Decades of Success in Australia

The link below goes to a good video. In the description of the video (which you can see here), it says:

A study commissioned by the Federal Department of Environment found that regenerative management practices "have the potential to increase the health of Australia's grassy woodlands and at the same time improve financial and farmer wellbeing".

Fifteen years ago, reeling from the effects of the Millennium drought, Charlie Arnott attended a workshop on regenerative agriculture that radically changed the way he farmed and, he believes, saved his life.

He had been farming conventionally using pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, but the course taught him how to partner with nature instead of trying to control it.

It has turned around his farm's capacity to deal with drought and he currently has plenty of water and grass for his livestock even as the drought intensifies.

"We haven't fed for 15 years [because] we measure how much grass we have, we know how many animals we have to eat that grass and a very simple calculation gives us the amount of time that that grass is available before it runs out," Mr Arnott said.

Another farmer in Boorowa, David Marsh, began his journey into regenerative agriculture in the 1980s, after a drought brought him to the edge of ruin.

"In that time you couldn't give sheep away and I promised I wouldn't do that again."

He began adopting regenerative practices in 1999, increasing the amount of native vegetation and tree coverage on his property from just 3 per cent to 20 per cent.

He believes trees and native grasses are fundamentally important to farming because they capture carbon from the atmosphere and their deep-rooted systems recycle nutrients from the soil.

The other key change he made was to switch from a "set stocking" rate to planning grazing according to what the landscape could support.

He has a mob of more than 300 cattle, many with calves at foot, and he grazes them in small areas, leaving most of the farm free of animals so it can recover.

"We've got over 100 paddocks and [the cattle] are gradually moving around the place through all those paddocks.

If conditions are dry he destocks.

"I guess in the past, we were trying to run fixed enterprises in an incredibly variable climate and you can do that, but a lot of the time you're going to be spending a lot of money [on feed]," Mr Marsh said.

Like Charlie Arnott he matches his livestock numbers to the amount of feed he has.

Read the whole thing here, see great before and after pictures, and watch the video: Regenerative agriculture finds solid backing as decades of success show renewal.