Regenerating Soil Conservation - Change Maker 2
“Regenerative Agriculture is reinvigorating best practices in agriculture and revitalising agricultural sciences”.
The concept of 'regenerative agriculture' is to create a balanced farming system where production and environmental loss is restored, rebuilt, or regenerated back into the agricultural system.
By shifting away from a simple “harvesting” paradigm, agricultural and grazing practices need to partner with the environment, protect resources and maintain bio-diversity. Much of the focus is geared towards farming and grazing practices working to conserve soil nutrition, reduce erosion, plant diversity and capture water.
Old timers from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s say that regenerative agriculture reiterates many quality scientific practices that were being advocated many decades ago…and this is now continued in a modern framework.
What’s happened in agriculture during the last 50 years?
- We have aimed to improve and integrate farming management practices, such as ploughing and tilling, by adopting minimal till, or zero till practices to reduce disturbance to the soil structure, and, testing to determine soil nutrition.
- We have intensified farming and grazing practices as mankind has needed to work more and more land.
- Science has evolved crop selection practices and yields from genetic selection to genetic modification.
- Evolving technology allows controlled traffic and accurate paddock and property mapping, with differential GPS (dGPS) correcting and enhancing GPS signals.
- Data transfer allows us to take paddock data and beam it to a personal smartphone for real time measurement and management.
- Our communities have journeyed through decades of Landcare, Catchment Care and “now believe we are entering an era of heathy landscapes”.
Unfortunately for Australian agriculture;
“modernisation has lost the vital component of placing soil at the core of the system”
We aim to correct this!
The video above shows what happens when we model a rainfall burst over a 7,000 ha property and then manage the water off the property using contours and waterways. We have not only superceded the aged time-consuming practices, we have enabled vast areas and different landscapes including flood plains to be surveyed and included in soil conservation plans.
The technology used is exceptional – bringing together all current technologies into the modern framework.
We can now survey, plan, design and build soil conservation systems in any landscape and deliver soil and water engineering outcomes that protect;
- water supply on property,
- water flows between neighbours, and,
- waterways.
…all the while keeping soil in the paddock where it is most needed; in the uplands and on the floodplain. With soil conserved, “regenerative” agriculture can then be sustained.
To discuss the latest on “regenerative” soil conservation contact us
Written by:
- Dr Simon Lott - Manager Director & Specialist Engineer
- Dr Tracy Muller – Senior Scientist
EnviroAg Australia Pty Limited is a leading provider of environmental and agricultural, science and engineering related services throughout regional, rural and remote Australia. EnviroAg Australia has a range of clients from the rural industry's largest companies to small family based agri-businesses, construction and petroleum companies, and government bodies. We also have an impressive range of R&D projects in animal welfare and soil conservation.
Interested in joining our industry leading team? Find out more Here
