With a zeal approaching obsession, Peter Andrews is evangelising to farmers the benefits of Natural Sequence Farming and changing Australia’s rural landscape.
In seeking to innovate to achieve sustainability, many innovators are now turning to nature for inspiration. Peter Andrews has dedicated much of his life seeking to understand how the Australian landscape works. Andrews explains why: “Whilst the challenges farmers face today are serious, we can draw much encouragement from the fact that, for millions of years, the Australian landscape operated in ways that ensured its sustainability. Hence we ought to be able to solve many of the current landscape and water problems by re-instating those basic functions of this ancient landscape that have proved so successful. This is what Natural Sequence Farming does.”
What is Natural Sequence Farming?
Andrews, who developed Natural Sequence Farming (NSF), explains that NSF is an innovative approach to holistically restoring the natural hydrology, resilience and productivity of the landscape. NSF does this over time, by restoring the natural features of creek and river systems so that when it rains and floods it helps to rehydrate and irrigate the landscape. There are now several sites around Australia where these methods have been applied with remarkable results.
Andrews explains: “Restoring the hydrological processes of the landscape creates multiple benefits by: reducing water loss; restoring and replenishing aquifers; increasing water availability and quality; combating salinity; reducing erosion and turbidity; increasing groundcover; enhancing riparian zones; and increasing biodiversity. Other benefits include restoring the landscape’s ability to cope with extremes of temperature.”
This is very important especially in times of drought. One of the scientists with whom Peter has worked is Dr John Williams, former head of CSIRO Land and Water. Williams, now Commissioner for Natural Resources NSW explains: “Before European settlement our river systems generally did not have a very strongly defined gully or stream channels in them like streams in Northern Europe. In Australia water flow was over and across smooth floodplains which often formed ‘chains of ponds’. These provided refuge in dry times and overflowed in floods to soak into flood plains and wetland providing a diversity of habitat.
“When we overgrazed the valley floors and tried to drain the wetlands we tended to cut a channel, a gully through the stream. What Peter Andrews was doing was putting back those chains of ponds.” As described on ABC’s Australian Story, “Peter was cutting little channels and little brooks that took the flood water, the water from the stream and distributed it back over floodplains and wetlands,much as it would have done in earlier stream geomorphology.”
Andrews has done this through creating some obstruction to slow the flow down and then spread the water along channels that take the water from the stream. These channels spread the freshwater over the flood plain where it soaks into the shallow underground streams to replenish the swamps and wetlands that feed the plants and all the life within the landscape.
Dr John Williams argues that this innovation is of tremendous significance to assist the holistic rehabilitation of Australia’s landscapes. “To get our streams and rivers to function like they did before white settlement is an important part of landscape restoration. NSF recognises the need to have the river function so that water is held in the landscape for longer. Maintaining chains of ponds, swamps and wetlands full of freshwater in the valley floors was an important mechanism for maintaining landscape biodiversity and managing salty groundwaters. NSF is a holistic strategy that rehabilitates and restores all these landscape features.”
Innovative methods at work
Whilst many people have now heard of Peter Andrew’s work in the Hunter Valley, few are aware that farmers are now trying these methods as far away as Far North Queensland. An example of the multiple benefits of NSF concepts and principles has come from the Gumlu property of North Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Suppliers in the Burdekin dry tropics.
Led by Adrian Pozzebon, they had a choice a decade ago: either innovate or close the farm. “This farm, being in the dry tropics, received rain for a few months a year, from December through to February, which quickly flowed through the streams and rivers out to sea,” says Pozzebon. “So for the rest of the year the property relied on extracting bore water in large volumes, at about 75,000 gallons an hour. Over time the quality of the bore water decreased and the salinity levels in it increased significantly.We had no choice. We had to change practices or we would have had to close the farm.
“Like Peter Andrews, we figured that the key was learning how to restore the natural hydrology and slow down the flow of water through the landscape. We invested in natural leaky weir structures across Rocky Pond Creek. This helped but when rains finally come in the north they can come heavily. So we have also experimented with other barriers to help spread the water over the floodplain more effectively.
” The results have been remarkable and were quickly achieved. Applying these principles and techniques led rapidly to:
- A complete halt to the use of bore water pumping, significantly reducing salinity (down from 3,300ppm to 800ppm), improving productive land capacity
- Aquifers being recharged
- 70% reduction in water needed to support an increase in agricultural productivity
- Reduced pesticide use (down by 85%), which lessens impact on native and desirable species
- Reduced use of artificial fertiliser (down by more than 20%)
- Reduced herbicide use (down by 30%)
- Improved community health
- Significantly reduced harmful aspects of excessive run off onto the Great Barrier Reef as this property is close to the Queensland coast
“In the last two years Peter Andrews has helped us further develop these ideas. This property is now drought proof for up to two years with salinity levels continuing to go down,” says Pozzebon. “The results have been so impressive that there are now at least six other farms that I am aware of trying aspects of this strategy in the dry tropics of Far North Queensland.”
Andrews has been raising awareness about these methods for many years now. He is genuinely motivated to help other farmers who, like himself, have been battling challenges from drought, salinity and a more competitive market place. From the awareness created by Australian Story, Andrews has been largely on the road speaking to or consulting with farmers, government departments, water catchments, Landcare groups, conferences and community forums from Far North Queensland to South Australia. Such has been the interest in his work that he has recently published a book Back from the Brink published by ABC Books.
Further research
With results such as these, there is now increased scientific interest in NSF. A range of scientific studies into NSF have and are being undertaken by originally CSIRO and now by academics at Southern Cross University, the Australian National University, and the University of Newcastle. These studies are showing that NSF has positive effects on water availability and quality, salinity and riparian health.
www.naturalsequencefarming.com
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