"Crooks of the worst description"

Kate McCarthy, who edits "Style" magazine, a central west publication, saked me to send her some quotes on off-farm income.

I blathered my way to the core of the story, from our experience:

"Off-farm income is becoming essential for three reasons: 1. Prices of commodities will always trend to the lower levels once buyers are consolidated into a few large players, like the Chinese wool buyers. 2. Climate change is going to affect the productivity on most Australian landholders as we have to cope with hotter, dryer conditions. 3. Most holdings are too small to take advantage of the benefits of scale that big growers enjoy. It's a rare family in our district that doesn't have some off farm income. I admire the ones who don't.

"As newcomers to the farming game - or blow-ins - we didn't know it was uncool to seek off-farm sources of funding in order to survive the drought. So when we put up a website and ran a PR campaign to adopt our flock for 100 days, we were unprepared for the response: we attracted 2500 adopters, mainly from the city, but from all over, and they paid enough to feed the flock for 100 days. We were humbled by the experience. But we were also unprepared for the bitter response of many country people, including neighbours and family. We were characterised as crooks of the worst description by some. We were stunned.

"It was curious. On the one hand we had thousands of messages from adopters saying 'what a brilliant idea' and 'thank you for giving us this opportunity to do something positive about the drought" and on the other we had people saying "how could you take people's money?" We now know who our friends are. And we understand the pride in country people that means they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to apply for drought relief. (We didn't apply for it either. They humilate you and you only qualify when you are on your knees.) But going to the wall for pride isn't brave. It's stupid.

"The lessons we learned were these: There's a lot of talk about bridging the city-country gap. We bridged that gap. It nearly killed us, responding to media 24 hours a day, producing all those personalised adoption certificates. We earned every cent we collected, and every cent went down the throats of our sheep. We don't care what people say, we're proud of what we achieved. Our flock (and our genetics) is intact. We consider ourselves to be part of "The New Bush" - making the necessary changes to adapt to the new conditions. All our adopters are now 'family' and can turn up whenever they like, camp or stay on the property, be shown around, help with jobs, etc. We love having them, although it can disrupt our plans at times. And they hear it straight about why we mules, cull and control roo numbers. I have had industry leaders say we can do more to change city people's minds about farming than they can. And they're right.

"There is a lot of unmet demand in the community for connection with the bush. It is not like taking charity to respond to this demand. We in the country have what they want and are prepared to pay for. If only the Chinese wool buyers felt the same way.

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Carbon credits.

Ironically we started our voluntary, full-time 18 month campaign to provide landholders with an income stream from the carbon credit market because we were distressed at the breakdown of community infrastructure due to the loss of people because the money wasn't in agriculture. We formed the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming with the support of a group of leading 'carbon farming' growers and ran a campaign which has brought the issue to the attention of all levels of government and brought us to within a whisker of launching the market. In fact we have made our first trade.

The carbon market is tipped to be worth US$120bn by 2012. It will become the world's largest commodity market in history. A lot of people are going to get very rich from selling carbon. We ask: "Why shouldn't some of that money come to farmers instead of merchant bankers?"

"Carbon farming" is a collection of options that all go to increase soil carbon and fertility and, as a result, productivity. There are 5 basic 'rules': 1. No ploughing or burning because it bares the earth, releases CO2, and runs down carbon stocks. Zero-till or non-till instead. 2. 100% groundcover or as close to it as possible. 3. Native perennial grasses are the most efficient 'carbon makers'. Wherever possible, choose deep-rooted perennials for pasture. 4. Controlled traffic to reduce compaction. Reduce the footprint of heavy machinery to preserve carbon in the soil. 5. Biodiversity: as the microbial life multiplies in the humus zone of the soil, so the food chain increases on top of the soil and new species of plants, birds and animals appear. This strengthens the crops and pastures being grown.

These are small changes to farming practice. Already more than half the farmers in South Australia practice no-till cropping.

The National Party in NSW adopted our mission as part of their platform in the NSW elections just passed.

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No one is forcing any grower to take part. It's up to the individual. There's a lot of money sloshing around over the mountains, down in the city. An obscene amount of money... We've got to find a way to pipe some of it over the mountains. Adopting flocks or buying carbon credits... giving city people (who after all have to live in those city conditions) the chance to be part of what we do everyday, if only in their hearts and their imaginations, does them a lot of good. And and us too.