Sustainability, carbon emissions, solar power

Freeranger Eggs at Grantville is an example of sustainable farming. Our farm management plan takes a three pillars approach to how the farm operates. Animal welfare is one pillar, but equally important are land sustainability and food safety. Despite all the political bickering in Canberra over emissions trading scheme targets, Freeranger Eggs has been getting on with mitigating the impact of carbon emissions. The farm's carbon footprint is limited by imposing a food miles policy for deliveries, using recycled materials and equipment whenever possible, utilising solar power and mechanical processes and an effective waste reduction programme. As a result, the 1200-chook farm generates only about 60 tonnes of CO2 each year. But it is better than carbon neutral, it is carbon positive. The average organic matter in soil tests was 4.1 per cent in 2004, in 2006 it was 6.0 per cent, and in 2009 it was 7.9 percent. Calculations based on 2-inch deep samples, show that over those five years the farm sequestered about 14 tons of CO2 per acre or four tonnes of carbon per acre on the grasslands. Further testing and calculations have not been carried because there has been a total lack of interest in the results. The farm applies no chemical fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides and this policy increases the biological life in the soil and increases the rate of carbon sequestration. Rotational grazing is practised on the pastures – taking advantage of photosynthesis to pull CO2 into the plants and then into the roots from where it transfers to the soil. In addition, every year at least another tonne of CO2 per acre continues to be sequestered by the regular growth and replacement of Kangaroo Apples in the main paddocks. Native vegetation has been protected on approximately 100 acres of the property and regeneration there sequesters a further tonne of CO2 per acre. This brings a grand total of 1500 tonnes of CO2 sequestered on this property over five years – an average rate of 300 tonnes per year compared with the farm's carbon output of around 60 tonnes. On days of full sun the solar panels on the farm shed generate 13 - 17kW of electricity a day and as on average the farm consumes just 9kW a day it helps the bottom line. We gained international recognition in 2012 when Freeranger Eggs was voted

the Australian winner of the Energy Globe Award.

Ministers incompetence over egg standards

The decision by Australian Ministers for Consumer Affairs and the Small Business Minister to allow egg producers with outdoor stocking densities of 10,000 hens per hectare to label their eggs as 'free range' demonstrates an incredible level of ignorance as well as gullibility and incompetence. Apart from anything else, thjey seem to have overlooked the fact that each chook excretes half a cubic metre of manure a year – so 10,000 chooks will leave a 5000 cubic metre pile of manure on each hectare of land. Such a heavy nutrient load would destroy the viability of the land and would almost certainly create Massive environmental damage particularly along any watercourses which adjoin the land. As a result, this decision may make it much harder for farmers to set up free range egg farms. Local Shire planning departments will find it easier to reject applications as 'intensive' operations – effectively treating them as feed lots instead of an as-of-right use on land zoned for farming.

Ministers screw up Australia's free range egg industry

Government endorsement of intensive egg production systems allowing stocking densites of 10,000 hens per hectare to be classified as 'free range' is potentially another nail in the coffin for legitimate free range farmers. For years, genuine producers have been hit with unfair completion from both ends of the market - big corporate egg factories passing off their eggs as free range to boost profits as well as backyarders who do not meet any food safety standards and are not required to pay the compliance costs which are levied on honest egg farmers

New standard makes life harder to set up a free range farm

Yesterday Ministers for Consumer Affairs approved a standard which allows farms with outdoor stocking densities of 10,000 hens per hectare to be classified as free range. This just perpetuates the con which big business has practised on consumers for years. If they had made the announcement today, it would have been regarded as an April Fools Day joke !! One serious aspect of this decision is that no council will allow free range egg farms to be established if they follow the Ministers' edict. Any farm with such a density will be regarded as intensive so they it will be treated as a feed lot - not an 'as of right' use even when t he land is zoned for farming.