedge-tailed Eagles (Bunjil) flew over the group as Paul played his Didgiridoo; this left several participants feeling incredibly ‘grateful’ and ‘privileged.

Glenelg Hopkins CMA is currently running a small project focusing on the protection of this poorly known grass, which in turn is enabling the CMA to be able to put the spotlight on saline wetlands, of which there are many hundreds in the region, yet are greatly underrepresented in Government priorities.

If you have a saline wetland on your farm and would like a CMA staff member to inspect it as potential Adamson’s Blown-grass habitat, please contact Aggie on 0435 537 443 or a.stevenson@ghcma.vic.gov.au

Protecting Wetlands Together – with Precision Ag

Jileena Cole, Landcare Facilitator

In late February. I attended Agrifutures evokeAg 2023 ‘Down to earth’ conference in Adelaide, with Ayesha, and two progressive farmers, Simon & Ben, who have a farm located near Skipton.  This was funded by the OCOC Protecting wetlands together…Precision Ag project through Glenelg Hopkins CMA, in partnership with three other Landcare networks, including Upper Hopkins Land Management Group.

There was over 1500 delegates in attendance, with several presentations, workshops, and forums on various topics over the two days. There was also a networking exhibition featuring operators and inventors in agriculture, and new start up ventures looking to promote their work and attract investment.   The two days kicked off with a very impressive Welcome to Country from the Kaurna people, performed by Kuma Kaaru Cultural services, who thoroughly entertained the crowd, sharing their amazing stories through songs and dances.  This was followed by a thought-provoking discussion about growing food in space and how this could lead to greater efficiency in agriculture.  Space-tech is likely to completely change the way we grown food to feed the ever-growing population on earth.

Further discussions centred around the future of agriculture, and what investors are looking to invest in. Things like the food as medicine movement and how the nutritional value of food will play a bigger role in the agricultural industry and improving the health of the community. Supply chain integrity was also highlighted as a key area of focus for enterprises, and how consumers can and will drive what we see on our supermarket shelves. Biotech is also a growing industry, growing food within a lab, either as an alternative to meat or editing genes to create more nutritional food.  The main message was that nutritional, sustainable, affordable food is the main goal for the agricultural industry going forward.   

In the afternoon, I attended a workshop on empowering farmers to shape the future of environmental reporting. Sue Ogilvy from Framing for the future was on the panel, and discussed how Farming for the Future is working towards a more financially prosperous, climate-resilient, and decarbonised agriculture sector in Australia and aims to support the agricultural sector to optimise the natural capital that underpins core agricultural production. They believe this will improve economic and environmental outcomes for producers, the food and fibre supply chain and the community – at scale. They are looking at measuring the natural assets on a farm and assigning a dollar value to the assets so it can be incorporated in the total value of the enterprise. I found this a rather interesting concept, here is a link to the website if you want to check it out https://farmingforthefuture.org.au/.

Day two began with discussion around global challenges facing the agricultural industry, the 4 C’s: Climate, Covid, Conflict and Costs, and how these factors will drive collaboration, creativity, or catastrophe in the future. It was noted that the agricultural industry needs to define what sustainability is? What environmental sustainability is, and how it should include biodiversity. Data was highlighted as being important to prove an enterprises sustainability, however technology is not always making its way to farmers on the ground for various reasons. Whether that be connectivity issues, or relevance issues, it was highlighted that tech companies need to be having conversations with farmers to ensure that their technology is relevant to the issues the farmers are facing on the ground and within the industry.

In the afternoon I listened to a further two discussions, one on SynBio- which discussed transforming agriculture at a cellular level, and one on the risks and rewards of renewables, in particular bio-diesel.  Synthetic biology or SynBio, is designing crops for fuel production or creating programmable cells to fight disease. This sector is big business, with interest from pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies.  It was noted that this sector was not looking to impact on the current agricultural industry, only to enhance it or, as in the case for one company who are making a synthetic meat product, create something entirely new and different from the current meat products available.

The discussion on renewables was also interesting, as it was discussing the challenges and opportunities in the production and application of sustainable fuel sources.  One farmer who was on the panel, talked about how he was growing a crop to produce biodiesel for his farming enterprise, however he had to go through the same process as larger fuel companies did, to be able to produce that product for his own use. He was calling for change to the regulation so that more farmers could be doing what he does with less red tape.

The workshop on Natural Capital accounting was the highlight for me, as I could see how this concept could have the potential to protect wetlands within a cropping landscape. If there is a dollar value placed on natural assets, would this encourage more cropping farmers to protect them? I think so. Also, I found the discussion on food as medicine rather fascinating, and got me thinking, if there was scientific evidence to suggest that food grown sustainably, within a landscape that included wetlands, rivers, and native vegetation, was of a better nutritional quality, could it be sold at a premium price?

It was a great to attend evokeAg and listen in to some very thought-provoking discussions on the future of the agricultural industry and the current technology that is being developed.

Ayesha Burdett, Landcare Facilitator

Many thanks to Jileena for organising this opportunity for me and our farmer representatives, and to the GHCMA OCOC program for the funding support. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the diversity of challenges that agriculture is facing across Australia and into the future, and how technology and innovation is part of the solution. Like Jileena, I attended a diversity of sessions but I mainly focused on sessions that discussed topics around environmental sustainability.

As someone living and working in the Upper Hopkins, I usually think of agriculture from the ground up: farmers grow food in the soil, and its very hands-on work. This conference looked into the future of farming with some seemingly far-fetched ideas about growing food in space or in the laboratory, or adopting new technology that sounds incredible to those of us who continue to struggle to get a mobile phone signal in our backyards.

Many presentations dug deeper, considering the role of primary producers in climate adaptation and resilience and the responsibility to create high-quality food and fibre for the health and well-being of the consumers (which includes me and my family). I watched a presentation that encouraged producers to start thinking about how to include carbon credits in their farm business, even though we don’t yet have all the answers about how to measure or store carbon. 2030 is approaching rapidly and we need to be pragmatic and get going on farms across the country.

Another panel discussed the Collision of the Four Cs (climate, COVID, conflict and cost). These presentations emphasised the importance of supply chains, food security and nutritional security (i.e., quantity and quality of food). One presenter recognised that the average consumer is not willing – or perhaps unable – to pay more for food at the supermarket. If consumers won’t pay, then something else in the supply chain will, such as the environment. Conversely, another presenter claimed that regenerative farming is no more expensive than conventional farming and therefore should be the same price for the consumer.

Throughout these presentations about the future of farming, we repeatedly heard that farmers need to get better at collecting, collating and interpreting their on-farm data (presumably with support from their agronomists). For farmers to collect this data, the process needs to be seamless and secure.

After hearing about collecting data in a few sessions, I started to notice that the farmers in the audience were starting to push back on the presenters, saying that they were already collecting and using data and precision agriculture was essential to the success of their annual harvest.

I also heard some feedback from the audience that they didn’t need new tech designed for them because it might not suit their needs. Rather than adopting programs from another organisation, some of the bigger producers had designed their own apps or computer programs to manage their farm data and some other farmers were happy to continue to use standard spreadsheets to track their paddock information. It was a good reminder that the newest technology may not be the solution to all of the complex challenges in the future of farming.

CMA Flood Recovery Effort Continues

Dave Nichols, Senior Project Officer

The Glenelg Hopkins CMA flood recovery effort has been continuing over the past couple of months on several fronts. Firstly, the CMA Works Crew have been kept busy assisting farmers clean up and repair livestock fences following the high rainfall events of October and November 2022. To date they have repaired over 34 kilometres of fencing across the properties of over 30 landholders. This has largely occurred across the catchments of the Upper Hopkins, the Fiery Creek and the Upper Mount Emu Creek. This work is now coming to an end, but if there is still anyone looking for some assistance they can contact the CMA on 55712526.

In recent months aerial surveys have been flown over the same catchments mentioned above, conducting assessments of damage to stream banks and associated infrastructure. Follow up ground assessments of sites identified from the aerial surveys are now been conducted by engineers. CMA staff are now in place to follow up on the remediation work that will follow over the next 18 months.

Landholders with damaged streamside banks and associated infrastructure, such as eroded banks, crossings, dams and fences arising from high stream flows of the recent flood events, can also contact the CMA to register their site for an assessment.

For more information about the program, call the Glenelg Hopkins CMA on 55712 526.

RCS Online regenerative cropping workshop

Ayesha Burdett, Landcare Facilitator

You may have seen the recent training opportunity with RCS Australia (https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/) to participate in Online Regenerative Cropping Workshop. With funding from the Glenelg Hopkins CMA, the Upper Hopkins Land Management Group has supported two local farmers and the Landcare Facilitator to participate in this eight-week training course. We have now completed half of the course.

The training began with an overview of agriculture and how farming has increased production over the past ten years. However, there is still room for improvement particularly in the way to manage soil health and natural systems within the farm production system.

Participants have been encouraged to think about positive and negative feedback loops as they manage their farm enterprise. According to systems thinking theory, feedback loops generates waves of change within a complex adaptive system (in this case, the farm production system). Everyone is encouraged to experiment with different farming techniques depending on their own circumstances and challenges, but always observing the positive and negative outcomes from that management decision.

The course has also considered ecological feedback loops that are important in agricultural systems (e.g., water cycle, ecosystem services, carbon). Because of my background in ecology, a lot of these concepts are not new to me. However, applying ecological concepts to a managed agricultural system is a bit more challenging. There has been an emphasis on improving soil health by supporting the soil food web through finding the right mineral balance and building healthy populations of arthropods, fungi and bacteria. Participants have been provided with lots of examples of how to do this on the ground, and are reminded to monitor the outcomes of anything that they do on the farm.

Many of the course participants have already begun adopting some regenerative agriculture principals on their farms, and this course has reinforced some of the concepts that they have learned elsewhere. For other participants, much of the content is new and it has been a steep (but well-paced) learning curve.

If you’re interested in attending a workshop like this in the future, keep on eye on the RCS website (https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/). They host in-person and online courses throughout the year.

This project is supported by Glenelg Hopkins CMA, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

If you’re interested in learning more about biofertilisers and compost, consider attending the Biofertilisers and Compost Workshop with David Hardwick on 6 April. Click here to register online.

Totally Renewable Ararat Project

Daryl Scherger

I’m proposing that Ararat establish a community owned renewable energy facility to provides all of Ararat’s energy needs, including transport, by 2030.   I’ve looked at a number of community renewable energy projects around Victoria and they all fail to actually delivery the community’s total energy needs, including heat and transport energy.  Typically, they use solar panels to produce an annual output equivalent to the community’s current electricity consumption.  Unfortunately, the peak output of solar panels is during summer and peak community energy demand is in winter.  The battery storage needed to shift solar output to cover winter demand is cost prohibitive. 

My approach is to use a combination of local rooftop solar and a bioenergy plant to meet Ararat’s total energy needs, including space heating and hot water, as well the additional electricity needed to charge electric vehicles.  The proposed bioenergy technology is a gasification system designed and built by Australian company Wildfire Energy.  Gasifiers aren’t as efficient as a combustion/steam cycle based systems but they offer fast start up and better load following capability.  This flexible, dispatchable form of renewable energy eliminates the need for battery storage.  An example of this type of plant is in Skive, Denmark, built by SunGas Renewables.  It also has the added advantage of producing large amounts of biochar which is a natural form of long term carbon sequestration and has the potential to make the proposed project carbon negative rather than just carbon neutral. 

The proposed fuel for the bioenergy plant is up to 50,000 tonnes of local wheat straw at a suggested delivered price of $100 per tonne.  Part of the proposal is a district heating system that uses waste heat from the bioenergy system to replace natural gas for Ararat’s space heating and hot water needs.  District heating systems are unknown in Australia but are increasingly popular in Europe.  They have the advantage of replacing electricity demand at peak times of the day and during winter.  An important part of the proposal is an arrangement with an energy retailer to buy rooftop solar output from Ararat residents at a reasonable price, along with output from the bioenergy plant, and sell the electricity to Ararat consumers at a lower price than they currently pay.  Hepburn Energy have a similar arrangement with retailer, Flow Power.

In addition to meeting all of Ararat’s electricity and heating needs, there is the potential to produce synthetic diesel suitable for farm machinery and heavy transport.  The proposed bioenergy system would only operate at full capacity for a few hours each day and the spare gasifier capacity could be used to supply syngas to a synthetic diesel plant similar to the Renewable Biodiesel Plant currently planned for Narrogin in WA.  This possibility isn’t included in my current proposal but could be added later.  If there’s enough interest in the proposal, I’d recommend inviting a representative from Hepburn energy to a meeting to explain how they succeeded in developing their system.  Anyone wanting to register an interest in the proposal can call me on 0497 609 944 or email, daryl.scherger@bigpond.com.