NATURAL SEQUENCE FARMING
Extract from pages 98-100 of - “The Business of Saving Water”
The Report of the MurrumbidgeeValley Water Efficiency Project – December 2004
What is generally known as the ‘Pratt Report’ was produced by Dr Bill Hurditch with the contribution on Natural Sequence Faming (NSF) by Professor David Mitchell. The Project was funded with $5.3m from the Australian Government and NSW Governments and several million contribution from Pratt Water Solutions.
The aim of the project was to examine the business case for saving significant amounts of water, and to identify ways of boosting regional productivity and environmental quality with the savings.
Extract:
“Significant areas of Australian land and water bodies have been seriously degraded, largely through the removal of natural means of conserving water and resisting extreme dry periods. Catchments that have been degraded in this way have resulted in consequent degradation in the resilience of river systems. Similarly, the ‘reclamation’ of wetlands and their conversion to agricultural production has removed one of the natural means of resisting and recuperating from drought.
Furthermore, the continuous use of ephemeral river systems to supply water to downstream users has altered the morphology of these systems and separated them from their floodplains, so that the latter no longer store water and cannot maintain previous levels of biological productivity. Current management of these systems erode fundamental principles with respect to energy dissipation within the water balance of whole landscapes. These energy dissipation processes regulate ecological dynamics within the Earth’s biosphere by maintaining cyclical systems and reducing loss of resources (Ripl, 1995). There is a clear need to apply environmentally sound principles to the restoration of these streams and rivers and their associated beds and floodplains to their former resilient state.
Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) is a rural landscape management technique that is based on ecological principles, low input requirements, and natural cycling of water and nutrients that addresses the issues outlined in the preceding paragraph. NSF offers a low-cost, widely applicable method of reducing drought severity and boosting productivity within agriculturally important areas of Australia, such as the MurrayDarlingBasin, by decreasing the sensitivity of current agricultural practice to a large proportion of the climatic variability in these areas.”
The context
“The challenge to provide Australia’s ongoing water requirements, without undermining the ecological resilience of Australia now confronts this nation and demands urgent and informed action. Until now the structure and function of natural ecosystems and landscapes have not been sufficiently well understood for effective error-free management. Attempts to modify the former to suit human purposes have caused as many problems as they have solved. The drainage of wetlands, extensive clearing of natural vegetation, cultivation of unsuitable soils, storage of water in surface reservoirs and the use of intermittent streams and rivers as continuous water supply channels, all for apparently sensible reasons, have nevertheless had unexpected adverse consequences. There is an imperative need to develop procedures based on natural processes that have evolved over the millennia to allow plants and animals to flourish, in spite of the rigours imposed by the unpredictable variability of the Australian climate. The procedures must also be compatible with the need for Australian to benefit and thrive from the production of food and fibre for their requirements and for export.”
The process
“Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) procedures meet these criteria. The value of these criteria was dramatically confirmed during the dry conditions recently experienced in Australia. In essence, relatively simple earthworks restore the connection between rivers and their floodplains and promote the retention of water in natural storage systems. This has the additional beneficial effects of increasing the leakage of salt into waterways and the generation of considerable amounts of organic matter on the flood plains. The latter is then available as stock food and as a soil additive that is potentially available for distribution to areas that are lacking organic matter. The process has been well researched and conforms to current understanding of Australian natural resources, though hitherto it has only been demonstrated at relatively few sites.”
The beneficial effects
“In addition to the direct environmental benefits outlined above, NSF improves water quality, restores stability to the banks of waterways, enhances the quality of natural habitats, promotes biodiversity and strengthens natural resilience within the landscape, thereby ensuring continuing sustainability of the constituent ecosystems. These benefits arise from implementing NSF procedures on the basis of a clear understanding of connections between the different ecological units within landscapes modified for various forms of agriculture. The introduction of NSF practices will also make Australian agriculture more compatible with natural ecological processes in the landscape. This will promote the potential to increase cost-effectiveness of farming in Australia, for example, by decreasing reliance on expensive, artificially intrusive procedures to improve pastures and increase organic matter content of soils.”
The commercial opportunities
“NSF applies to a wide range of land-based commercial ventures. It was originally developed on a horse stud farm to correct problems being caused by increasing salinity of water draining from wet pastures. Subsequently the process was shown to have a number of incidental benefits including the development of particularly strong bone structures in the horses feeding from those pastures. It is now known that the same techniques are equally applicable in other forms of plant and animal husbandry, including the production of crops and pastures, fruit and vegetables, and can even be applied to aquaculture systems. In all cases, these holistic natural processes enhance quality, nutrition and sustainability.”
The significance for Australia
“NSF reduces greenhouse gas emissions as well as contributing to the welfare of the environment in the ways outlined previously. It therefore provides opportunities, locally, nationally, and internationally, to ameliorate degradation of ecosystems by facilitating its incorporation in policies for managing the environment. Natural Sequence Farming is currently generating strong interest in rural populations and is also likely to be attractive to ecologically concerned urban dwellers.”
An outline of current progress
“Following an extensive period of development, a consortium of interests involving federal and state departments, universities, catchment trusts, private enterprise, and other interested people has been formed. A Steering Committee and an International Reference Panel have been established and have met. Membership of the former is largely drawn from the consortium of interests outlined above. The latter is chaired by an eminent Australian scientist and includes membership of two eminent scientists from Europe with particular expertise in the holistic management of landscapes in several countries.
A manual describing the process is currently being compiled. This will allow several practitioners to be trained and licensed to carry out the relatively minor earthworks that are required. Other machinery has been developed to assist implementation of organic content of the soil through mulching natural organic production over the surface of the soil.
The Australian Research Council (ASR) has provided a grant to finance research by leading experts in relevant scientific disciplines. Additional demonstrations of NSF in different parts of the country are planned or underway. However, the rate of progress is being constrained by ready access to financial support of sufficient long term duration to maintain progress and continue the extension of the technique into new areas. Considerable financial assistance is being contributed by private enterprise together with extensive in-kind contributions from farmers, scientists and other interested parties. But these are insufficient to maintain a rate of progress commensurate with the urgency of the task.”
The need for further support
“Considerable injection of further financial support is now required to build on the ARC research program and extend the process further into the agricultural community. These funds should be sourced from existing programs for agriculture and for repair to degraded landscapes and augmented from private enterprise, which would gain from more efficient use of water and more sustainable landscapes.
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