Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We are all land managers, but those of us who are direct custodians of the land have an enormous job dealing with the unpredictability and complexity of nature, and an enormous responsibility to do no harm. As part of nature, we have the power and the intelligence to influence her abundance.

HSA Chair Tom Nicholas nominated the three award-winning farming families at the Business Leaders Forum at Parliament House in Canberra in May 2010. The A K Hill Agricultural Awards, initiated by soil scientist Christine Jones, were presented by former Governor General Mike Jeffery.

This page explains the different techniques we are using to mitigate nature's unpredictability and fulfil our responsibility to produce food and other useful products whilst not upsetting the land's relationship with air and water so much that the land becomes unproductive.

The basic techniques used to achieve this are set out below and the principles explained. Along with the information set out in other pages in this website, you can gain an understanding of how to get yourself in this win-win situation with nature. Every land manager and every piece of land is unique, marked by their own personality, needs and limitations, and bounty. There is no one size fits all, no narrow detailed definitive answer to the how-to question. The answer is broad and simple ā€“ soil must be full of life and healthy. There are many ways to do this and if achieve a result they are all correct.

Links are provided below to pages explaining the growing body of proven methods. HSA has organised this information so that you are directed to the most succinct, practical, and free of dogma information we can find. Also see our practicing farmers and service providers pages above.

REGENERATIVE FARMING TECHNOLOGIES (Land Management Practices)

HSA promotes all soil technologies that have been proven to work over long periods of time, including especially, practices of manuring, composting, crop rotations and companion planting.

Our focus is on what innovative farmers and graziers are actually doing, independently of current scientific knowledge or theorising, and doing independently of the sometimes stifling dogma which accompanies the instruction of individual soil remediation techniques. Listed below, in no particular order, are different techniques practiced by HSA members, which can be adapted to either broadacre or intensive farming.

Our decision making has been the cause of land degradation in human civilisations for thousands of years. Great civilisations have come and gone, and their collapse has been the result of poor decision making and we have not learnt from our mistakes over those thousands of years. We are repeating the same mistakes because we are using the same decision making process every time and there is no balance in our decisions.

Holistic management is a decision making process to help us make balance decisions in our lives, to managing land resources, build biodiversity, improve production, generate financial strength, and improves the quality of life for those who use it. Developed by Allan Savory, Holistic Management offers a new decision-making framework that managers in a variety of enterprises, cultures, and countries are using to help ensure that the decisions they take are economically, socially, and environmentally sound, simultaneously—both short and long term.
Our economy and our society are totally dependent on a healthy balanced and functioning environment.
By making balance decisions or holistic decision making we are taking into account the three areas of Economic, Social and Environmental.

Here are a list of methodologies that we have in our toolbox that have been used in Australia and worldwide to achieve the regenerative result that are needed to help restore natural function to our landscape. You can use one or many, it is up to you and how you feel comfortable in managing your land. The methods you decide on using must be weighed up according to how much money you have and want to spend, and what will give you the biggest bang for your dollar spent. As well as the social and environmental gains you would like to achieve. Some of the methods may cost more and others my cost very little to implement. We recommend that you take a look at all these methods and pick the one that will suit you and the enterprises that you decide to manage your land with.

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT

Holistic management applies systems thinking to managing land resources, build biodiversity, improve production, generate financial strength, and improves the quality of life for those who use it. Developed by Allan Savory, Holistic Management offers a new decision-making framework that managers in a variety of enterprises, cultures, and countries are using to help ensure that the decisions they take are economically, socially, and environmentally sound, simultaneously both short and long term.

Permaculture is a set of systems designed to meet human needs while regenerating the land around us. These techniques were developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s to describe their integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man which involved consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships formed in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs.ā€™ * Holmgren, David, 2002, Permaculture, Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Holmgren Design Services, Hepburn, Victoria.Ā

Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food.

Regarded by some as the first modern ecological farming system and one of the most sustainable, biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include the use of fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays and the use of an astronomical sowing and planting calendar.

The development of biodynamic agriculture began in 1924 with a series of eight lectures on agriculture given by Rudolf Steiner in Germany. The course was held in response to a request by farmers who noticed degraded soil conditions and a deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers.

Today biodynamics is practiced in more than 50 countries worldwide. Demeter International is the primary certification agency for farms and gardens using the methods.

HYDROLATION

Soil moisture can best be managed through improved soil structure, and especially through building up soil organic matter, particularly humus.

Water-Holding Capacity Increase per hectare for Varying Humus increases
Humus Increase	Retained Water VolumeĀ per Hectare to 30cm	Average 2004 level
0.5%	80.000 litres
1%	160,000 litres
2%	320,000 litres
3%	480,000 litres
4%	640,000 litres
5%	800,000 litres	Pre settlement level

The above table is based on a Masters degree dissertation by Glenn David Morris (2004) Sustaining National Water Supplies by Understanding the Dynamic Capacity that Humus has to Increase Soil Water Storage Capacity.Ā Faculty of Rural Management, University of Sydney.

In addition to using soil structure to improve moisture, moisture can be managed in two other ways: from the top down through irrigation and from the bottom up through hydrolation.

Hydrolation relies on the capillary action of soils to deliver moisture from below. The term Hydrolation was coined by HSA to describe the process of water management developed by the Dutch who control soil moisture precisely by adjusting the water table through their elaborate drainage system.

In the nineteenth century, overstocking and the removal of vegetation increased run-off and incised deep erosion gullies, resulting in dehydration of the landscape.Hydrolation techniques involve slowing (not stopping) runoff and increasing infiltration of water into the soil using vegetation and physical structures (leaky weirs) strategically placed in eroded gullies to lift water tables and restore flood plain functioning. Instead of rainfall events producing high levels of runoff which further scour out existing water ways and increase desiccation of the surrounding landscape, a hydrolated landscape, in conjunction with better soil structure built by increased soil microbiological activity, delivers water to plants and river systems over a longer period through slow percolation.

Yeomans key line ploughing systems and Whittingtons interceptor banks have also been successfully used to slow runoff increase water infiltration.

In addition to deep incised gullies, Australia's larger rivers have also become deeply incised resulting in the loss of soil moisture from the surrounding countryside. In the past, river banks were higher than the surrounding countryside as a result of periodic flooding and the depositing of silt on the banks. As a result, flood plains held water for long periods. Restoring flood plains to hydrolate the landscape is increasingly being recognised.

From The Soil Up

KEYLINE FARMING

Keyline is ordered set of principles, techniques and systems. When fully utilised, Keyline Designs produce strategies and tactics to develop the natural or existing landscape through regeneration and enhancement. Australian P.A. Yeomans in 1954 pioneered topsoil regeneration, on farm irrigation dams, chisel ploughs, contour ripping and non-terraced flood irrigation. Topsoil regeneration in the Yoemans system is a consequence of farm contour and tree planting design which enhances water retention and heals erosion and salinity, cellrotational grazing and mechanical soil aeration.

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm. Organic farming excludes or strictly limits the use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators such as hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives, and genetically modified organisms.

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), defines organic farming as:

"Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved."

PASTURE CROPPING AND NO KILL CROPPING

Pasture cropping is zero till sowing of crops into perennial pasture. The land is not ploughed and the native or introduced perennial pasture is kept indefinitely. Weeds are controlled by grazing regimes, which leave mulch and manure nutrients on the ground, as well as minimal herbicide use. The ground is never bare and the land is utilised all year round. Input costs are small. Crops are usually sown at depth with a seed drill, cutting the sod instead of turning it, and then covering it.

No Kill cropping follows similar principles. The difference is that it does not eliminate weeds, preferring diversity. No herbicide, pesticide or fertiliser is used, allowing maximum biological activity and minimum input costs, whilst maintaining plant diversity. Weeds are inhibited with grazing management and by sowing crops dry, giving them a germination advantage.

CELL GRAZING

Animal grazing, digestion and trampling also plays an important role in soil health. Time-controlled or cell grazing management systems for animal production improve animal and pasture production as well as increase soil carbon sequestration when compared with set stocked continuous grazing systems.

UNPATENTED AND PATENTED COMPOST TEA AND NUTRIENT MIXES

The art of making compost has found a broad scale application with the modification of existing spraying equipment to directly deliver micro-organisms brewed by a number of different ways to the soil in the paddock. In compost tea, a compost starter pack is used from compost made from a diversity of sources, and known to contain micro-organisms beneficial to the plants cropped. The tea is brewed with water, much like making beer. The micro-organisms proliferate rapidly under the right conditions, to numbers where paddocks can be sprayed with the mix, significantly boosting the soil micro-organism population. Nutrient mixes can also be added to the spray. Sprays can also be made to spray on the plants themselves, reducing foliar diseases and discouraging pest attack. Compost tea can be obtained commercially as well as being suitable to being made on-farm in large quantities.

(The link below is to a video of how to make compost tea. It is short and accurate but small scale. HSA will replace this with a more comprehensive video link as soon at is becomes available.)

Healthy Soils Australia

HOW-TO