THE FUTURE LIES BENEATH H
i my name is Stephen Nussio. Welcome to the first column on The Future Lies Beneath. For those who may not have read about me in last month's edition of The Mary Valley Voice, I'm a self taught soil and animal specialist with over 30 years experience in the dairy and beef cattle industry. My experience started as a 15 year old in South Australia. Since then I have worked in virtually every state of Australia, in different environments practicising regenerative concepts for most of my career. My father died of cancer at an early age and from that day I was convinced how we were farming was simply wrong. I strongly believe to this day that insecticides, herbicides and fungicides were the main contributor to his passing away. I remember as 15 year old spraying insecticide on the underside of the roof inside the piggery. It was dripping down all over us (no PPE gear) and I remember questioning my father on this: “Is it safe?” He said, “Well the rep said it won't hurt.” My word has the world has changed. Now with so much information at our hands we are fortunate we can educate ourselves to make better decisions. I am so stoked that my passion lies in agriculture. My bank statements prove how much I have spent on self education – I could have bought a house by now with what I've spent! One of the first books I read was by Andre Voison, Grass Productivity which helped me to understand how grass grows and what the optimum rest period is. However the different environments I worked in were so different that it didn't answer my questions on profitability and on regenerating the land. What's right Agricultural economics changed since that book was written 40 years with isn't always popular. What's inputs related to producing milk or beef not keeping up with the rising costs of popular isn't production. Producing hay or silage was becoming uneconomic. always right. There had to be a better way. - Howard Cosell After working for an animal nutrition company for 10 years as a nutritionist/ sales and marketing manager I was very fortunate to have met Professor Ron Leng, a well known prominent ruminant biochemist who also became my mentor. He was a mobile library! This nutritional knowledge allowed me to understand how grazing management impacted animal health. What I learnt from driving him around Australia for a number of years conducting seminars for farmers was simply invaluable. He taught me how to think, question, analyse, research and experiment. Now in his late 80's he will be a loss to Australian agriculture when the sad day comes. Today with Regenerative Ag becoming more widely known it's important to do your homework. There will be successes and there will be failures. Find the right people to help guide you and you will have more successes than failures. If you don't have any failures... you're not trying! Hundreds of books and teachings from Nature does special people overseas and locals like not hurry, yet Professor Ron Leng coupled with my practical observations have allowed me everything is to put together a new perspective where accomplished. nature is followed using low cost biological methods to improve profits to the maximum - Lao Tzu while improving the land the fastest.
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We love our Mary Valley Beautiful place to visit - Great place to live
Marg Cochrane
Cherie Carlson - SOLD125 Bergins Pocket Road, Kandanga Part of a multi-sale, we needed to secure buyers for 2 additional properties before we could mark this one as SOLD... Mission accomplished! Call our owners Marg & Cherie today to discuss your real estate goals!
Stephen 0427 609 454, advancerural@hotkey.net.au
The Mary Valley Voice
13 OCTOBER 2021 |
17
