Looking back over ten years of collecting data from pasture-based dairy farmers, it is encouraging to see that there has been progress made with regards to improved sustainability. Two of the main goals of Trace & Save is to support farmers to farm in a more sustainable manner and to create evidence of progress where it is being made.
The reductions in emissions on the 20 pasture-based dairy farms over the past five years are an encouragement to any farm that would like to reduce their environmental impact. The most significant improvements have come from increased feed conversion efficiency, a higher proportion of pasture in the diet, and lower N fertiliser application rates.
The value of regenerative farming is the desire of farmers to reduce their environmental impact and align their practices with the services that are inherently part of all ecosystems. But this is not a new concept at all.
We have recently implemented a new assessment which assigns each farm participating with Trace & Save a sustainability status. The purpose of this status is not necessary to categorise each farm and say whether they are good or not. It is rather to identify where the farm is on their sustainability journey.
Soil fungi increase security, awareness, and knowledge for those connected to them. Any soil management action that results in the breakage of these connections, such as tillage and fungicides, destroys the entire nerve system of the soil thus isolating plants and soil organisms from each other.
The purpose of this business case is to investigate the association between the economic and environmental facets of sustainability related to milk production on dairy farms in South Africa.
Can we afford not to change when we look beyond the individual farm and look at the entire agricultural industry and the way food is produced? What will it cost environmentally, and long-term economically, if we do not change?
I encourage you to think about farming from a restorative versus destructive, rather than a livestock versus plant-based perspective.
South Africa has a population of around 59 million people. Of this population, there are only around 40 thousand commercial farmers. This means that each farming unit provides food for around 1475 people. Now that is a lot of mouths to feed!