Posts

Five benefits of multi-species pastures

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The benefits of multispecies pasture are not only limited to the benefits mentioned in this blog, they are far greater. I have isolated these ones because they are the most pertinent and directly relate to farm profitability.

Meet Rufus Dreyer: a dairy farmer, aviator and emerging photographer

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Having been in the dairy industry for just over 10 years, Rufus Dreyer is one of the early adopters of sustainable dairy farming practices in the area. He runs a farm just outside Humansdorp, close to Oyster Bay. Find out more about Rufus and his insights about dairy farming.

Farms are complex systems

The silver bullet illusion

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The unfortunate truth is that there are no silver bullets in farming. The agro-ecosystem is way too complex, with far too many interactions, to have a simple, single solution to challenges.

See your farm as a system

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Nutrients are brought into the farm through the farm gate, and nutrients are removed through the farm gate. The question that needs to be asked is, are there more nutrients brought into, or removed from the farm system?

Playing smart politics with your soil

Reading Time: 2 minutes

If farmers could challenge themselves and stop applying excessive nutrients in the form of fertiliser, especially N, and rather focus on building soil carbon, that would force the soil organisms to start working (mineralise organic matter) for their own nutrients.

Cattle grazing

Do you know how much food your cows require?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Our philosophy about sustainable agriculture is about limiting inputs from outside a farm system to what is strictly necessary. One of the inputs that is often over-imported, wastefully so, is feed.

Farm mineral balance

Using minerals efficiently: Tsitsikamma dairy farm case study

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A supply of nutrients and minerals to soils which is greater than the amount needed to maintain soil health and fertility actually endangers the soil and can negatively impact on surface and ground water sources.

Why carbon footprints on farms

Why carbon footprints on farms?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

What can farmers learn from a carbon footprint? Why do people want to know what a farms carbon footprint is? How is a carbon footprint even related to climate change? In the blog below I will attempt to answer these questions.

Spreading fertiliser

Are you wasting nutrients on your farm?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Many nutrients are wasted on dairy farms due to oversupply through inputs from fertilizers and feeds. A great deal of nutrients, and therefore money, can be saved by recording and monitoring what nutrients are removed from the farm and what nutrients are brought onto the farm.

Water use efficiency

Better water use efficiency can result in greater profitability

Reading Time: 2 minutes

By measuring water use efficiency farmers are made aware of where and how much water they are using on their farm. Through this process farmers can identify areas where efficiency can be improved, therefore helping them to save water.