2 April 2009

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke
Agroforesters, Andrew and Jill Stewart

Yan Yan Gurt West, near Deans Marsh, Victoria

TONY BURKE: G’day, it’s Tony. I’m in Victoria at the moment—out at Deans Marsh—and here with Andrew and Jill Stewart. And what we’ve been looking at today is agroforestry. Where what they’ve done on the property here is transfer—I think it’s 15 per cent, is that right?

ANDREW STEWART: Yeah.

TONY: 15 per cent of the land to forestry on the grazing land here. But in doing so you actually haven’t given up a single paddock?

ANDREW: Correct.

TONY: How have you done it, and how long have you been working on it?

ANDREW: Well, we’ve been working on this since about 1992, I think, after doing a whole farm plan. So we’ve basically classed it as multi-purpose revegetation. So we’ve fixed up on the biodiversity. We’ve got—in this creek you can see behind us here—40 different species in here to hold the landscape together, but on the outside of that we’ve got agroforestry protecting those plantings so we can develop those trees into high-value products. And we’ve done it along land class boundaries—the farm’s been subdivided into its land classes and it has been revegetated along those land class boundaries and also riparian zones like we are in here, and also drainage lines, and addressing salting issues, water logging issues, lack of biodiversity and bringing the ecology back in. It’s all those things melded into a plan which has not reduced our stocking rate, but given us all these other advantages. And the aesthetics are far better too, and we really enjoy far more working on the landscape when it’s structured like this.

TONY: Okay, so you’ve gone beyond what the community regard as the normal landcare work into a way that doesn’t just improve the productivity of the property, but creates a direct resource with what you’ve planted.

JILL STEWART: Mmm—that’s right, yeah. We’re looking for multiple benefits, so that rather than just planting for one reason, it’s almost like the permaculture principles where if you plant something its got to have more than one use. So, we’re finding that this property is providing all those multiple benefits. So, with it, if we don’t get an end product, that’s not really going to worry us all that much because of all the multiple benefits we’ve had along the way.

TONY: What sort of benefits are those?

JILL: Well, being a much nicer place to work and live in is certainly one of them and—

ANDREW: A lot more birds.

JILL: A lot more birds—a lot more biodiversity, you know. We’ve had a guy coming and doing bird counts for probably over 10 years now, and when he first came he recorded a very minimal amount of species of birds that were here, and now he’s up to well over a hundred species—and that’s since we’ve put all the trees in. So it’s made really quite a big difference, and at the next stage that we’re looking at is actually putting some nesting boxes in ‘cause the trees aren’t quite old enough to have hollows—

TONY: Right, yeah

JILL: —so we’ll put a few nesting boxes in to try and introduce some of those smaller mammals like sugar gliders and things like that.

TONY: And so any changes for your pasture itself, or for your stock?

JILL: Yeah.

ANDREW: Well, with the pasture, there’s certainly a competition zone, but further out there’s usually a greater productivity area as well. But I think one of the biggest advantages is for our lambing ewes—when we get the young lambs, they’re well-protected from the harsh winter we get here—and that’s a big advantage in terms of the farm productivity. But also, we’re pretty keen on the integrated pest management idea where we can use this harbour of native vegetation to have beneficial insects there ready to work as an army for us. There’s a lot of interesting research going on in this area at the moment, and we’re sort of picking up on the ideas on what sort of species might complement those programs.

TONY: That’s fantastic. Well, thanks for having me out here. All the very best.

ANDREW: Yeah.

JILL: It’s been a pleasure.

TONY: How have you gone with the take up of the neighbours?

ANDREW: Well the Yan Yan Gurt Creek revegetation project has had 12 landholders working on it, and that’s just about all the landholders that are involved along the creek.

TONY: So it’s been a real community thing the whole way?

JILL: Yeah.

ANDREW: Yeah, a community thing. The Otway agroforestry network has got quite a strong membership in this area and right throughout the Otways where we have about 200 members and we provide a peer-group mentoring program via this service, and going out it’s farmers helping farmers to lift the level of the debate and to get people to design plantations and multi-purpose forestry to suit their requirements so they can enjoy their life and have a sustainable farming system at the same time.

TONY: Andrew and Jill—thanks very much for having me here.

ANDREW: Good, thanks for that.

JILL: Thanks, Tony.