Innovative farmers in the Herbert : Environmental protection agency project final report

Abstract

Farming systems innovation has been taking place in the Herbert region since the early days of the sugar industry. During the 1960s and 1970s a complete change in the farming system took place with the introduction of green-cane trash blanketing. From the 1990s the greatest change taking place is the tackling of yield-decline issues, based on improvements to soil health using a whole-farm system centred on reduced tillage, legume fallows and controlled traffic. This project was developed to create a 'snapshot' of three different groups of growers at varying stages of implementation of the whole-farm system. It was considered that this would aid the adoption process through peer learning and group extension processes.