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Soil Conservation Group leads the way in good farming practices
The Starborough Flaxbourne Soil Conservation Group with Chairman Doug Avery
second from right.
The word sustainability has worked its way into New Zealanders’ consciousness over the past few years. As a country reliant on our land and water based industries, good farming practices are crucial in our drive towards sustainability.
This is certainly a view that Marlborough farmer Doug Avery shares. As Chairman of the Starborough Flaxbourne Soil Conservation Group, he is passionate about working with other farmers to establish sustainable farming practices.
“The key aspect of good farming practice is the preservation of our natural capital, and to ensure that processes of production can be repeated over and over again,” Avery says. He views sustainability as a three-leg stool – one leg financial, one leg environmental and one leg social.
The Starborough-Flaxbourne district is one of the driest in the country. Westerly winds plus grazing on hilly country can result in bare land and erosion. In the early 2000s farmers were becoming increasingly concerned about continual drought and soil loss, and the impact on profitability, farm families and the community.
“When the drought hit, one leg broke,” Avery says. “This increased the pressure on the other legs and our business which had sat so soundly on our stool began to crumble. Soon the other legs were breaking as well.”
In 2004, following a public meeting in Seddon, the Starborough Flaxbourne Soil Conservation Group was formed to co-ordinate farm-based trials accessing expertise and ideas on how farmers could affordably and effectively manage their way through drought.
The Group undertook research and developed an understanding in six key areas, namely: farming systems, soils, dryland plants, human dimension, landscape options, and climate.
With the New Zealand Landcare Trust’s help, the Group obtained funding from the Sustainable Farming Fund and secured the involvement of the Marlborough Regional Council and the Marlborough District Council, plus specialists in farm business modelling, pasture plants for dryland farming, soil science, climate change, landscape and social issues.
Over the past three years much has been learnt, and the project wound up with a national field day in May this year on Doug Avery’s property.
The Group identified ‘soil loss and erosion’ as an issue for dryland farmers facing a drier future through climate change and has been proactive in finding a solution that is transferable for others with similar land and climate type.
Avery hopes that much of the information from the Group’s research will go on to be used by farmers around the country. “When 420 people, mostly farmers, turned up at our farm on the field day, I knew that many farmers feel hugely challenged by the circumstances which surround them.”
The Starborough Flaxbourne Soil Conservation Group received a Green Ribbon Award from the Minister for the Environment this year for its members’ efforts to sustainably manage the use of the land they farm.
And Avery seems determined to continue the valuable work of the group. “As farmers we will not buy into the production race again, but rather manage things with 50 and 100 year outcomes kept in mind.”
