Small is beautiful

When large numbers of animals are farmed intensively on industrial units to maximise profits, problems are inevitable. Disease control and food safety are prime issues as is environmental sustainability. Since the Second World War, agricultural practices have gone through massive changes, in mechanisation, chemical use and large-scale intensive farming.

As a result of increasing the density of domestic farm animals, reported farm pollution incidents have sky-rocketed. In some areas farm waste is a major problem. Some countries report that about half of all serious water pollution incidents are caused by manure run-off from farms. Poultry, cows and pigs are the farm animals most responsible for the pollution. Livestock production occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture and 30% of the planet’s land surface. It is responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. It also generates 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

A large quantity of animal waste is generated by concentrated animal feeding operations and disposal of the waste has been a major problem. The industrialised farms collect the animal waste and mix it with water to form slurry. To be spread on paddocks as fertiliser. If the soil or plants are unable to absorb the nutrients the run-off gets into water systems. On Intensive free range farms running 10,000 hens per hectare, the huge volume of manure on paddocks poses an ecological risk to water courses because of the high nutrient load. Farm waste has led to the growth of toxic algae in waterways (algal blooms), the development of parasitic infections on frogs, and other species. This is why all farms should follow an Environmental Management plan and why low stocking densities should be maintained.Small-scale diversified farming is better than monocultures and intensive farming. But there is some way to go before the egg industry and agriculture as a whole is environmentally sustainable.All this led to the reason for us to start developing webinars to encourage people to set up free range egg farms and wed have a crowd funding campaign to ensure it is a top quality offering. https://www.gofundme.com/2tar52c

Environmental Management on egg farms

Environmental Management Systems have become essential tools for maintaining the sustainability of farms and other rural enterprises. Many egg producers have already implemented full EMS procedures on their farms.

An EMS is a flexible business management system that helps farmers develop their own strategies for integrating environmental considerations into the daily operations of a farm. An EMS builds on existing management strategies, such as emergency, pest, or nutrient management plans.

It can be critical in improving environmental performance, reducing livestock health risks, assisting with regulatory compliance and improving the farm's reputation and community relationships.

An initial part of the EMS process is to clarify the farm environmental policy — how the farm identifies and addresses environmental concerns. Once an environmental policy is in place it helps to influence the development of a management system for on-farm activities. The policy guides the business through planning, implementing and reviewing farm management decisions that affect the environment, as well as the bottom line.

It allows for improved farm management and continual improvement of an operation.

Contact us if you want more info or help in developing an EMS for your farm.

Farm sustainability

We get heaps of enquiries about farm sustainability. Here's some info from one of the pages on our freeranger eggs website:

Farm sustainability and economic production can only be acheived and maintained if farms reflect natural ecosystems. In Australia, farm management has frequently adapted to changes in commodity prices, markets, climatic and natural resource conditions. Natural ecosystems are always extremely resilient and utilise only renewable inputs. Over thousands of years they have shown high productivity, an ability to maintain environmental quality, and adaptiveness to any natural disturbance. By weaving together the elements of microclimate, annual and perennial plants, water and soil management with human needs, environmental farming systems have been shown to be energy-efficient and high-yielding. An accepted definition of sustainable farming, is an integrated system of plant and animal production having a site-specific application that will, over the long term:

• satisfy human food and fibre needs;
• enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which agricultural economies depend;
• make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls;
• sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
• enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole

It seems like a bit of a mouthful, but it really isn't too hard and it's exactly what we do at Blue Mountain Creek with our Freeranger Egg Farm. The Australian Government's involvement in natural resource management policy has increased since the 1980's, as the scale and complexity of land and water degradation and loss of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes has been recognised. Landcare has been a useful tool in promoting incremental changes to natural resource management which boost the farm system. However, Landcare has limitations as a tool to achieve significant outcomes in biodiversity conservation and controlling off site impacts. Landcare has raised awareness of resource management issues in the rural community but the widespread adoption of more ecologically sustainable farming practices is constrained by a diversion of financial resources into job creation rather than on-ground work, a lack of skills and appropriate management technologies.
Our property is ecologically important because it is a vegetated link between the Grantville Flora & Fauna Reserve and the Bass River and forms part of the only riparian forest left on the river.
Farm activities were designed to minimise off-site and on-site impacts. All creek lines are vegetated to maintain water quality run off into the Bass. A study backed by the Federal Government's Envirofund program has found that free range farming practices are viable and have minimal impacts on the environment.
The study, carried out on five properties in the Port Phillip and Westernport Catchment Authority area showed that properly managed free range egg farms have many benefits - including long term sustainability.
The Freeranger Farm was one of the participants and we believe that low density production is the key to sustainability. "It doesn't make any real difference whether you are running cattle, sheep or chooks, if your stocking rate is too high you will run into trouble" is our philosophy.
It's hard to justify European farming practices in many parts of Australia - they simply don't work with our soil types and climate. The current drought is a clear example of the stupidity in trying to maintain exotic pastures and growing crops which require huge and unsustainable inputs.
Apart from the massive problems of erosion and salinity, the inputs needed to maintain unrealistically high production levels create unhealthy nutrient loads and reduce farm viability over the years.
The report demonstrates that stocking densities have a direct impact on feed costs. Supplementary feed inputs rose significantly as stocking rates increased.
Once the results were produced in table form it was easy to see that a free range egg farm with a stocking rate of 9 Dry Sheep Equivalent (DSE) per hectare, produced an egg laying rate of 70% with feed consumption of 26 kg per bird per year. A farm with a stocking rate of 75 DSE per hectare produced a lay rate of 65% with feed consumption almost double at 48 kg per bird.
At current prices that's an added cost of nearly $10 a year for each bird - which doesn't sound much until you multiply it over the whole flock. The Freeranger Farm is at the most productive end of the scale.
Pasture management has been aimed at increasing the amount of native grasses in the vegetated cover. The report shows that soils on the farm are acidic and have relatively low nutrient levels.
It was felt to be counter productive to try to change the soil balance to favour exotic grasses and a management style was chosen with a preference for adapting farm practices to fit the naturally occurring soil type.
Microlaena stipoides is one of Australia's most important native grasses with a widespread distribution in the eastern States. Its bright green colour, drought and frost resistance as well as shade tolerance make it superior to any non-native species as it has evolved for thousands of years in the dry and unpredictable Australian climate.
It is easily out-competed by exotic grasses in neutral or alkaline soil conditions, preferring acidic soils like those at Grantville. During the trial, lime was only applied to small test sites. The majority of the pasture had no inputs other than chicken manure from the free-ranging hens and native grass coverage increased by about 25%. There was also a high level of activity by earthworms and dung beetles.
We appear to have two types of dung beetles on the property because there is evidence of activity all year round and some species are known to be dormant over winter.
The full report on the farm sustainability trials is available from freeranger or from the Free Range Farmers Association. Detailed sustainable farming information can be found on many websites including growsustainably.com and Economics Research, La Trobe University

Farm sustainability

Farm sustainability is a term which has been flung around with gay abandon for some years. It means different thing to different people and even farms which are certified organic need not necessarily have any more long-term sustainability than non-organic farms.

Landcare groups, particularly those associated with networks, have been scrambling for Federal cash from the Natural Heritage Trust and, more recently, the Caring For Our Country programme. The race to grab as much funding as possible has clouded thoughts about what the funding was supposed to be for. It was never to create jobs - it was expected to have beneficial environmental outcomes.

Now that lucrative funding stream has started to dry up, the networks (and other environmental groups) are squealing about their jobs. That's all it is. They've had little thought for sustainability or biodiversity conservation and their actions have had little impact. Their main concern has been about maintaining and increasing job opportunities. Some of the networks and groups have become big businesses with millions of dollars churning through every year – but virtually nothing to show for it.

A portion of the funding has been used for things like erosion control and planting native vegetation but there has been a relatively small return for the many hundreds of millions of dollars which has spent.

Has the money decreased the environmental footprint of many farms? The answer is no. Has the money halted the biodiversity decline in this country? Again the answer is no.

It's not possible to have an impact on these things when huge slabs of funding are swallowed up in increasing employment opportunities rather than being spent on-ground works carried out as part of a 'whole of landscape' plan.

There's a need to look at the way a farm and any business operates to determine overall sustainability. What are the inputs and where do they come from? If feed is trucked thousands of kilometres it will have a negative impact even if it is from a certified organic mill.

Here at Freeranger Eggs our biggest environmental issue is transport. We minimise our footprint by imposing a food miles policy (all our deliveries must be within one hour of the farm). The feed for our chooks comes from a Victorian mill – but there is still a significant transport element which we offset with the permanent protection of native vegetation on the farm. A large slab of the vegetation on the farm is protected by a Trust for Nature covenant so it can never be destroyed which makes the property an effective carbon sink and more than offsets our carbon footprint.
For more on sustainability have at a look at Friends of Bass Valley Bush Inc Landcare Group