Aclimateforchange

huge benefit in adapting his business in response to changing weather patterns.

He has planted 20,000 trees such as Chinchilla white gums and tipuanas on the 607ha farm that he and his wife Cheryl have owned for 38 years.

his buggy.

The birds play a vital role in natural insect control with sandflies and mosquito numbers exploding after floods.

David Vonhoff knows that talking about climate change is about as popular as discussing the trio of taboo topics: sex, politics and religion, but this knowledge doesn’t stop him from doing so.

He delights in defying the stereotype of the old farmer who buries his head in the sand when it comes to changes in the weather patterns.

But David describes these changes as climate destruction rather than climate change.

“Australia’s always been a land of flooding rains and bushfires, but what used to be extremes are now happening more frequently, they’re more intense and they’re lasting much longer,” he says.

He points to the heavy rains which fell in the far north of South Australia in late June, forcing the closure of the Birdsville Track and leaving travellers en route to Birdsville for the Big Red Bash stranded at Mungerannie

Closer to home, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) recorded that Queensland experienced the warmest June on record since 1910 with some of BOM’s data collecting locations also recording the warmest June night on record since 1910.

But while there is plenty of discussion when it comes to change in the climate and weather patterns, this is not matched by practical, on the ground action to help Australia meet its target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

And according to critics, agriculture is one of the main offenders.

While David disagrees with this dire assessment of agriculture’s contribution to emissions, he sees a

This mammoth effort was achieved with the support of Landcare and its volunteers as well as some Work for the Dole participants and prisoners from a jail which used to be nearby.

While the trees were planted to redress salinity and water run-off, they’ve also provided an unexpected but significant economic boost to the Vonhoffs.

The shade they provide for their mainly Australian Illawarra herd during the summer reduces cow stress which can have a negative influence on milk production.

This “cow comfort” increases each cow’s milk production by up two litres a day with each of their 200 cows averaging between 6000 to 7000 litres of milk a year.

“This lift in production is worth about $56,000 a year to us,” David says.

The Vonhoffs supply Dairy Farmers with more than 1.3 million litres of milk each year.

The trees are also home to numerous birds which I can hear as David drives me around the farm on

But it’s not just trees which have helped David deal with the changes he has observed since he was a child, grasses such as buffel grass and crops like lucerne are also key to his management strategies.

They slow water flow down during heavy rainfall which in turn minimises erosion, something which has plagued the farm’s hillsides.

On the flatter country, David has built a lot of “leaky weirs” using grasses, old tree trunks and even cars across the farm.

The “leaky weir” is a key concept in the Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) method developed by Peter Andrews which is now taught by his son Stuart Andrews to help farmers rehabilitate eroded farming country.

NSF’s key tenets are hydrology, soil fertility and biodiversity.

A “leaky weir” is engineered to slow water flow by creating blockages in water courses and gullies which allows sediment build-up where grasses can grow and naturally filter the water to clean it.

David uses the leaky weirs to not only slow water flow down but to ensure he uses all the rain he gets.

“When I was a boy, people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would tell them I was going to be a farmer or a gardener. amount of carbon back into the soil which allowed for better water retention and produced a luscious, high protein crop which the herd grazed multiple times.

“Well it turns out I’m a farmer, but my garden starts at the front gate and extends out across my whole farm,” he says with a smile as he stands atop a hill surveying the landscape.

As part of his regenerative farming approach, David has shifted from growing oats and forage sorghums alone to multi species crops which are a mix of vetch, oats, barley, peas and brassicas.

They utilised all the extra rain received in winter 2022, preventing waterlogging which occurred in other paddocks which didn’t have multispecies crops.

The multispecies also converted nitrogen in the air to bioavailable nitrogen to help the plants grow, cutting out the need for nitrogen reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

David has also explored other ways to reduce cows’ methane emissions with his herd used in a study which added activated carbon, better known as charcoal, to their feed to help them digest their food better and in turn, reduced their methane emissions.

Charcoal has long been used to treat poisoning but its proponents also claim it can alleviate gas and bloating by absorbing excess flatulence.

Dr Les Bowtell, a senior lecturer in

University of Southern Queensland conducted the 12 month-long study and found adding the activated carbon to the cows’ pellets led to a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in their methane emissions.

David notes the irony in working so hard to reduce his farm’s footprint while New Hope’s Stage 3 expansion at its controversial New Acland Coal Mine was approved last August, something he believes will only increase emissions.

He and Cheryl have been involved in the ongoing legal challenges to the expansion because they fear it could affect the underground water supply they rely on.

““It’s a very frustrating process, but I’m doing as much as I can to adapt our farm to the changing weather so that my son and daughter-in-law have a viable business to take over,” David says.

“I’ve been fortunate to have other farmers like my neighbour, Sid Plant, help me learn along the way and I will always advocate to help other farmers do the same.

“It may not make me the most popular person around, but I will keep on doing it because I worry about what the country will look like