To integrate environmental principles into your agricultural enterprise you need to view your farm as part of the greater ecosytem. The costs associated with this integration must be factored into your overall long-term economic strategies.
All agriculture is an ecological enterprise and there are ecological boundaries to any productivity endeavours. For example, if you remove all bird nesting habitat, then don’t be surprised if there is a loss of insect eating birds. If you work as an agriculturalist in a broadacre farming system without reference to ecology, then that is a recipe for short and long term disaster.
No property can be farmed independently within the ecological system. Every property is under the influence of the land surrounding it and the ecological processes operating over the wider landscape. For an Irrigation Farmer, thinking beyond farm boundaries has become a necessity due to water allowance issues. No farmer can be an “island” cut off from their community and all need to become involved in catchment management planning. This is a difficult principle for notoriously independent farmers to accept but those that do make the effort to participate generally get benefits that far outweigh the costs of participation.
An example of community thinking is to treat bush areas on your property, not as a liability restraining you from productive agriculture but an asset that provides measureable benefits for sustainable agriculture for your whole community.
One way for community integration to be assisted is for each farmer to develop their own farm plan within the context of the wider catchment planning programme.
The secret is to work with nature, and not against it. This is why I emphasise the identification and specific management of land units on your property based on their different characteristics and capabilities (soils, microclimates etc) .
Adverse environmental effects are incremental.
Well it probably seemed to be common sense to our ancestors to clear more land to increase productivity. However, over-clearing in conjunction with other land management practices in the past has led to sheet and gully erosion, loss of critical topsoil and siltation of rivers and lakes.
Similarly the use of excessive amounts of chemicals may have initially led to outstanding successes in productivity but the benefits were quickly compromised by residue and contamination problems, resistant plants developing and the loss and forsaking of traditional weed and pest management skills. There is a need to balance technological solutions against more natural solutions.
An example of this is that excessive and regular ploughing of land can lead to breakdown of soil structure and heavy machinery can compact soils. Balancing solutions could involve direct drilling of crops into pasture without disturbing or breaking down soil structure.
One of the foundations of farming in balance with nature is a well-planned bushland web integrated with active agricultural practices. Unfortunately on most farms land clearing has left less than ideal patterns of remnant bush which are degraded and not interconnected.
In most cases, a property without trees or bushland is less productive than one on the same soils with strategic plantings to provide an interconnected network of bushland or trees. Goldney and Bauer suggest that an ideal balance of bushland on farms seems to be about 5-10%.This has an additional benefit in that native flora and fauna act as indicator species about the health of our land.
In Australia, the pioneering farmers used yellow box (Eucalyptus melliodora) as an indicator of high quality agricultural land. In New Zealand, the pioneers used Kahikatea (Podocarpus dacrydioides) as their indicator of rich, fertile river flats. A further example is the presence of sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) for control of Christmas Beetles (Anoplognathus spp) which cause dieback in crops. Sugar Gliders are dependent on suitable habitat being provided in the form of bush areas for nesting.
The drainage systems within your agricultural enterprise are essential to integrating environmental principles within your production cycles. Drainage lines and ephemeral waterways are critical nutrient areas for farm flora and fauna and should be rehabilitated and fenced off as part of long-term planning.
Drainage lines usually form part of the bush network on farms and can be multi-use areas providing woodlots, windbreaks, and stock shelter. If they are fenced off and an alternative water supply is provided via piping and troughs, the improved water quality will usually result in increased animal productivity.
The environmental costs of agricultural production must be factored into the market place. This is sometimes hard to do unless you are in a situation where you can obtain a premium for your product to cover environmental costs. In general, for example, organic produce is 30-50% more expensive than conventionally produced produce, because of the extra costs of production and lack of economies of scale.
Therefore as an important part of integrating environmental principles into your agricultural enterprise the costs of degradation or rehabilitation need to be equated within your agricultural costs.
