Blame the bloody British

While it is fashionable and politically correct to tug the forelock and bow down to the Queen in John Howard's Australia, freedom of speech is almost entirely extinguished in Australia, thanks to the new sedition laws. But some things just need to be said. The bloody British stuffed the environment of Australia by their stupidity and narrow-minded arrogance. The idiots wanted to feel at home in this strange new land so they introduced foxes... and rabbits. Half the pasture vegetation in Australia that would otherwise be avaailable to sheep and catgtle is consumed by rabbits, according to Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. It took five attempts to introduce the rabbit! But the hardy British yeoman persevered and won... and the rest of us lost big time.
Other famous British legacies: the housesparrow and the starling, each displacing beautiful native Australian birds. The foxes have destroyed several species of small animal, on behalf of idiots in red coats who ride around chasing the odd fox. "The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible", according to Oscar Wilde.
Over-clearing of the land has produced salinity which renders the productive value of the soil void. "[British] settlers cleared the land of vegetation partly because they didn't like its appearance... [They] felt uncomfortable among Australia's eucalyptus and acacia trees, so different in appearance, color, and leaves from British woodland trees," says Diamond. This legacy lasted a long time. Until 20 years ago, the federal government not only subsidised land clearance, it insisted upon it from farmed leasing crown land. The original stands of trees have largely disappeared and along with them many species of plants and wildlife.
The dopey British couldn't see past their addiction to tradition and conservative values to realise that the soil types out here required an entirely different approach... that they were farming in 'brittle' environments using 'non-brittle' farming techniques (more in a later blog). Their stupidity can be seen in one incident from the life of Michael Lahy, the pioneering convict/farmer who established our property "Uamby" in the early 1800s.
Transported for 14 years for his part in an uprising against the British who stole his land and forced Irish Catholics to pay taxes to support the Protestant Church, Michael Lahy appears to have adapted rapidly to the natural rhythms of his new land. In a few short years he learned how to ‘read’ the landscape. This skill enabled him to play a significant role when the site of the township of Mudgee was chosen. The location chosen by the British colonial authorities was below the flood line, a danger even the British surveyor was unable to see. Lahy convinced the authorities to move the town and Mudgee was sited on higher ground, spared the problems of flooding that afflicted many other inland communities. (Both the sites for the Uamby homestead and the Uamby cemetery itself are located just above the floodline, as close as is safe to the Cudgegong River.)
So strike me pink and call me Lucky, I curse the bloody British for what they did to this country. They stole the land, exterminated the blacks, flogged the male convicts*, raped the women convicts, desecrated and destroyed the soil, poisoned the rivers and streams, then took their profits and went "home".
I have nothing against the descendants of British settlers. They are welcome to stay. But what we should transport "home" to Mother England is the Union Jack from out of our flag, the agricultural practices that still persist in degrading the soils today, the pests and varmints, and the class system that sees John Howard's white bread racist conservative establishment followers look down their noses at refugees, immigrants, the poor and disadvantaged, ordinary workers, Aborigines and anyone who believes this nation should stand proudly on its own two feet, without the need to cling to the apron strings of a decaying monarchy or to the hand of some protective Big Brother, global bully.

*One third of all convicts transported were Irish political prisoners, ordinary farmers and labourers struggling to win back their land and possessions. Don't get me started on the criminal acts Britian committed during the Famine. Genocide, such sa we saw committed against the Aboriginals in Australia. God save the Queen.

Are your roots in the soil or is your soil rooted?

Stunning things I have read over the Holiday Season...

Try this on for size: Proposition 1. "There is an indispensible agricultural link between the superstructure of a complex civilisation and the soil." That means all societies, no matter how sophisticated, will fail if their agricultural base is eroded. Farmers matter!
Proposition 2: "The chief product of the farm is the persons who constitute that link and they are the most important agricultural resource for our national health and good character." This means the people who live and work on the land are the key factor in the critical link between soil and society. Farmers matter heaps!
I just read these lines in a book I received thru express courier - a mint condition second hand copy of the book "Roots In The Soil: An Introduction to Philosophy of Agriculture" by Johnson D. Hill and Walter E. Stuermann. Signed!
This book was published in 1963 ad was meant to launch the Philosophy of Agriculture. Clearly it failed. But it is a valuable source of ideas.
Like this one: "Across the surface of the earth... the exists an intricate mesh of living beings: the biosphere. Plants, animals, and men, with their existence imbedded in this think skein of life, are critically interdependent... The mysteries of the biosphere are rooted in or dependent on a thin ribbon of top soil which averages not more than twelve inches in depth."
Top soil is the critical element in the chain of civilisation: the soil is the alpha and the omega of life. It is where life begins and ends and begins again...
At the same time I am reading "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive" by Jared Diamond. It has a chapter on Australia and the way we manage our top soil resources. He makes this stark statement: "Australia is the most unproductive continent: the one whose soils have on the average the lowest nutrient levels, the lowest plant growth rates, and the lowest productivity."
He says that Australian farmers have been "mining" the renewable resource we call topsoil as if they were mining minerals. The soil is "being exploited at rates faster that [its] renewal rate, with the result that [it] is declining".
Australian soils are the oldest on Earth and have been leached of their nutrients by rain over billions of years. "Such nutrients as were present in arable soils at the onset of European agriculture quickly became exhausted. In effect, Australia's farmers were inadvertently mining their soils for nutrients. Thereafter, nutrients have had to be supplied artificially in the form of fertiliser, thus increasing agricultural production costs compared to those in more fertile soils overseas."
Scary stuff. He charts declining yields and rising salinity levels as outcomes of this mining mentality. (This could possibly be bullshit, of course, but it tallies with what I have observed so far.)
Johnson says farmers and government decision makers who have no philosophy of agriculture will tend to make msitakes as they use trial and error to solve problems. A philosophy of agriculture gives you the perspective and insight you need to see the implications and dangers of decisions before you make them.
The key to the grand puzzle that is agriculture is decision making - how can we make better decisions in the future? See next blog...

Early thoughts for Farming "Idol"

A few months ago, Uamby was host to a Prograze study group, for the Department of Primary Industries. It is part of our vision for Uamby that it become a demonstration farm for progressive management practices.
As our vision takes shape, Uamby will be host to many more groups like this one.
The way we intend to make the dream come true is through a special program we are involved with.
We were selected along with 10 other farming enterprises to be trained for 20 days in advanced farm planning, with the possibility that three of us will be given the opportunity to fund our plans up to $100,000, courtesy of the Central West Catchment Management Authority. Coodinator Bruce Maynard says he wants our plans to be more innovative than we have ever been before. This is a big ask. Some people, like Col Seis who pioneered pasture cropping, have got runs on the board already.. (Col says he has something new up his sleeve.) With several "holistic" managers and at least one biodynamic operation, there are some pretty radical thinkers in the group. It is going to be hard to compete. And everyone has their sights set on that $100,000. You could set your farm up pretty well with that investment.
"Uamby" is already an innovative farm, converting to holistic resource management, and the CMA has contributed funding for the fencing, water points and a wildlife corridor involved in that move. Amazingly enough, we are being paid to do the things we want to do anyway. The CMA is encouraging 'soil farmers' who are committed to native perennial pastures because these help combat salt rising with the water table. Salt infusion can reduce the productive capacity of land down to zero. A fully-operational farm managed on holistic principles will meet the triple bottom line that the CMA is anxious to promote - ie.be more profitable, more sustainable and make a greater contribution to the community. Holism involves time-controlled grazing systems which requires smaller paddocks to allow the biggest proportion of the pasture under management to be rested for as long as possible to allow the plants to recover. "Rest" - a concept originally introduced by Turnip Townsend in the crop rotation system which is at the heart of the Agricultural Revolution in Europe in the 18th century - is a tool of production. I have seen grass grow in the driest period of a drought. Give it a chance to recover from grazing and it will grow.
As part of the CMA's Farming Systems training program we volunteered to blog our ideas, giving our fellows (our competitors) complete access to our thinking... ostensibly to encourage cross-fertilisation of ideas. My underlying motive was to promote our candidature as "innovators" worthy of reward.

So true to our promise, here in outline are our ideas so far. Understanding the CMA's objectives are educational - to spread new ideas about resource managment among the farming community by 'seeding' and publicising innovators - we have developed an educational package that turns Uamby into a demonstration farm, a centre of learning for both rural operations and city-based people. Not only will we adopt progressive practices such as the application of paramagnetic rock dust, worm juice and other natural suppliments to the soil, and the use of non-chemical drenches and treatments on the animals. We have plans to establish a learning centre to be the home of the study of the Philosophy of Agriculture. This area of study is based on the fundamental fact that every operator makes decisions within the parameters of a belief system based on a particular philosophy of agriculture. Your philosophy houses the assumptions you make and on which you based decisions. Every generation brings with it their own philosophy.
As with general philosophy, there are different schools of thought. The Philosophy of Agriculture does not identify any one philosophy as right or wrong. Just different. Once the operator understands that there are alternative views to their own on how farming should be managed, it broadens their options.
I taught the Philosophy of History at the University of New England in Armidale, northern New South Wales and will rely on that experience to prepare study materials. The Philosophy of any area of activity asks us to address the following questions: What is Agriculture? Why do we do it? What assumptions do you make about it? What have been the schools of thought: Primitive Agriculture, Traditional Agiculture, Scientific Agriculture, Natural Agriculture, Steiner Agriculture? What about the concept of occupancy - tribal ownership, individual ownership, corporate ownership, stewardship, government impacts? You'd be amazed what a discussion on fundamenal assumptions would reveal to each participant about their own beliefs - a breakthrough for many. The first step towards enlightenment. To institutionalise this into a school at Uamby we need to expand the accommodation to include more sleeping quarters (we already have a cottage) and meeting areas. It becomes a value-dded farm stay for city folk and an educational experience for farmers.
Uamby Natural Systems Farming will be illustrated by information boards in each paddock that explain what is happening in each area. Once we build a new shearing shed, the old one becomes a museum of farming, based on the techniques used over the years on Uamby.
To meet the community bottom line we have the restoration of the pioneer's graveyard which is underway and the alliance we have forged with Wiradjeri elders to use Uamby as an educational facility for revealing indigenous land usage and resource management.
The other thought we have had concerns an enterprise based on bamboo as a renewal building resource. Bamboo a fats growing and versatile, strong and flexible.

SO there you have it. Complete transparency. PLEASE Email me your comments and ideas.

The eerie light of global warming

Lately have you noticed the severe storms tearing up the atmosphere around the world.? We have had a series of electrical storms that nearly wiped out the orchard industry in the nearby Orange district. Last week, just as another storm was gathering in the west, the sky turned eerie and I shot this pic of the old workshop shed next to the cottage on "Uamby".
They say global warming is not causing the storms, but it could be making them more severe. We have had two incidents of computers being fried during a storm... Hardly the damage of a Tsunami, but a private crisis for us and our insurers. Local farmers with oats sown have seen half their crops flattened by storms. (Flat oats can't be harvested.)
And while Rome burns - global warming gets worse - President Bush and his sidekick Honest John Howard refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol or to acknowledge that global warming is reality. Don't blame them for being dumb. Blame whoever voted for them.

Down by the river

This is the Cudgegong River. It forms one of the boundaries of "Uamby". This spot is about 300 metres from the homestead. It is late afternoon, and Louisa and I have taken a picnic of wine and cheeses down to the point where Uamby Creek enters the river. We are watching the birds. If you have healthy birdlife - lots of different birds - you have a healthy environment. Birds rely on bugs and seeds. Bugs and seeds rely on good soil. So birds are proof of soil health.
On this Sunday afternoon we spot a Little Grebe, an Azure Kingfisher, a Little Wattle Bird in a nest hanging out over the water at the end of a Black Sheoak branch, swarms of Welcome Swallows feeding on the insects rising on the late evening air, cockatoos screeching like rioters as they move along the river in the treetops, and a male Blue Wren. As the sun goes down, the birds cease feeding and quieten. The moon, almost full, rises over the trees. The sound of the water running over the shallows blends with the welcome sounds of frogs singing out to each other. "I'm here... Does anyone want to make some little frogs?" It's no wonder they are getting romantic, on a night like this. The time and place are perfect to be with the one you love. (Frogs are also a good sign of soil health.)

We are welcomed to the Wiradjeri people's homeland

“Uamby” is part of what used to be the Wiradjeri homeland. The land was taken from the original inhabitants in 1770 when Captain James Cook claimed the entire continent for the King of England who in turn gave the land gratis to a bunch of pirates historians call “Squatters” to encourage them to settle it. The Wiradjeri put up a good fight in the mid 1820s – fighting the colonial military to a standstill, under the inspired leadership of warrior chieftain Windradyne. (More of him in a later blog.) But eventually they were completely dispossessed and destroyed as a nation, shuffle off to reserves. However we have great respect for the prior owners of the land we have in our stewardship… both black and white. (We are restoring the graveyard in which the original pioneering Lahy family was buried, down by the river. We stay in touch with the Bird family who owned the place after the Lahys.) Recently we invited Wiradjeri elders to visit us and help us understand the spiritual significance of the land we are living on. Tom Beckham and Rick Powell are from Dandaloo, several hundred kilometres west of us, out on the flat country before it becomes desert. Both men are teachers of the traditions who seek to build bridges between cultures so we can move forward towards living in a “vibrant, sustainable, integrated community”.



Tom and Rick showed us evidence of their people’s usage of the land.






The Wiradjeri cut bark canoes from trees near the watercourses.











They also cut “Coolamons” or carrying trays for the women to use while gathering berries, yams and wild grains.








The men used to go up to the high country overlooking the Uamby valley for ceremonial and educational sessions with the boys. They used to sharpen spears in the grooves of the rock.







Tom and Rick conducted a traditional smoking ceremony of welcome for us.



This involved small fires of different leaves and grasses held in coolamons.
We recited a short prayer of commitment to the spirit of the natural environment and to the community that lives within it.



This was an important symbolic event. It represents the Kiely family's private act of Reconciliation. Rick says we must draw a line in the sand about the past and move forward together into the future.

He is the most level-headed black I’ve ever met.

The ceremony was held at the point where the Cudgegong River joins Uamby Creek.


During the ceremony his young friend Colin, a Wiradjeri boy, danced a traditional dance for us. (He spent most of the weekend on a 4WD bike enjoying himself.)

Rick gave us many long lectures on his people’s spirituality and customs. He explained about totem animals and birds. He gave us our totem. (More on this later.)


We are interested in communicating with the spirits of this place, for both spiritual and practical reasons. They can help us and guide us to farm better.

I will explain more about these momentous events in future blogs. But we have big plans for involving Rick in a farmstay program which includes education in the ways and beliefs of the Wiradjeri and how they lived on this land.

Mulch ado about something big!

We are 'soil farmers'. We believe that soil is the key leverage point in the chain of abundance. Look after the soil and you get abundant, healthy plants which can feed the animals and they turn the energy into wool.
We think of the soil like a gardener would. Home gardeners use mulching to suppress weeds and hold moisture in the soil (stop it being baked by the sun). We do the same thing. We started mulching with bales of rotting hay when we noticed that the spots where we had fed out hay during the drought always had richer and deeper soil profile a few months later. Mulching can encourage the microbe and bug growth that leads to soil growth.
Now we use a mulching attachment for our tractor.


Uamby Manager Daniel Kiely with next door neighbour Angus Gorrie, home from boarding school for the Christmas vacation. Angus is doing some mulching for us to earn some money. He is a good worker.
This is the pasture - Saffron Thistle is inedible for sheep.
Mulching is extremely efficient.
This season has been very wet and there is a lot of long, rank grass that the sheep will never eat. (There is also a bumber crop of Saffron Thistle, Scotch Thistle and Skeleton Weed swaying in the breeze. And a big crop of Bathurst Burr and Khaki Weed emerging.) So we have been mulching, and with great success. My brother-in-law Breck Hayward comes up regularly now, after his breakthrough (see a later blog) and loves to sit on the tractor and go round and round. We love to see him do it. I have included several shots of before and after to show you what mulching does and how it encourages sweet new growth to shoot.
New native perennial shoots appear less than a week after mulching.

Mulching is one of our Bare Earth strategies, keeping the earth covered as protection against erosion by wind and rain and encouraging soil growth.

Mother Earth bares her bum!

This is the scourge of the modern farmer... bare earth. It is like losing your wallet... your wealth just leaks away.

Bare earth where no Nitrohumous was spread. Grass where Nitrohumous was spread. Human waste saves agriculture! (Time lapse one year.)
An Holistic farmer hates the sight of bared earth. Bare earth is unproductive. It leaves the soil open to erosion from wind and rain. It leaves the soil open to colonisation by weeds. It offers the farmer nothing but problems. (Many conventional farmers will routinely bare their earth by ploughing, preparing the ground for sowing a crop. We never do that. Even when we sow a crop we use “Pasture cropping”, a technique of direct drilling the seed into undisturbed pasture. We believe in “Minimum Tillage” farming to protect the soil. More on that in a future blog. Billions of tonnes of topsoil are lost to the world’s farmers each year through baring the soil via ploughing. It is estimated that Australia has lost half its top soil since white settlement, due to continued baring of the soil. The wind simply carries it away.)
Bare earth can become ‘capped’ – develop a hard shell that water cannot penetrate. This can be caused by excessive pressure from heavy farm vehicles such as tractors. Exposure to the sun will also bake the soil hard. (That's why we prefer some cover, any cover...) Heavily cropped soil is often capped (many of our paddocks have been cropped continuously, without relief, since the first pioneering family took up the land for farming). Capping makes it hard for plants to push through.
We have tried many techniques to cover bare earth with productive pasture. One test was with human manure…We applied “Nitrohumous” (treated biosolids) on a 50 acre test bed. Biosolids are waste products produced by sewerage treatment works, usually in big cities. They sell them to farmers. But only after they have been treated so that the material can be safely applies to pasture.
Here are the results a year later. We applied the Nitrohumous during the most vicious drought in living memory. We are normally blessed by 650 millilitres of rain in an average year. But in 2002 we got only 413mls, in 2003 only 555mls fell. Most of it at the wrong time. In each year, we went between 14 and 16 weeks without rain. But this year we have had 705mls up to the end of November, most of it in the growing season. The dams are full, the long devastating drought is over! Now we can see the delayed effect of the Nitrohumous.
I took these photos on the fringes of the 50 acre test plot. And you can plainly see bare earth where we have not spread the stuff and flourishing grass where we have. This is because the Nitrohumous is returning the microbes to the soil. The unseen microbes are the foundation stones for growing more complex life forms such as plants. They feed the bugs that are needed for healthy soil.
This is why we spend so much time scrabbling around in the soil – looking for signs of life. We are slowly renovating this property. We are confident we can double the carrying-capacity (the number of sheep we can run) once we have done renovating. We are farming for the triple bottom line (financial, ecological, and social profits - more of this later).

"The Land" does an article on "UambY

Australia's leading rural newspaper The Land has published an article about our views of the crisis in the wool industry. Here's what they said about us:

(PENNY ZELL ñ PICS: pz112805079..83)


THE marketing crisis in Australia's wool industry could be fixed right now, says Goolma woolgrower and marketing guru, Michael Kiely.

In fact, it would probably only take a matter of hours for Australia's leading marketing experts to nut out a powerful marketing strategy for wool, he said.

"Australia has some of the best marketers in the world: John Singleton, Gerry Harvey, Aussie John Simons, ex-Woolworths CEO, Paul Simons, to name a few."

"Let's put them all in a room together and let them loose on the problem," he said.

Mr Kiely is a 20-year veteran of Australian marketing - with his clients having included Toyota, Macquarie Bank, Australia Post and Hyatt ñ and the executive editor of Marketing Magazine, to which he has contributed monthly commentary for 20 years.

He also runs about 3000 Merryville-blood Merinos with his wife, Louisa, and son, Daniel, on their property, "Uamby", at Goolma - west of Gulgong in the State's Central Tablelands.

His extensive experience in the marketing industry makes it difficult for him to accept the current situation in the wool market, which he describes as a "national crisis".

"Australian woolgrowers produce a limited amount of one of the best fibres in the world, so why are we still being price takers?"

Mr Kiely proposes the industry stops trying to sell wool on its functional attributes, and instead, puts all its efforts into making wool "cool" ñ which will allow the industry to tap into the huge youth fashion market.

"We have a whole generation of youth who are strangers to wool ñ we need to stop talking to the middle-aged people who grew up with wool and start talking to the kids," he said.

"We need to recruit the "cool" people who influence this generation - DJ's, musicians, actors, models or sports stars - and feature them in advertisements saying they are unwilling to wear synthetics and that they prefer wool," he said.

And if the campaign was successful, Mr Kiely was confident this generation would pay big money for wool clothing - just like they would for any other brand item that was "cool".

"Kids have money for things they really want - think of the difference in price between a white t-shirt and a white t-shirt with a Nike sign on it."

He has even come up with a possible slogan for this marketing campaign ñ 'Wool.Cool. So what are you wearing?'

And like most successful marketing strategies, Mr Kiely said the emphasis should be on one aspect of wool ñ its natural element.

"The next generation are demanding natural, environmental products ñ this gives us an area we can put some weight behind to market the product".

"Wool is a living fibre, synthetics are made from petrochemicals; wool is grown by families who care, petrochemicals are made by corporations that do not; wool has soul, synthetics have none," he said.

These thoughts have helped him come up with a new brand positioning line - "Australian Wool: Made by Mother Nature".

Mr Kiely applauds the work AWI have done in wool innovations to date, but said they were wasting their efforts as long as the fundamental driving force was missing ñ demand for the product.

"People have got to want wool," he said.

"To make wool attractive to the masses, you've got to start with the style-setters; the elite who the rest follow like sheep," he said.

Will Uamby's PR effort work?

We figured we needed to lift our public profile to help us with the Catchment Management Authority's Farming Systems project. (The CMA is looking to fund innovative farmers who can help them spread the word about new approaches to farming that can help restore health to the soil.) So this press release was sent to the editor of Australia's leading agricultural newspaper, The Land. Did it work? Stay tuned...



PRESS RELEASE - Wool needs marketing brains trust, says expert

Australia’s best marketing minds should be put to work to solve the crisis in the wool industry, says marketing expert and worried woolgrower Michael Kiely. “Australia has some of the best marketers in the world: John Singleton, Gerry Harvey, Aussie John Simons, ex-Woolworths CEO Paul Simons, to name a few. Put them all in a room for two hours and let them loose on the problem,” he says. “ They would be proud to serve on the National Marketing Brains Trust for the wool industry.”

The crisis in wool is a national crisis and needs to be addressed as a national priority by the highest levels of government and industry, he says.

“Wool’s major problem is lack of demand. The solution: create demand, ie. Marketing. The marketing to date? Look at the scoreboard: the price you are getting for your wool. Marketing to date has failed. And when you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. It’s time for a 180° change.”

Kiely, a woolgrower from Gulgong, is a 20-year vetetran of Australian marketing. He includes among his clients Toyota, Macquarie Bank, and Hyatt. His monthly commentary in Marketing magazine has been appearing for 20 years.

“If I was Ian McLachlan I would do what every successful general has done – concentrate maximum pressure on one key strategic point to achieve a breakthrough. And that strategic point for wool is “natural”. Wool is a living fibre. Synthetics are made from petrochemicals. Wool is grown by individuals and families who care. Petrochemicals are made by corporations which do not. Wool has soul. Synthetics have none.”

The new brand positioning line could read: “Australian Wool: Made by Mother Nature.”

To sell this proposition, Kiely suggests recruiting the hippest celebrities – hot young movie stars, rap artists, models, young entrepreneurs, people that youth look up to and follow – and feature the ones willing to say they wouldn’t wear synthetics and prefer wool. The campaign slogan? “Wool is Cool…so what are you wearing?”

“Australia has a large number of world renowned celebrities: film stars, rock stars, sports stars, fashion gurus, etc. They should be recruited like the marketing brains trust - as part of a national emergency team to rescue one of Australia’s greatest assets and national icons: the wool industry,” he says.

Kiely is full of praise for Australian Wool Innovation’s initiatives to date: “Eliminating the barriers to purchase – product disadvantages like how it feels against the skin – and creating more reasons to buy by offering new blends and new products are all essential activities to be done before the marketing break through can occur. AWI should be applauded for its initiatives.”

“But they are wasted effort so long as the fundamental driving force is missing: demand for the product. People have got to want wool. To make wool attractive to the masses you’ve got to start with the style-setters – the elite who the rest follow like sheep.”

Mr Kiely does not expect Australian Wool Innovation to welcome his contribution. “They are the victims of unreal expectations among growers. We all own this problem. The more ideas we get on the table, the more we talk and think marketing, the closer wed get to actually doing it.,” he says.

Spooky stuff

I got goosebumps when I read this ancient Hasdidic saying the first time: "When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you."
Now this sounds weird at first, but I read it 20 or so times - drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I couldn't understand it, but yet I felt it was trying to say something to me about what we were doing on the farm, where we were trying to take the 'conversation' with nature, and how to get there. It made me think of another saying that is popular in some farming circles: "The footsteps of the farmer are the best fertiliser." Here we have the same action - walking across the fields. The walking bringing something good out of the soil. The soil reacting to the presence of the farmer - the mere presence. Both statements say something about the farmer's state of mind.
The act of walking across the fields is unusual today. Mostly we drive or ride across a paddock - fast. You can't get much information about what's really happening down at ground level when you do that. When you walk along, you can see how much of the soil is bare (and unproductive), how much iss covered with weeds, how much is covered by introduced pasture plants like clover (that the white man brought here from over the seas), and how much is covered with native perennials (the type of grasses that grew here and were best adapted to the soil and weather conditions by thousands of years of natural selection). By walking you can get an idea of the insect life that is so vital to the food chain that links the birds with micro-organisms in the soil to provide the complete community of players in Nature's cycle of life. You can also get a much better feeling for the number and diversity of birds when you walk, unlike when you roar across the fields on a 1000cc 4WD bike. Birds are a key indicator of the overall health of the ecosystem which supports your farm enterprise.
Walking is a form of engagement with the soil - a type of communion. It enables the soil to talk to the farmer. (The experts say that you can hear the soil talking just by observing the type of plants it supports. Certain types of weeds, such as Bathurst Burr, will only grow in highly fertile soils. Other weeds indicate by their presence that the soil is deficient in certain minerals.)
At the second session of training in the Central West Catchment Management Authority's Farm Systems program yesterday, an Aboriginal man called Will Burns told us how he detects sites of cultural significance on farm properties. He "listens" with his instincts. "I follow my gut feel and nine times out of ten it will lead me to a site," he said. The Australian Aborigines had a deeply spiritual relationship with the land when they lived their traditional lifestyle - every element of the landscape was a living thing, celebrated in their 'songlines' and incorporated into their mythology.
SO listening to the soil has a long history in Australia. But what about the other side of a conversation? Does the soil listen to the farmer? Sure, it will respond to the things the farmer does. (I was tempted to write "things he does", but many farmers are women these days. My wife Louisa is a farmer. I am a philosopher.) But do the soil and the plants and other living things respond to the farmer in other ways? Do "the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you"? In the book The Secret Life of Plants there is a huge amount of evidence that plants respond to a person's thoughts baout them.... to their unspoken attitudes about them. Rudolf Steiner - the19th century mystic who invented biodynamics and many other branches of science and education - believed that nature was controlled by 'spirits' that could be interacted with (a form of fairies at the bottom of the garden). Now this sounds like crap to most intelligent people. But biodynamics works wonders - and it involves burying cows horns at night under a fullmoon and digging them up at another part of the lunar cycle - weird science, ridiculous. But it works.
New age thinkers like Deepak CHopra and Wayne Dyer teach their followers about the power of 'intentions' in shaping the material world. Quantum physics teaches us that the smallest particle of matter is not solid by a packet of energy and information that exists as a vibration of potential until attention is given to it. (ASk a physicist if I am wrong.) A thought is also a packet of information and energy. If we put our attention on a thought with sufficient regularity, these gentlemen contend we can bring the thought into existence on the material plane... This is one of the technologies taught in the TM Siddhi program, an advances Transcendental Meditation technique taught by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Deepak was once the foremost of the Maharishi's students and today is recongised as the world's leading exponent of the expression of the ancient wisdom of the Vedic masters through the concepts and fidnings of western science - both medical science and physics. The ancient vedic texts called the Upanishads say: "You are what your deepest desire is. As is your desire, so is your intention. As is your intention, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny." Now I don't expect anyone to understand or agree with what comes next. i just put it out there as a possibility to be entertained. Deepak Chopra writes, In hsi book Synchrodestiny: "The world before it is observed and the nervous system before the desire or intent to observe something both exist as a dynamic (constantly changing), nonlinear chaotic field of activities in a state of non-equilibrium (unstable activity). Intent synchronistically organises these highly variable, seemingly chaotic and unrelated activities in a nonlocal universe into a highly ordered, self-organising, dynamic system that manifests simultaneously as an observed world and a nervous system through which that world is being observed." (Phew!) That's the theory. He goes on to say: "All learning, remembering, reasoning, drawing of inferences, and motor activity are preceded by intent. Intent is the very basis of creation." (Motor activity does not mean driving a car, though it can. It means any human movement.)
Carlos Castaneda wrote: "In the Universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which sharmans call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link." It gets even spookier. Castaneda says: "Intent is a force that exists in the Universe. when sorcerers (those who live of the Source) beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up a path for attainment, which emans that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do." Now we enter Harry Potter territory. Wizards' stuff.
But it can all be reduced to a single thought. "You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?" (from the song Happy Talk, in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical 'South Pacific'.) You gotta plan your work and work your plan, goes the old salesman's self talk. Simply by developing a plan and envisaging it coming into reality, we take the first steps towards changing reality. Here at "Uamby" we have an "Holistic Goal" as part of the Holistic Resource Management system we follow (as taught by Allan Savory). That goal - which we develop between the key decisionmakers - tells us what we want the physical form of the farm to look like in 5 years time, what we want the economics of the farm to be like, what we want the environment to look like, and what we want the community we live in to be like. Once we have set that goal, we 'test' every decision we make after that against the Goal to see if it will take us further away or closer to our Goal. And that is how we move forward. Louisa checked a goal we set for the wool we produce, a goal set several years ago, and found that our latest clip comes in right on that material specification, to within a decimal point.
So when we walk across the fields with our minds pure and holy (our intentions clear and well-meaning), it is true that nature responds somehow, though whether "the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you" is the best way to express it is something you could question.
But can we dismiss the basic premise?

Uamby selected for Government Envirofarming Program

This is a view of Uamby from the high country. You can see the homestead and farm buildings down in the valley. Uamby has been selected by the NSW Government's environmental agencies as a demonstration farm for "triple bottom line" farming practices. The Catchment Management Authorities are independent Government-funded organizations which seek to influence the practices of farmers to achieve environmental objectives. The Central Western Catchment Management Authority has $10 million to use as incentive to farmers who are willing to change the way they manage natural resources. We are involved in programs which seek to return soils to health so they are salt-resistant and more productive. This largely revolves around the transition from exotic annual pasture species which rely on high levels of artificial fertilisers and must be resown year after year. Instead the Authority is encouraging the developing of pastures based on native perennials (the grasses that were there before the arrival of white civilisation).

We have received grants to help us divide our paddocks into smaller units to make it possible to conduct time controlled grazing (concentrating animals in smaller areas for shorter periods of time – which uses animal impact to graze the pasture efficiently and allows each area up to a year’s rest for the plants to recover). Multiplying the number of paddocks means a large amount of new fencing and there is the need to make water available in each new paddock. These costs can be high.

We have also been selected for a farm-planning program in which we get paid to attend an intensive training program and produce a new farm management plan. Out of the 11 farmers selected for this program, 3 will be given access to funding to put the plans into practice.

As part of the training program we have to attend 20 days training before June 2006. We have committed to host a field day on Uamby and be available for media interviews.

This is my wife Louisa - the farmer - inspecting floodwaters at the Molly's Creek crossing on "Uamby". I met her when she was studying agricultural economics at the University of New England. She did not complete her studies until we had 3 children. She has since studied Farm Management at Sydney University. Her belief in progressive farming techniques was recognised by the Central Western Catchment Management Authority when we were selected from a large number of applicants to take part in a pilot program to develop ecologically sound farm practices.

Greetings from "Uamby"

My wife Louisa and I bought our first property, “Vbrindavin”, 1000 acres near Goolma, New South Wales, in 1998. We did Holistic Resource Management training in 1999. We adopted rotational, time-controlled grazing techniques (against the advice of the local farmers). To do this we added 20 new paddocks and 4 dams.

We bought “Uamby” 15 kilometres away in 2001. We kept on the farmer who had been leasing the property (1780 acres) as manager. This was a mistake, as his attachment to traditional management methods and our lack of confidence in our own decisions led to a series of disasters. The worst drought in living memory forced us to sell “Vbrindavin” and follow advice which conflicted with our HRM training, to our disadvantage. We weaned early and took heavy losses. We opened all the gates and the pastures suffered badly from set stocking.

Taking over the management, we returned to the discipline of HRM and adjusted the drought plan to set stock only one area while allowing the other paddocks to recover. The current graze plan enables us to monitor the number of grazing days per paddock, which has enabled us to use certain paddocks twice as much as previous, while maintaining ground cover. We are committed to 100% ground cover 100% of the time.

We are experimenting with electric fencing and developed a mobile unit for dividing paddocks into four sectors. However it has been of limited value until recent times due to the dryness of the soil.

We are not interested in sustainability as much as regeneration of once healthy resources. The soils at “Uamby” have been severely depleted by years of over-cropping and neglect. Apart from the pioneer family (two generations of management) and the second family of owners (two generations of management), the other owners or leaseholders have been opportunistic and short term in their interest.

As part of our soil reconstruction program we have done the following:

• Pasture species selection: Shifted focus to concentrate on growing native perennials which our research revealed are as nutritionally sound as the best exotic pasture species, but also hardier and longer lasting. Our sheep prefer them and will walk over clover to eat perennials.

• Soil supplement trials: In the past 4 years we have conducted several trials with natural fertilisers to restart vigorous biological activity in the soil. Each year a different combination of trials was conducted, based on the learnings of the year before. We applied chicken manure and lime in various combinations on test paddocks. We applied Guano and DAP with a test strip in between. We applied nitrohumous (treated biosolids) on a 50 acre test bed. We applied worm juice. Results have been encouraging, although the long dry largely stilfed the full testing of these materials.

• Mulching: We found that where the previous owners had left round bales to rot, there was significant soil growth under the bales, several centimetres per application. So we invested in good straw to minimise weed problems and spread it on many bare patches to create a mulching effect. The results have been variable, depending on the stability of the surface covered during run off. However the principle works and mulching is now part of our management program. (Wellington Council is helping us restore a badly exposed section of the property after we shut down a gravel pit that had been operating for many years without compensation to the landholder. The restoration is using the mulching method to restart soil growth.)

• Paramagnetic rock dust: Arranged analysis with Boral pending a paramagnetic rock dust test. (Paramagnetic rock dust is spread and “antennae” of rock dust filled pipes erected to capture cosmic rays of energy from the Sun and transfer them to the soil which, so the theory goes, aligns the soil’s molecular structure and makes transfer of nutrients from soil to plant – via cations (see Albrecht) – more rapid.

Mineral supplements - Victorian animal nutritionist Pat Colby has formulated a sheep lick based on her analysis of minerals and trace elements which are commonly deficient. The lick – containing sulphur, copper, dolomite, and seaweed meal – is dispensed via a mobile grain feeder that follows the mob about as well as static dispensers.

Hydroponic feed production - As a drought feed supplement, we trialled hydroponic methods of growing oats, feeding out the biscuits once the oats had reached 15cm-20cm. Oats was preferred to other grain trialled (rye, wheat). This alternative was abandoned after a cost/benefit analysis.

Natural drench: We trialled Pat Colby’s lick as a drench, combining it with apple cider vinegar. The drought-affected sheep improved immediately and the improvement lasted 2 to 3 weeks. Conventional drenching is minimised by rapid movement of the mobs through the paddock rotations.

Monitoring worms: We conduct egg counts on manure so that no sheep is drenched without testing. Our ewes have been drenched only once in 2004 and 2005. Lambs and hoggets are more susceptible.

Pasture cropping: “Uamby” was among the first on farm consultations about pasture cropping. The experiment was a success, with the oats being sown dry and not striking until after the locusts had passed, giving us a crop to feed. And the native pasture has populated the test paddock, despite the baring of the earth by too aggressive application of the sowing equipment by our former manager. (We are not in favour of baring the soil for reasons of weed infestation and wind/water erosion.)

Weed management

On arriving at “Uamby” we found many of the paddocks unusable due to heavy Bathurst burr infestation. The Burr had not been managed due to a dispute between the owner and the lessee over who was to pay for it.

The first task was to get the burr below the belly level of the grazing sheep. To achieve this we developed “shellacking” – levelling the dried burr plants using a toboggan made from old gates and railway sleepers. Paddocks treated in this way had limited infestation during the next season as pasture species out-competed the weed.

The following seasons an extensive chipping and burning campaign kept the burr under control.

Bathurst burr infestation increased this season due to the soil baring influence of the long dry and the increasing soil fertility as a result of our measures. A ride on mower and a mulcher attached to the tractor were used to great effect to crop the weeds before they seeded. Shelacking was still required due to the resurgence this season. Burning the clumps of standing dead burr also proved effective, but used too much fuel.

In the first year, Purple Top infestation rendered another paddock unusable. While conventional HRM would prescribe simply putting your animals onto the patch, our sheep were not appropriate for clearing a paddock (because of size and vegetable matter in the wool). So we offered the paddock to a neighbour who had 20 horses and cattle on a 50 acre block and who was short of feed. Several weeks later the paddock was ready for sheep.

Fly traps

We have installed 6 fly traps to reduce the blow fly burden on “Uamby” and the incidence of blow fly strike. These are being monitored alongside the incidence of strike. Another example of testing natural methods of solving problems on the land.

Conclusion

We have a documented Holistic Goal for “Uamby” which we are working towards. Given this clear statement of intention, we simply follow our guiding light when making decisions. Our management practices develop as we trial ideas gained from other sources and solutions we invent to achieve our Goal.

The original management paradigm we started with was a variant of the traditional set stocking regime. The soil was to be protected by keeping animals off certain places, eg. river banks, by means of fencing them out and using corridors. However Holistic Resource Management, as taught by Alan Savory, revealed to us the tools of animal impact and rest as methods of returning life to the soil by assisting the carbon cycle.

To make planning easier we have invested in Endeavor farm monitoring software. The first application has been planning new fencing and water infrastructure. Ultimately this program will contain all operating data for the property, enabling us to better monitor progress and make decisions.

We have spent the last 5 years learning the sheep wool business and passed a significant milestone during our latest shearing. The shed was managed by our son Daniel who has been learning the farming business for less than 2 years. He has his stencil and classed this shearing. The results speak for themselves: In 2004, shearing 1854 sheep, we managed 35 bales and 5835 kg of partly tender wool. In 2005 we shore 2136 sheep for 50 bales and 9082kg of sound wool (2 bales tender). Relying on our own management expertise, we have lifted production per sheep from 3kg to 4.25kg per head.

In this period we have been continuously assessing alternative enterprises. We have principles by which other enterprises are assessed:
1. They must help us move towards our Holistic Goal.
2. They must not be too labour intensive.
3. They must complement our existing enyterprise. (We are committed woolgrowers.)

Other enterprises trialled/investigated:

Yabbies – we have 25 dams, many of which have populations of yabbies. We started selling yabbies to a firm from north coast NSW, after investing in 100 traps and a large holding cage. But the return on effort was not sufficient to warrant continuing. Yabbies are trapped now for entertaining guests and visitors from the city.

Worms – we bought several barrels of worm juice to apply to the paddocks with a view to installing 6 trays of worms to produce casting for sale to nearby vineyards. On paper this project did not meet our objectives, being too labour intensive and requiring a constant supply of large amounts of organic material (manure, etc.)

Fat lambs – our previous manager wanted to share farm a fat lamb flock. We declined for three reasons: 1. It would reduce the number of paddocks available for rotating the wool flock. 2. The danger of fibre contamination across flocks. 3. Insufficient feed to finish animals.

Grapes – we had a 50 acre paddock on a hillside that was suggested to us would be useful for a vineyard. This was aborted when it was discovered that the investment in trellises, etc was significant and this usage of the area locked it away, reducing the flexibility of the operation.

Chickens – the most promising enterprise is a mobile chicken house which it is intended will follow the flocks around, cleaning up the pasture of parasites and worms. This idea is based on Joel Salatin’s enterprise in Virginia (as described in “You Can Farm”) where his ‘chookerator’ moves among his orchard trees disturbing the soil and fertilizing the trees. The eggs will be sold through a local store at first. This enterprise has scalability.