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Equilibrium Farming

 The Freeranger Farm has a totally sustainable approach to the way we  operate and we often refer to it as Equilibrium Farming.

Over millions of years a wide variety of life forms and processes have evolved on the earth. We haven't yet discovered  them all and some will inevitably disappear before we know what they are. We  certainly don't understand them but we humans have developed an agricultural and  industrial system which takes little notice of the balance generated by nature.  We are control freaks, determined to develop ever-more complex equipment and  processes which ignore our natural environment and try to change it.

As a species, we  produce farm products which require unsustainably high volumes of fresh water,  whilst ignoring the methods which nature developed to maintain biodiversity. Is  it any wonder that many people are becoming increasingly concerned about our  impact on climate change? We seem to have a great need to build machines which  rely on the continuity of resources designed to maintain the economic  imperative. Of course there are plenty of politicians (and others) who don't  accept the effect we are having. They (like tobacco company executives arguing  that there was no link between smoking and lung
cancer) insist that global  warming is just a cycle and there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps they  are right! But perhaps not. Are we all prepared to risk irreversible damage to  our atmosphere, our soils and our waterways? We believe that Equilibrium Farming  is the way to go - minimum inputs, reduced costs and simple production methods  will ensure that a farm can operate sustainably for  generations.

Chemical Farming 

Industrialisation  has allowed our civilisation to develop artificial farming techniques. We are  now able to take almost any landscape, destroy what is there and turn it into  what we see as important – if we are too dumb to think about the consequences.  The deliberate destruction of forests, grasslands and even swamps is just  mind-boggling. But we have done it and we are still doing it. We see fertile  areas and systematically remove all vestiges of plant and animal life before  ploughing the ground, without any thought for the consequences of destroying the  microflora and microfauna in the soil. 

It's all done in the name of  progress – and creating an agricultural monoculture. We replace native species  with exotics in the belief that they will perform 'better' (or at least will put  more dollars in our pockets).
Monocultures often thrive in the short term. It  doesn't make much difference if its wheat, potatoes, grapes, olives or just rye  grass and clover, the traditional outputs don't keep pace with population  growth, and we chase ways  to maximise production. This usually means dumping  truckloads (or plane loads)  of synthetic fertilisers to boost production.  Insecticides and herbicides are  spread like confetti to try to stop all the  little bugs and things from spoiling our fun. There's no doubt it works and  makes farmers and governments heaps of money (for a while). But it all comes  crashing down when the reality hits that you can't keep doing  this!

Agriculture driven by chemical inputs increases short term  productivity and nutritional levels to unprecedented heights but the cost is the  destruction of our soils.

Our farming practices mean that throughout the  world, we use more water than falls naturally as rainfall.

The area of  soils which is productive is gradually reducing every year while the population  increases exponentially.

In Australia, we have one of the world’s most  difficult agricultural environments – semi-arid in most parts, shallow topsoils,  low nutrient levels and high salinity levels in subterranean soils. In the first 200 years of European settlement, Australians reduced the fertility of much of the landscape by inappropriate farming practices, increased soil and water  salinity to near catastrophic levels and reduced biodiversity.

The levels  of carbon in soils was once measured in thousands of years, but apparently now  span only 2 to 3 years – a testament to the decreasing levels of  life in  soils.

It has been shown that chemical fertilisers harm and kill plant  micro-organisms, thus eliminating the possibility of natural nutrient cycling.  Combined with the application of pesticides and herbicides in an irrigated  monocultural environment, the chemicals are aiding the desertification and  salinisation of productive lands.

Erosion effects – the elimination of  natural flora (not to mention the microflora) has caused enormous damage to the  structure of Australian soils. Together with wholesale tilling, our soils are  routinely badly eroded, to the point where a major rain season (or high winds in  a dry season) may result in catastrophic removal of topsoil. Serious erosion can  be readily viewed in any dryland area of Australia  – ranging from minor to  extreme – and the problem is worsening with all major
attempts at redressing the  problem being largely ineffective.

Our complex political and economic  systems have developed so far that often our  balance of payments is in negative  territory (importing far more than we export).

A significant proportion  of that imbalance is the result of importing chemical fertilisers to feed our  naturally 'poor' soils. The fertilisers, while allowing for profitable crops in  the short term, are contributing to the acidification and salinisation of our  soils. Their use produces excess levels of soluble nutrients in soil - which has  two effects, increased nutrient stored in subsoils, and increased nutrient loads  in waterways. The former is just a waste, the latter is the cause of untold pollution of waterways in a world with an increasing freshwater deficit.

What's the cost to human health?

While we are feeding an unprecedented number of people, there are still significant shortcomings. Ours may be the only generation in recorded human history to not live longer than our parents – a testament to the falling food values of our 
diet, overeating and obesity-related illnesses in some parts of the world, and malnutrition, starvation in others. How did we get it so  wrong?

The natural process

There are no chemical fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides in nature.

Organic wastes in natural forests fall to the ground where they are consumed by a plethora of micro-organisms. No-one has gone close to calculating how many species exist today, let alone what existed before human intervention, but some estimate them to be in the millions.

In a complex and poorly understood web, these species interact with each other and one organism’s byproduct is another’s
food.  From the competitive melange that makes up our soils, nutrients and energy are  constantly and sustainably returned to so-called higher plants where the process  of capturing the sunlight and gases from the atmosphere results in even more  life – a perfectly sustainable ecosystem, with increasing biomass.
Compare this  to our man-made system in which biodiversity and biomass are spiralling  ever-downwards. Unfortunately our intervention is growing - the clamour for  clearing understorey in our native forests in the name of  'fire control' will  lead to even greater decline.

There have been numerous studies of  practical farming techniques utilising natural systems and it has been  demonstrated that the elimination of chemical fertilisers, reductions in the use  of pesticides and herbicides, show little or no loss in productivity.
The net  result – which should be relished by farmers – is that profitability can go up,  not down, by using these natural methods. Unfortunately most will keep doing  what they have always done. And eventually go broke!

There are no  irrigation channels in the natural Australian landscape. Instead, there are  chains of ponds – swamps and wetlands, sometimes covering hundreds of square  miles – connected only during floods by intermittent streams. Water is
retained  in the landscape and does not flow 'unused' to the ocean. Plant and animal forms  have adapted to this natural sequence, and thrive in what often appears as a  barren and inhospitable landscape. As plant biomass increases, the flow of water  is slowed, causing water levels in the swamplands to increase, thus providing  more opportunity to grow more plants – and on goes the cycle.
The result – increased biomass, and increased biodiversity.

In nature, waste is always  re-used locally. Everything is inter or co-dependent, and synergies abound.  Plants and animals don't live in isolation, instead they are part of complex,  diverse and inter-related communities. Monocultures seldom
exist, and  by-products are processed then consumed where they fall.

An organism's  by-products are exuded in a way to maximise the benefit to the organism. Plants,  for example, exude simple sugars from their roots to eliminate their “wastes” - and micro-organisms convert these sugars into water soluble nutrients which are  then used by the plant.

Everything is cycled and re-used in an upward  spiral – increasing biomass and biodiversity. Nothing  goes unused.

We are  not as smart. In our industrial, chemical model, we create foods and other  products, transport them vast distances to markets, in order to participate in a  'market economy'. Then we deal with our waste as a separate commodity, not part  of our production cycle. What a con!

More  info on Sustainability, Deep  Ecology, Brittle Landscapes and heaps more can be
found on the Freeranger Club downloads page
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