Biodiversity boosts woolgrowers' bottom line

Managing native vegetation as part of a whole farm system has the potential to boost the farm’s bottom line, as well as helping address one of Australia’s most serious environmental issues - the decline and loss of biodiversity.

This was a key message to delegates at the VegFutures 2006 conference in Albury from the Australian wool industry’s most significant natural resource management research initiative, Land, Water & Wool.

Land, Water & Wool Native Vegetation & Biodiversity Coordinator Dr Jann Williams said grazing management of native pastures that is based on the biology of both the pasture and the stock is one of the key tools for achieving both production and conservation goals.

“Our research has shown that sheep can graze on native pastures while maintaining high native plant species diversity on-property, including threatened and declining species,” she said.

“Both production and conservation goals can be achieved as part of profitable farming enterprises, especially where grazing management is undertaken in the context of whole farm planning.

“We also now know that planning grazing according to plant growth rates can promote healthier perennial plants, reduce bare ground and improve water infiltration while at the same time allowing stocking rates to increase – in some instances double.

“Grazing native species such as saltbush is also part of the solution to improving profitability and natural resource management on saline lands. Furthermore, establishing stock shelter through natural regeneration is relatively cheap and can increase farm profits in the long run.”

Land, Water & Wool facilitated a major workshop during the conference, which discussed the challenges and benefits of undertaking research on native vegetation and biodiversity in a commercial environment, and how researchers and landholders can assist each other to jointly develop solutions. Establishing and maintaining these relationships was acknowledged as a key to success at the workshop

Woolgrower participant Clive Smith from the Traprock region in Queensland and Tom and Cynthia Dunbabin from Tasmania gave an inside view as woolgrowers involved in research on a commercial property, while Jim Moll, Victorian Project Leader, outlined the researchers’ perspective.

Land, Water & Wool Managing Pastoral Country Coordinator, Andrew Lawson, continued the message of managing stocking rates in the rangelands while the workshop also took the audience on an innovative ‘journey into the future’ with Land, Water & Wool’s Future Woolscapes initiative, challenging delegates to explore what on-farm natural resource management in the year 2030 may look like, and how this relates to the present.

Land, Water & Wool is a $40-million collaboration between Australian Wool Innovation Limited, Land & Water Australia and other research investors. Researchers are working directly with nearly 1300 woolgrowers on 230 commercial farms and influencing more than 7000 farm businesses nation-wide across seven important natural resource management themes.