Agriculture

A new project to bolster water sustainability in northern Australia is about to start, gathering the insights Northern Territory producers  need for greater crop yields while reducing water usage ... Minister for Northern Australia David Littleproud said the water productivity trial will set the scene for future water planning and decision-making.

Australia’s most trusted rural charity, Rural Aid, is helping fill the agricultural worker shortage created by border closures and travel restrictions.    Rural Aid’s Farm Army  website provides a platform  where volunteers and workers apply for jobs that are listed by farmers needing a hand.

Globally, as the aquaculture sector moves operations further offshore, the sector is encountering new challenges to access clean and reliable energy ... Carnegie’s wave-powered barge concept, MoorPowerâ„¢  offers a solution to this energy challenge – providing clean, reliable, predictable energy to support the growth of a diverse sustainable blue economy.

Australia is set for a second consecutive bumper winter harvest, with total production forecast to come in just five per cent shy of last year’s near-record crop, according to Rabobank. In its just-released Australian Winter Crop 2021/22 Production, Price and Inputs Forecast, the specialist agribusiness bank estimates the nation will harvest 52.87 million tonnes of winter grains, oilseeds and pulses this season. While down five per cent on last year’s crop, this is still a hefty 25 per cent above the five-year average.

A project is getting underway on Kangaroo Island to provide producers with the tools, skills, and management options to ensure ewe fertility and lamb survival is not compromised because of the bushfires impacting on pasture composition.

What better place to taste test fake meat than in the Beef Capital of Casino? Dale Paget and Pete Rogers were filming a segment for Channel 10’s  The Project  to be screened on television. “We wanted to see what people on the front line of the meat industry thought,” Dale said.

Shearing an alpaca is like shearing a sheep. Surely. Watching shearer James Dixon at Big Sky Alpaca farm proved otherwise. The alpaca is not held vertical between the shearer’s legs like a sheep ... Then there is the long neck of the alpaca that could easily injure if the alpaca thrashes around and this is secured with two weights. And the noise – oh my!

New research from the University of Wollongong, a partner at the NSW Bushfire Research Hub, has found climate change will expose larger areas of forest in coastal NSW to higher frequency and more intense fires, amplifying the changes to fire regimes brought about by the 2019/20 fires ... Amongst other findings: Previous timber harvesting did not increase the fire extent or severity of the 2019/20 fires. However, there is potential for cumulative impacts in harvested landscapes that are subject to fire, particularly in the next 5 to 10 years.

Despite the snap lock down in Hobart affecting the show slightly - with two attractions unable to attend, along with some equestrian, chopping and kennel competitors - much to everyone's gratitude, the show still went ahead, one of only four agricultural shows held this year.

The  Abrolhos Island and Mid-West Scallop Trawl Fishery  has achieved certification to the  MSC fisheries standard. It is the first scallop fishery in Australia and the eleventh fishery in Western Australia (WA) to gain this certification.

Called the Reef Credit Scheme, the market-based collaboration allows farmers and other property owners in reef catchments to undertake projects that improve water quality to generate a tradeable unit of pollutant reduction or Reef Credit, which is then sold onto businesses who want to protect the reef or meet their corporate responsibilities.

There was nothing new or unexpected about the recently announced NSW Natural Resources Commission research on timber harvesting and koalas ... There’s nothing in the NRC report that actually deserves a tick. It’s a well-established historical and scientific fact that koalas are an irruptive species which responds positively to soft new growth ... Declining trees continuously resprout soft young growth until they eventually run out of resources. Koalas breed up in declining forests.

Gabrielle Duykers. A “poignant” and “emotional” textile work has taken home the 2021 Tatiara Art Prize and is now on public display at Walkway Gallery. The winning work, ‘The Shortest Day of the Year', comes from artist Deborah Prior and tells the story of family connections as inspired by her grandmother. Made from vintage Australian woollen blankets, the beautifully crafted piece also represents the wool industry and its critical connection to regional and remote communities.

Innovation and the adoption of best practice plant protection and biosecurity measures on farm is critical to the delivery of high-quality nursery trees and maximising customer confidence for continued business growth. This philosophy is top of mind for Johan Oosthuizen, Farm Manager at MacQ Nursery, a four-hectare commercial macadamia production nursery located in Bundaberg, Queensland.

Timber Towns Victoria welcomes a motion calling on the Victorian Government to table all documents relating to the closure of the native timber industry ... “Full, open and transparent information is needed that provides assurances to communities, workers and all sectors of the industry that decisions have been made based on evidence, and in the best interest of all Victorians. This decision has far reaching consequences that need to be fully understood and debated:” TTV President and Glenelg Shire Deputy Mayor Cr Karen Stephens.

Forestry Australia (formerly IFA/AFG) has celebrated the conclusion of its biggest ever conference ... “The Conference passed nine resolutions around key themes including: the Forestry Australia name change; Measurable outcomes and key performance indicators for fire management; Traditional Owners and forests; Diversity; Forest and trees on farms; Forests as a natural climate solution; Natural Capital Accounting and Forestry education."

Timber NSW welcomes research conducted over three years released by the Natural Resource Commissioner and NSW Chief Scientist, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte who states that, “koala density was higher than anticipated in the surveyed forests and was not reduced by selective harvesting.” “This very significant finding totally vindicates the skilful ability of the forest managers to care for the land under their responsibility and protect koalas,” said Timber NSW CEO Maree McCaskill.

Research released into koala response to forestry has found that the nutritional quality of trees is critical for koala survival and selective harvesting did not have an adverse impact upon koala numbers on surveyed NSW north coast state forests ... These findings have emerged from a three-year research program independently overseen by the NSW Natural Resources Commission.