CHARLES MASSY

Corporate Investment In Trees

Charles Massy, regenerative farming advocate, author and fifth generation farmer has planted over 60,000 trees since the 1980's on his sheep farm outside of Cooma, NSW, transforming it in the process.

Made famous with his groundbreaking 2011 book, Breaking the Sheep’s Back, more recently he published a new book which outlines his now successful regenerative, ecological mission.

Keen to hit ESG targets and make a tangible difference, many big name corporations – and individuals – are behind other tree planting and reforestation programs. Australian dairy and grocery producer, Bega Group, has been encouraging dairy farmers to move to sustainable practices, including funding tree planting on farms, since 2014. At last year’s COP27, food giant Nestlé announced that, as a part of a global program, it will plant 10 million trees in Australia by 2025.

CALL OF T HE

REED WARBLER: A NEW AGRICULTURE

– A NEW EA RTH

by Charles Massy

Nestlé entered into a 28-year partnership with tree-planting organisations Greening Australia, One Tree Planted and Canopy, to ensure that the carefully chosen biodiverse mix of native plant species will be maintained and cared for as they grow.

At the time of the announcement, Nestlé Oceania CEO Sandra Martinez said: “Our long-term commitment is about more than just planting trees. The reforestation program works to conserve local biodiversity, and advance regenerative food and farming systems – delivering environmental and economic benefits to communities.”

Governments Encourage Tree Growth

In 2020, the World Economic Forum launched One Trillion Trees, which aims to mobilise a global movement to conserve, restore and grow one trillion trees globally by 2030.

Federal, state and local governments across Australia have similarly announced many tree planting initiatives over recent years, not all of which have been fully realised due to issues including bushfires.

The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, with assistance from Landcare, is behind The 20 Million Trees Program, initiated in 2014 to re-establish green corridors, urban forests and threatened ecological communities.

In mid-2021, a review found the program had regenerated over 30,000 hectares establishing 29,508,062 trees of over two metres.

Get Planting

Data shows that over half of Australia’s land is agricultural, so farmers have a critical role to play when it comes to environmental management.

There are many grants available to encourage agroforestry and biodiversity by supporting farmers to plant trees. These range from those encouraging the regeneration of native ecosystems to more economically minded forestry initiatives with the potential to provide an additional income stream.

In 2022, the federal Clean Energy Regulator invited farmers to get involved in its Environmental Plantings Pilot, by establishing a tree planting project and selling Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) to the Australian Government. There are also several pilots underway across the country, from Queensland to South Australia, through the Australian Government’s Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship

Package, which encourages private investment in biodiversity and other sustainability opportunities.

Niche organisations such as Bee Friendly Farming also offer tree grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to farmers across the country.

Schemes also exist to connect landowners with trees or tree planting organisations. The University of Melbourne’s Trees on Farms is an online portal connecting landowners with investors to grow timber, carbon or increase biodiversity on their property, for conservation or for profit. And other local organisations, including the Otway Agroforestry Network in Victoria, are helping farmers in a particular region embrace the benefits of increasing tree cover on farms.

There are also forestry initiatives, like the Farm Forestry Assist Grants that are available for Western Australian farmers to plant radiata pine.

NEEDING TO REPLACE THAT FENCE… AGAIN?

Dreaming of having a fence that lasts a lifetime? There is one cost producers would rather avoid and that’s redoing a fence because it’s rusted out or rotting away. If you’re tired of redoing fence lines because the steel simply rusts out after a few years, then EnduraPost has the perfect solution for you No matter what type of soil or land you manage (salty, acidic, alkaline, swampy, wet, dry, rocky, sandy, red, or black soil) you won’t be disappointed in their square pickets or droppers

This rusty old star picket is no longer supporting the fence, rather the wire is just holding it together for now at least!

Another problem with rusted out steel pickets is the corrosive damage they cause to the wire.

Whether its four or 54 years, the EnduraPost square picket will never rust out It’s better for the longevity of the wire too, meaning it won’t rust out when it vibrates against the picket The galvanized coating on the wire will be protected for many more years

Millions of new steel pickets are used every year to replace rusted out steel pickets. Why solve a problem with a problem? Build a fence using EnduraPost Square Pickets and you may never need to replace it again!

“Our pickets provide a solution to an ongoing, frustrating and expensive problem that so many farmers experience” says Matt Oliver from EnduraPost. “ The fact that our products won’t rust or rot away are just two of the amazing benefits to these great Aussie inventions”

The EnduraPost pickets and droppers are a superior and environmentally sustainable alternative to timber or steel products They are made locally by an award-winning Australian company called Plastic Forests

The manufacture process uses HDPP plastic recycled from reclaimed woven polypropylene fertilizer bulka bags and animal feed bags.

“We all want to play our part in recycling and creating a circular economy but you’re not really recycling until you buy recycled”

David Hodge MD of Plastic Forests

These solid square pickets have a huge number of benefits. They’re waterproof and insulated making them perfect for electric fencing, thus eliminating the cost of insulators. As many hot wires as needed can be run through them without any extra cost. A common belief is because these pickets are plastic, they’ll go soft in the heat or burn easily. This isn’t the case as they’re made using the toughest soft plastic available and are formulated during manufacture to increase strength and durability. Additional benefits are they’re termite-proof and won’t rot away like timber can

They’re UV treated and have passed the longest accelerated UV test of 50 years.

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They have been put to the test against heat and fire and can withstand up to 350⁰C , adequate protection against most grass fires.

Matt says “My brother Dave and I saw these products last year after they had been in development for two years and we knew straight away that we had to get them to hard-working farmers and producers across Australia We grew up and still work on the land, experiencing firsthand the frustration and everincreasing cost of fencing. Alot of producers ask us ‘ Where were these?’ when they had to replace that 10-year-old fence a few years back. Some Producers with wet or salty soil types are telling us that the galvanized steel pickets are only lasting for five years Timber droppers and stakes are also becoming very difficult to find, so we believe we have a real solution for that problem too. Think of it as an investment for the future that’s also dealing with our plastic waste in the right way. Square pickets are also great as reusable stakes for tomato production and tree planting.

We are working across Australia to show our products at the many Ag shows. Please come and see u s as we’d love to have a chat and help solve a problem or two”

Stuart Austin came from a family of farmers but his parents tried to warn him off a life on the land. Since then, his love of farming and entrepreneurial nature have combined to deliver a satisfying career in agriculture.

How did you become involved in farming?

I used to spend every holiday on my grandparents’ farm in the Upper Murray. Both my parents had grown up on farms and had seen some pretty ordinary times so they knew just how tough farming could be. They didn’t want that life for their son. However, when I left school I enrolled in a Rural Science degree at UNE in Armidale.

I didn’t actually get there, because I went jackarooing in the Northern Territory and I loved it. I loved the work. I loved being up North. I loved everything about it. I briefly tried something different by working on a roadworks crew and I even went on a working holiday to Canada. But I soon found myself working on farms and ranches over there too. I couldn’t stay away.

While I was in Canada I started an agricultural recruitment company, which became quite successful but changes to the visa process in Australia in 2013 virtually killed the business here overnight.

Did you eventually end up going back to tertiary study?

Each year my mother would send me the university enrolment forms to try and get me to go back to fulltime study. I was 28 when I relented and enrolled in Agribusiness at Marcus Oldham College.

I was actually really lucky doing my degree as a mature age student because I could see how my experience working on farms and in my own businesses all fitted together.

What did you do when you finished studying?

I really wanted to get back to managing farms so I went back to the Northern Territory, to join my now wife Trish, and I worked as a station manager for Charles Sturt University, while she worked in extension for the DPI. We also started another successful business together, this time a beef bull breeding business.

The next turning point in my career came when I enrolled in RCS Australia’s ‘Grazing for Profit’ (GFP) course. It’s a weeklong course, which is run around the country, and it promises to improve the health of your land, improve the relationships in your business and increase the resilience of your operation.

I was fortunate insofar as I’d been exposed to other producers who’d studied GFP and I really looked up to them. These were guys who had their houses in order. They were financially stable and they could afford to do things like taking holidays. They weren’t always out just having to chase a dollar.

You and Trish now work as General Manager and Group Business Analyst at Wilmot Cattle Co, who are innovators in farming and have a strong ecological focus. How did that happen?

We were recruited to run Wilmot’s beef producing property in the NSW New England area in 2016. We could see right away their values aligned with ours. The family who owns Wilmot have been very supportive of everything we’ve done and they have a strong growth mindset.

A couple of years in, we sat down together and worked out a strategic approach to shore up the business and reduce risk. We agreed that we needed to expand our operations and I oversaw Wilmot’s expansion, which now includes four separate farms in the New England Tablelands.

Moving stock around is crucial to the way Wilmot operates. Can you tell us about how that works?

To place less strain on the land and the cattle’s food supply, we have large herds that graze on a small area for a short period of time before moving on. Our herds might not come back to the same patch for 30-to-40 days or even up to 90 days in winter. This gives the pasture the opportunity to fully recover.

By doing this, we’re really mimicking mother nature. If you look at buffalos and other herds, this is how they graze. We have more financial accountability than most farming businesses and ultimately we’re here to make a profit.

There are strong ecological foundations for this approach but there is also a strong business case for it. Because we don’t have to continually buy fertiliser, the cost of inputs into our business has fallen dramatically. We don’t have to produce as much to make the same profit and that also mitigates risk.

Can you explain the role data plays in the business too?

We rely heavily on data to make smarter business decisions. We’ve automated our data collection so that we’re always aware of six factors: rainfall, soil condition, grass, cattle, our cash levels and the market. This goes into determining all of our decisions, such as when to restock, how many head of cattle we can support, and when to sell.

Ultimately, farms are multi-million dollar businesses and if you look at other multi-million dollar businesses outside of agriculture, most operate this way. The thing is, anyone can manage the way we do, making the transition from more conventional methods is not as expensive as most think.

With farming, there are always going to be things you can manage and things you can’t. What data gives us is the power to focus on and manage what we can control.

What GFP taught me is not to stress over the rainfall or the market because there’s nothing we can do to influence them. Just focus on what you can manage.

Find out more at wilmotcattleco.com.au.

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