Well, we made it into Jo Burg on our flight, got ourselves a Hyundai ‘Tucson hire car from the good folks at Avis and more importantly I guess…we got ourselves onto the highway and right back out of there again. Not before Peca had a disagreement with our GPS system (don’t do it mate, I’ve been there!) and put us onto the right freeway going in the wrong direction! We had also met up with Terry & Pam McCosker(he’s the head of Resource Consulting Services, Australia) at the airport, who have Tony & Mandy Mott from Queensland traveling with them for their few weeks in Africa running schools. Terry called his RCS contact in Harristown for us and he booked us into the motel right here where we have joined them for half the week doing a grazing & pasture cropping school. A good roll up of just over forty farmers involved in the conference, & we couldn’t have asked for a better chance to pick up some more contacts for our South African adventure.

Much like a Principle Focus, RCS or HM group get together back in Australia would be, there are plenty of positive farmers involved with a wide variety of enterprises.

It’s astounding how similar many farmers issues are throughout the world & how the same problems come up again & again. Although Pec & I both agreed that being on the land back in Australia is going to seem one hell of a lot easier than being here on the African continent once we get home again. Political instability & land tenure security are very real threats to their future and yet these folks seem to take it in their stride by taking steps to plan for the possibility of loss, while at the same time being determined to stay on here in their homeland.

Most of this group is involved in Executive Link boards with RCS, & a lot seem to have been through the Holistic Management training as well and they cover rainfall regions from over 30 inches down to as low as only 7. The first day started with a couple of talks from invited guests, one from guy talking about a benevolent company who provide funding for improving sustainability issues in small communities as well as farmers. Projects such as Bio gas systems to run on manure lagoons & smaller septic tanks that will produce enough methane gas to run small burners for several hours etc.

The second was a local farmer who gave quite a detailed talk on his own family business & some of the trials and tribulations they have been through to succeed in this difficult & uncertain environment. It surprised me that there is only about 44,000 farmers in South Africa & one of their challenges is that there is just four major retail chains controlling 80% of the produce sales……hmmm, don’t we only have two left now in our monopolized little country!!

Then Terry started his talk (or several talks) on Carbon Trading & Pasture Cropping which held the groups interest & sparked plenty of conversation for the next two days. For soils not to be involved in the carbon trading scheme yet seems incredibly short sighted to me as the benefits for agriculture are immense if a regenerative farming system is embraced. A win for soil health (therefore plants, animals & human health), a win for the environment, & obviously a huge win for our planet, with as little as a 1% increase in carbon for the world’s rangelands (using perennial grasses) being enough to negate the overload of Co2 & the threat of global warming. No other policy, reduction, alternative energy or new technology can do that…

And for trees to do the same we would have to plant the worlds land area to trees four times over!

Terry’s view is that we are heading into a carbon based world (economically) & that the trade in carbon will be the ‘next big thing’, much like the IT explosion of the 90’s, and that within 5 – 10 years it will be the planets largest commodity market & be in excess of 500 Billion tonnes. It might just be a great time to learn how we as farmers can maximise the opportunity and be involved in the benefits.

And this pasture cropping is about the only way I’d be interested in growing a crop at Brewarrina, or anywhere for that matter. It was pioneered by a guy in Australia called Col Seis at Gulgong about ten years ago & in fact he was on my table at a GFP course in Dubbo & I was intrigued about it then. With the increase of input costs over the last 12 months there has been a huge uptake of the system with over 2,500 farmers utilizing the method so far this year at home in Australia, and also in other areas of the world as well.

Without writing a book here…. It involves sowing an annual winter crop such as wheat or oats straight into a summer perennial grass base (or vice versa) without damaging the native pastures. In fact their research is confirming that by growing the crop it enhances both the crops ability to survive and yield well, & it invigorates the pasture. This is a low cost farming method that utilises many synergistic benefits (some not known or understood as yet) to increase overall soil health while utilizing the land for a full year with a grazing program & a cash crop. Its another huge paradigm shift for most & it fly’s in the face of the current ‘keep it bare & fallow’ mentality that supposedly preserves moisture & ‘does’ keep chemical companies profitable….

Could be a real winner for Peca & he is keen to use the system on his high summer rainfall country in conjunction with the cattle. May have just paid for his trip…

Interestingly, they are finding that the worst ‘weed’ in the system and for your land is actually Lucerne… another paradigm shift. Some of these guys are from a drier environment than me and may not crop at all, although I think that if we view it as an opportunity when we do have the moisture than it could work well.

Actually, one of the blokes said he measured his rainfall in “Surprise Units” ha ha.

The next day these South Africans got a bit of payback for flogging us in the Rugby because they had to listen to three Aussies talk! Terry had asked Pec & I to give a presentation on our respective operations so we had an early night after dinner to prepare. It went quite well though, as we both had plenty of photos for the big screen & we have been using systems that these guys are learning about and utilizing as well. And of course, many of our biological and animal issues are quite universal.

Another great guest speaker they had lined up (besides us!!) was a guy described as the ‘father of biological farming in South Africa’ called John Fair. He was excellent and really pushed the boundaries on the need for & overuse of fertilizer in farming and has proved and documented that it is not only unnecessary but extremely detrimental to soil health.

Couple of my Nuffield touring mates should have this bloke and a few of his contacts high on their list of people to see & learn from, if they want to get a look at the real future.

Economic necessity may just be the catalyst to bring about change, as it usually is, even though the results of this speaker’s farmers should be enough to inspire all involved in agriculture anyway.

Hitting the road again now from Harrismith & heading to Ladysmith to catch up with another family who are getting amazing results. We have not seen much of the country side as yet because it was dark when we drove down the 300klms from Jo Burg last Sunday night. Very spectacular mountains around this town & extremely rugged looking, reminds me a lot of New Mexico or Arizona. After all the great contacts we have just heard about & been invited to, I’m expecting an extremely busy next three weeks ahead of us.

It was good to finally get to speak with Cathy & Harriet on the phone after not being able to properly for almost two weeks. Glad to hear everything is running smoothly back at the ranch, with lots of guests to keep things operating while I’m gallivanting around overseas on this big junket…..thanks darl!! Enjoy having our little girl home for two weeks & make sure you help your mum out lots my little princess.

Cheers for now.