We have always been Green Farmers

We have always been Green Farmers, though we avoided the tag 'greenie' like the plague. Non-Green farmers are as superstitious about 'greenies' as people used to be about witches. When we first came to the Goolma district, we were considered a little queer and typecast as the rich wackos from the city... Nice people, but no idea! We had advisers and managers who told us everything we'd learned in Holistic Resource Management was wrong. Running the animals in one mob was wrong. Dividing the paddocks for rotational grazing was wrong. Letting native trees regrow was wrong. Refusing to plough arable land and sow crops was a wasted opportunity.
We didn't know what we were doing, but we were following our gut instincts that told us, "Dudes, you're dealing with Nature here. Nature. Get it?"
And we had all around us the evidence that doing the same as everyone else would get us the same results. Bare earth. Erosion by wind and water. Salination. Species extinction.
We persevered rotating our sheep through 20-odd paddocks and trying new soil treatments to try to kick-start the biological activity down there. Some worked. Some didn't. We're in our 5th year here (our anniversary is tomorrow), and the fencing contractors are installing a further 30-odd paddocks, so we'll be really cooking with gas. But even before that happens, we've noticed a 'sea change' in grassland species and the emergence of a range of shrubs and flowing plants. While all around us a bring out their soils to feed their stock, we have plenty of dry standing feed. Col Seis, the pasture cropping guy, came out last week to check our new fencing plan for us and to look at the paddocks where we had tested pature cropping. Col said he noticed a dramatic increase in species in our pastures, too.
God loves Green Farmers. He loves the non-Green variety, too. But hey, he's God; he's got to.