Collaboration pays off

The Grenfell team focuses on agricultural production, improving natural resources and connecting with the community. It includes livestock advisory officer David Trengove; natural resource management specialists Dominic Nowlan and Stephen Pereira; regional Landcare facilitator Tamara Harris, and Landcare co-ordinator Mikla Lewis.

We provide land managers and the community with information and skills to enhance and protect their land. Staff work with landholders to ensure the land is sustainable for future generations while maximising productivity.

Soil health continues to be important, as well as giving land managers access to technology to improve on-farm profitability. 

We form partnerships with industry groups, agribusiness and educational institutes to deliver information locally. Our goal is to ensure there is access locally to emerging land and stock management knowledge, technology and industry requirements. We will continue to work with Landcare and producer groups to enhance networks and strengthen their capacity to deliver on-ground results. By working together we can address current natural resource issues and address threats at a wider level to reap long-term environmental benefits.

LLS has a focus on communities, with local staff working directly with land managers to encourage practice change for positive environmental outcomes, while providing advice that supports producers to boost productivity and ensure long-term sustainability. 

As practice change and innovative technologies are adopted, farming systems will be better equipped to manage variability in seasonal conditions and the economy. The increased market demand for traceability of food and fibre products presents opportunities and challenges for producers.

While many enterprises are expanding, technology helps land managers measure and manage operations at a much smaller scale. They can gain access to data on units and control equipment from mobile phones, allowing them to respond quickly to changes in conditions and markets. In this region, there is a move from cropping dominance to livestock in mixed farming zones. The replacement of infrastructure to adapt to change is costly and we are looking to bring new technologies to landholders to help them transition.

Soil health is a key driver to a successful enterprise and underpins a large portion of symptoms – habitat decline, combined with increasing climate variability and the challenges of controlling pests and weeds.

On-farm management practices can alleviate the pressure of some issues. LLS supports land managers so they can keep up with industry changes and work collaboratively to address regional issues.

Our staff can provide advice on how to balance the needs of the property and we encourage groups of landholders to co-ordinate approaches to pest and weed management. Our approach to forming pest and weeds committees in each region demonstrates our commitment to collaborating with interested parties and working on a larger scale to effect change regionally. These committees will help guide works to target priority species.

We focus on partnerships that bring interested parties together. We work with industry bodies and agencies to look at the big picture.

In this way, we can achieve landscape-scale change and align the funding partners with the interest groups. Clearly identifying local and regional priorities, and the relevant stakeholders to those, allows for joint delivery of programs where applicable. This allows for a more efficient approach to meeting community needs and is appealing for investors to see a unified approach to regional service delivery.

We also bring experts into communities to address local issues – these may be our own staff or outside specialists who can give guidance on specific issues.

There has been significant engagement in the management of pest animals, particularly foxes, rabbits and pigs, and landholders can seek advice from our biosecurity officers.

As the season remains dry for much of the region, landholders looking to supplementary feed are asked to refresh their knowledge on feed options to ensure that they don’t inflame any adverse animal health issues.

The Soil Pits and Kits project has helped land managers focus on the capability of their land by monitoring changes in variability. This project has achieved great results locally and gives people the tools to make their own decisions.

We continue to work with Weddin Community Native Nursery which specialises in seed collection and propagation of local and indigenous flora.