Profit and the squeeze on inputs

FOOD FOR THOUGHT conference speaker profile: Dave Bushell

• Third generation farmer and agronomist
• Temora NSW
• Organic mixed farm with wife Charina and family
• Cattle, sheep, no-till cropping

When Dave Bushell heard Australian pasture cropping pioneer Colin Seis speak about combining grazing and cropping in the same paddock by direct-seeding cereal crops into perennial native grasses 20 years ago, it opened his eyes to a new way of farming.

Dave grew up, studied and worked in the Riverina in Southern NSW, and in the early 90s as he was entering his agronomy career, most farming systems were a wheat-sheep-clover/lucerne rotation.

“Farmers would mechanically fallow a clover paddock in spring then leave it bare from October to March. If they got a storm they might have sown winter wheat for grazing.”

He says when the reserve price for wool dropped in the 90s and it was costing more to cart lambs than what farmers were getting at the saleyards, many went out of sheep and into 100% broadacre cropping.

Dave says with canola becoming easier to grow and establish – in a four or five-year period, farming systems went from wheat-sheep to wheat-canola, due to much improved profitability levels.

“Canola’s popularity increased due to getting a good return per hectare, then the following wheat crop was on average 30% higher yielding mainly due to cereal disease levels being reduced by the brassica bio-fumigation effect.

“This worked well for the initial years, but as fertility levels declined and herbicide resistance started to increase, all of a sudden profit levels declined substantially.

“Some farmers in higher yielding areas have managed to avoid this ‘squeeze’, mainly by increasing inputs to maintain higher yields.”

More-on agronomy

In a ‘more-on’ agronomy system there is a limit to how much more we can put on from both the soil’s sake and an economic point of view for the farmer.

“If you look at a conventional farming system, in 2022 many farmers did up to five fungicide applications in the year. One of the consequences of these high input systems is that we’re looking at multiple strains now of things like stripe rust, which was first seen in Australia in 1983.”

He says in the early 2000s, at the time VicNoTill formed, farmers were recognising the decline of their soils so some shifted to a minimum till, knife point system to keep more straw and improve their soil.

“The transition out of sheep at this time was again pretty rapid and by the early 2000s the adoption of no-till cropping with a knife point press wheel really exploded,” he says.

“Stubble retention also became more widespread as the ability of machinery to get crop through heavier stubble loads improved.

“The evolution of this system occurred when farmers like those in VicNoTill introduced disc seeding in a high residue system, keeping all that residue in the paddock and storing more water.

“This really opened people’s eyes to a more biological way of farming.”

His included, as this was around the time he met Colin Seis.

His own family farm had a long history of sparingly using herbicides, and it wasn’t difficult to follow Colin’s advice. Their beneficial natural grasses started returning, such as C4 summer grasses, they had good groundcover keeping the soil cool and they were adding biodiversity.

“We further reduced herbicides until we were using almost none at all, and we also found we weren’t needing a lot of fertiliser either.”

Three-year drought

A three-year drought from 2017, followed by rain that transformed the farm from dry and dusty to green in the space of a few weeks was the turning point away from a conventional system.

“When you get these long droughts, you start to really question your farming system.

“The final straw for me was when it rained in 2020 and we had grass and clover growing everywhere – the last thing I wanted to do was spray or plough it in,” he says.

“That’s when we took the plunge to start the process to organic, and as of this month the whole farm is fully certified.”

He says a growing number of farmers were trying to improve and do better, and farmers such as those in the VicNoTill network were particularly aware if they have healthy soil they will have healthy produce.

“At the end of the day we are growing food and if the soils we grow that food in are healthier and more nutrient rich, that will result in healthier and more nutritious food.”

No simple recipe

Dave says regardless of what type of farming system you’re transitioning to, you need to be sure it is profitable, resilient and flexible.

“There is no simple recipe that works, so you don’t need to be too dogmatic,” he says. “Don’t say you’ll never ever do a certain thing (such as burn or apply fungicides) because you may just have to.

“We get such weather extremes in Australia that if you say you’ll never do something, weather conditions might leave you with no choice.”

Dave says it was important for farmers to continually dig beneath the surface.

“I see conventional farming systems heading down a path that is not profitable for the farmer, let alone concerns I have for the damage it’s doing to the soil,” he says.

“When it comes to erosion or losing topsoil in a dust storm, we understand what’s going on because it’s easy to see visually. With our soil health, we don’t understand what’s going on unless we do a soil test and take a closer look.”

More data

Dave says for broader changes in the agricultural industry, he’d like to see farmers at the leading edge of innovation collect more data.

“This came up at a meeting of agronomists yesterday in a discussion around regenerative farming, and they were saying they wanted to see more data. They want to see if it’s profitable and sustainable.

“There’s an opportunity to be collecting more data as well as improving the testing of the nutritional value of the plants and animals coming out of these systems.”

He says the food industry was ‘massive’ yet unfortunately, farmers don’t share much of the glory despite farmers being the most essential part of that industry.

“Farmers in general, and I lump myself in that boat, are not good marketers, we produce a commodity and sell it in town.

“That’s nobody’s fault and I’m not pointing the finger. Farmers get busy mustering sheep, fixing fences and doing the farming – at the end of the day we don’t have a lot of time for marketing.”

He says there was an opportunity from farmers who are breaking away from conventional systems to be marketing their point of difference – the higher nutritional value of the food they are growing – and getting financially rewarded.

“I’m looking forward to some great discussions at the Food for Thought conference. I expect to see a lot of people inspired by the new ideas and knowledge gained from getting a large number of like-minded people together who are all striving for the same thing – to grow good food so we can all live healthier, more enriched lives.”