PRESIDENT'S Column

By Gary Sansom

President

28 Jan 2010 FARMERS DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP FOR REEF PRESERVATION

The release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) preliminary results of a survey that has examined farming practices affecting water quality in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area is welcome news for Queensland Farmers’ Federation. The results of the survey were announced in December 2009, and are based on information from landowners on a range of land management practices applied to agricultural land. Information was also collected on practices specific to particular agricultural activities.
Many landholders have already moved to best practice. The challenge with the Australian Government’s Reef Rescue program now is to further engage with farmers to empower them through access to information that supports the need for action. There is a further need to draw the link between practice change and water quality improvement, an issue that by participation, farmers are already showing they acknowledge and want to work on.
The survey provides environmental researchers with the opportunity to see what is happening in different across all areas of the catchment and goes some way in demonstrating that farmers have taken real ownership in finding solutions for improving land management outcomes in the area.
The Federal Government is slowly but surely beginning to recognise that farmers are critical to providing solutions.
Famers are managing the environmental risks on the farms as best they can; these types of programs help serve to accelerate the uptake and coordinate the efforts of all involved.
One of the interesting findings reported by the ABS was the high rate of non-chemical weed and pest controls. A total of 60 per cent of farms reported using mechanical controls (such as mulching), and nearly half (48 per cent) used other non-chemical controls such as biological controls or break cropping.
In the Burdekin NRM region land managers reported very high rates of management practices that reduced water runoff from the property with 70 per cent of holdings undertaking at least one practice to manage surface water run-off. This tells us that a large number of land managers are taking significant steps to reduce water run-off and reduce their risk to the environment. In all NRM regions surveyed land managers reported using at least one type of management practice in deciding how much fertilizer to apply, which makes sense as determining the optimum rate of fertilizer to apply through the appropriate management practice maximises a land managers profitability and delivery of environmental outcomes.
QFF believes that farmers understand that the sustainable management of their farms goes hand in hand with continuing to ensure good outcomes for the reef. It is not unreasonable to ask that in order to acknowledge this commitment farmers should also be given the security to continue to grow their businesses in such a way that insures they have confidence to invest in the future as well.
Further details can be found in Land Management Practices in the Great Barrier Reef Catchments, Preliminary, 2008-09 (cat. no. 4619.0) available for free download from the ABS website at www.abs.gov.au.

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