Topic: Farming

The Importance of Producing Nutrient Dense Foods and the Value to the Grower and the Consumer – Part 2

The hand-held Brix meter was originally designed for farmers to measure nutrient levels of their produce and when to harvest crops. This precision ins…

The Importance of Producing Nutrient Dense Foods and the Value to the Grower and the Consumer – Part 1

A handy tool that every farmer interested in nutrient density and maximising production and quality is the refractometer, also known as a brix meter. …

Weeds As Messengers – Part 4

This is a big subject, where we are just starting to experiment. Specific weeds come up for specific crops. For example in potatoes, Apple of Peru (Ni…

Weeds As Messengers – Part 3

If land is left uncovered due to land clearing or drought, certain weed species will rush in to cover the land. If it has had bush cleared then you wi…

Weeds As Messengers – Part 2

Often weeds are seen as a problem rather than beneficial to the land. Many weeds and herbs are known to be mineral accumulators and are very important…

Are You About to Use a Weedicide?

Important points to consider when choosing to use a chemical hopefully as a last resort. Last week I was speaking with a farmer who was farming withou…

The Brain is Involved in Everything You Do – How You Think, Feel, Act

No matter who you are you work better when your brain works better. The brain is involved in everything you do – how you think, feel, act. The brai…

Grazing Management is Another Tool for Maintaining Soil Nutrients

Grazing management is another tool for maintaining soil nutrients is managing the landscape with livestock. Managing grazing can increase the health o…

Nitrogen is Elemental to Life – Part 4

All growers should grow or capture their own nitrogen. When you capture your own nitrogen you save your time, your money, your soil and ultimately the…

Nitrogen is Elemental to Life – Part 3

Nitrogen is vital for plants growth in the formation of proteins which is in turn vital to much of living matter. Since science started to get involve…

Nitrogen is Elemental to Life – Part 2

Nitrogen is elemental to life. It's the essential building block of the plants we eat. Farmers remove it from the soil when they harvest the year's cr…

Nitrogen is Elemental to Life – Part 1

Nitrogen is elemental to life. It's the essential building block of the plants we eat. Farmers remove it from the soil when they harvest the year's cr…

Regenerative Agriculture as Practiced at Rodale Farm

Regenerative Agriculture as practiced at Rodale Farm is Productive, Competitive and Sustainable. Nearly 30 years of trialling organic v conventional f…

Future Farming: Productive, Competitive and Sustainable

In addition to enhancing water-holding capacity, high organic matter (carbon) performs many other functions in soil, including the maintenance of soil…

Future Farming: Productive, Competitive and Sustainable

In addition to enhancing water-holding capacity, high organic matter (carbon) performs many other functions in soil, including the maintenance of soil…

Future Farming: Productive, Competitive and Sustainable.

What is it going to take for the support to shift from industrial farming to regenerative farming where Mother Nature is allowed to do her work? And h…

Future Farming: Productive, Competitive and Sustainable

According to research billions of dollars are being spent on fertilizers in industrial farming systems. The result is that in last 60 years farmers ar…

‘Australia is in danger of becoming a country of modern-day serfs working for a foreign landlord’ Bob Katter*

Farmers forever tenaciously confident in this industry's future came to realize the reality that the government cancer of market-ism - a disease carri…

Are You Immune to “Herd Thinking”?

Are you one of the early adopters or what some might term ‘a renegade’ in your farming community? Do you wonder why other farmers are still farmin…

The Importance of Creating a Resilient Farm

The opposite to resilience is to be vulnerable which in essence means open to attack at all levels! And when we are under attack we respond - sometime…

GRAIN growers Tim and Julia Hausler – Growing Genetically Modified Canola – Part 2

We aim to control the ryegrass and other problem weeds by simply spraying one or two applications of glyphosate. The Hauslers acquired land that was s…

GRAIN growers Tim and Julia Hausler – Growing Genetically Modified Canola – Part 1

GRAIN growers Tim and Julia Hausler have a simple reason for growing genetically modified canola - it saves them money. "If the benefits were not ther…

Dr. Elaine Ingham put together a scientific paper, in ‘Crop Protection’ (scientific journal) – Part 3

The first step was tillage. That was what started the process of loss of the life, and conversion of your soil into an environment that can no longer …

Dr. Elaine Ingham put together a scientific paper, in ‘Crop Protection’ (scientific journal) – Part 3

Around 1980 Dr. Elaine Ingham* put together a scientific paper, in ‘Crop Protection’ (scientificjournal) that summarised the work published in the…

If Atrazine has such an impact on frogs what about people? Part 2

Atrazine at levels of 0.1 parts per billion turns on an enzyme in frogs (Aromastase) which converts testosterone hormones into estrogen effectively …

Dr.Tyrone B. Hayes* Conducts Research into the Herbicide Atrazine – Part 1

In 1998 Dr.Tyrone B.Hayes* was contacted by the company Novartis/Syngenta to conduct the research into the herbicide Atrazine. His research showed tha…

“Without healthy soil, we can’t grow our food, nourish our livestock, conserve water and resist the effects of drought, erosion and climate change.” Peter Holter, Holistic Management International (HMI)

Without healthy soil, we can't grow our food, nourish our livestock, conserve water and resist the effects of drought, erosion and climate change. In …

Plague Locust Control – Part 2

High summer and autumn rainfall this year has provided an ideal environment for locusts to breed and lay eggs extensively. Normally, each generation h…

Plague Locust Control on Organic Farms – Part 1

Across NSW a number of agencies including Industry & Investment NSW (I&I NSW), NSW Farmers Association, Livestock Health and Pest Authorities (LHPAs),…

Water And Its Circulation In Nature – Part 4

Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carri…

Water And Its Circulation In Nature Part 3

There are two water cycles - The large water cycle which is the exchange of water between ocean and land and the small water cycle which is a closed c…

Water And Its Circulation In Nature Part 2

We all rely on water to survive and prosper and yet it seems that water is becoming a scarce commodity in many parts of the world. Are we managing thi…

Water And Its Circulation In Nature Part 1

Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carri…

A Reflection On The Past

On helping a friend move his 93 year old aunt into care accommodation I gained the rare privilege of a small glimpse of her life. Auntie Tui had a gre…

The Real Story On Glyphosphate… Another Story That Hasn’t Reached The Daily Papers and Probably Never Will

In October 2009 France's highest court has ruled that Monsanto lied about the safety of its weed killing herbicide Roundup. The decision confirms an e…

“Corruption has become so endemic and intellectual integrity so compromised in pharmaceutical research that drug companies and their collaborators in government (and universities) can now get away with openfraud”. William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

Corruption has become so endemic and intellectual integrity so compromised in pharmaceutical research that drug companies and their collaborators in g…

The majority of farmers are against the introduction of genetically modified (GM) technology in WA so why was the ban to grow GM canola lifted?

The Copeland family have been farming at Mukinbudin for nearly a century and said they were disappointed by the decision. "Throughout WA, 27,000 peopl…

Farmers ought to be regarded as the most important people in our society as they are the food providers!

Yet it is alarming that an ex-politician, who has been reported to have intimate working knowledge of government human health issues, policies and pro…

Tailored Script Writing for the Journalist

Ploys big commercial interests use to convince farmers that they are on the right track when using their ‘quick fix’ farm remedy products. One is …

Authority Figures and Plausible Explanations Cannot Always be Trusted

More and more farmers are increasingly becoming uneasy as they see their position being continually eroded rather than supported. Let's look at what l…

Can Organic Farming Feed the World? Part 4

High input farming methods that produce low-cost food are fast becoming obsolete. The synthetic chemical fertilizers that produce quantity instead of …

Can Organic Farming Feed the World? Part 3

Our current world food production is more than sufficient to provide an adequate diet to all humans, yet more than 840 million people are suffering fr…

Can Organic Farming Feed the World? Part 2

With the recent meeting of world leaders at Copenhagen the debate over climate change inevitably included discussion of the ever growing population an…

Can Organic Farming Feed the World?

With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Bio…

Are you generally easily influenced by the “opinions” of others. Do you let the newspapers, farm journals and the “gossiping” neighbours do your “thinking” for you?

Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a load of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influe…

How valued in Western society is the farmer today?

Not very. The average consumer just goes to his local supermarket and picksup whatever he wants and has no idea who has grown it. It’s even packaged…

So What has Happened to Agriculture Over the Last Hundred Years?

Basically rural populations in industrial countries have diminished while the cities have flourished which in essence means that more and more people …

Agriculture has played a key role in the development of human civilisation and until the Industrial Revolution the vast majority of the human population was involved in agriculture.

Over thousands of years, agricultural techniques have steadily increased agricultural productivity during a time which we now call the Agrarian Revolu…

Social proof is massive when forming our opinions. Many farmers belong to small communities where we learn from others and the need to belong and fit in is very important.

Unfortunately it can also be very limiting. Most of us have all heard of the “100th monkey” story. If not here it is. Over 50 years ago on an isla…

Bread From Stones

Since Julius Hensel’s “Bread From Stones” thousands of books and research papers have been written yet the effect on agriculture has not been as…