CLIMATE READY FARMS FOR THE FUTURE Sassafras farmer Matthew Young is preparing his farm for the future. He gathers information, uses sustainable farming practices that maintain soil health, saves energy and diversifies his cropping enterprises. Matthew was a member of the Climate Ready Farming Leaders (CRFL) group that participated in a 3 year project run by Cradle Coast NRM, Serve-Ag and RMCG. CRFL helped farmers preparing for climate change through providing information and fostering skills required to adapt to change on farms.
CASE STUDY
Matthew joined the CRFL group because “Climate change is something that is happening whether you agree with everybody that we’re causing it or it’s just a cycle. It doesn’t really matter it’s still happening. The more information you can get the better it is to deal with it.” Through regular workshops, trials, bus trips and on ground monitoring activities farmers were exposed to different management options, business models and enterprises dealing with change. Farmers were subjected to new opportunities with a focus on climate, changing consumer’s preferences, developing new business ideas and sustainable farm practices. Through the group’s activities Matthew says he confirmed that “the practices we are putting in place are actually doing the soil good.” “We reduced all our diesel use just by going to one pass (cultivation), we use a quarter of the diesel we used to. By not doing three passes over the one paddock, we are doing it quicker and using less diesel, which is the way it usually works. It seems to be improving things (soil health) which is what we hope to do.” The group tours and discussions had an impact, “One (field visit) that I remember was variable water rate pivots. We are looking at putting a pivot in at some stage, we have very varied soil types and it is something that we can certainly look into getting into with what we want to do.” Prior to his involvement with the CRFL project Matthew saw a new cropping opportunity in growing Celeriac corms for the fresh market. This provided a good example for the others in the group to learn from. Matthew explained “We had been talking about doing some fresh market stuff.” (Tas Fresh) had a stand at Agfest and had these funny looking bulbs and they said ‘you should grow it’. And I had to ask, what is it? It was Celeriac. So then we gave it a go and it has grown from there.”
“..they had a stand at Agfest and had these funny looking bulbs and they said ‘you should grow it’. And I had to ask, what is it? It was Celeriac. So then we gave it a go and it has grown from there…”
“We started off with 1,500 cormes and now have 15,000 which equates to about half a hectare. Out of 15,000 cormes you probably get 14,000 saleable items out of it. So we get a good return for it.” The celeriac is planted using a transplanter and then harvested and washed by hand during the months of April to August. Celeraic is graded according to size with larger ones sold to restaurants, mediums to Melbourne Market and smalls to local fresh markets. “People won’t buy big ones as they don’t know what it is. They are more inclined to try something the size of a tennis ball than the size of a softball or basket ball.” Matthew has future plans to expand his Celeriac crop and this year will try new ways of marketing the bulbs through packaging them in boxes of 10 .
Matthew Young in his Celeriac crop