NATURAL SEQUENCE FARMING
Extract from pages 98-100 of - “The Business of Saving Water”
The Report of the Murrumbidgee Valley Water Efficiency Project – December 2004
http://www.naturalsequencefarming.com
What is generally known as the ‘Pratt Report’ was produced by Dr Bill Hurditch with the
contribution on Natural Sequence Faming (NSF) by Professor David Mitchell. The Project
was funded with $5.3m from the Australian Government and NSW Governments and several
million contribution from Pratt Water Solutions.
The aim of the project was to examine the business case for saving significant amounts of
water, and to identify ways of boosting regional productivity and environmental quality with
the savings.
Extract:
“Significant areas of Australian land and water bodies have been seriously degraded, largely
through the removal of natural means of conserving water and resisting extreme dry
periods. Catchments that have been degraded in this way have resulted in consequent
degradation in the resilience of river systems. Similarly, the ‘reclamation’ of wetlands and
their conversion to agricultural production has removed one of the natural means of
resisting and recuperating from drought.
Furthermore, the continuous use of ephemeral river systems to supply water to downstream
users has altered the morphology of these systems and separated them from their
floodplains, so that the latter no longer store water and cannot maintain previous levels of
biological productivity. Current management of these systems erode fundamental principles
with respect to energy dissipation within the water balance of whole landscapes. These
energy dissipation processes regulate ecological dynamics within the Earth’s biosphere by
maintaining cyclical systems and reducing loss of resources (Ripl, 1995). There is a clear
need to apply environmentally sound principles to the restoration of these streams and
rivers and their associated beds and floodplains to their former resilient state.
Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) is a rural landscape management technique that is based
on ecological principles, low input requirements, and natural cycling of water and nutrients
that addresses the issues outlined in the preceding paragraph. NSF offers a low-cost,
widely applicable method of reducing drought severity and boosting productivity within
agriculturally important areas of Australia, such as the Murray Darling Basin, by decreasing
the sensitivity of current agricultural practice to a large proportion of the climatic
variability in these areas.”
1
The context
“The challenge to provide Australia’s ongoing water requirements, without undermining the
ecological resilience of Australia now confronts this nation and demands urgent and
informed action. Until now the structure and function of natural ecosystems and landscapes
have not been sufficiently well understood for effective error-free management. Attempts
to modify the former to suit human purposes have caused as many problems as they have
solved. The drainage of wetlands, extensive clearing of natural vegetation, cultivation of
unsuitable soils, storage of water in surface reservoirs and the use of intermittent streams
and rivers as continuous water supply channels, all for apparently sensible reasons, have
nevertheless had unexpected adverse consequences. There is an imperative need to develop
procedures based on natural processes that have evolved over the millennia to allow plants
and animals to flourish, in spite of the rigours imposed by the unpredictable variability of
the Australian climate. The procedures must also be compatible with the need for
Australian to benefit and thrive from the production of food and fibre for their
requirements and for export.”
The process
“Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) procedures meet these criteria. The value of these
criteria was dramatically confirmed during the dry conditions recently experienced in
Australia. In essence, relatively simple earthworks restore the connection between rivers
and their floodplains and promote the retention of water in natural storage systems. This
has the additional beneficial effects of increasing the leakage of salt into waterways and
the generation of considerable amounts of organic matter on the flood plains. The latter is
then available as stock food and as a soil additive that is potentially available for
distribution to areas that are lacking organic matter. The process has been well researched
and conforms to current understanding of Australian natural resources, though hitherto it
has only been demonstrated at relatively few sites.”
The beneficial effects
“In addition to the direct environmental benefits outlined above, NSF improves water
quality, restores stability to the banks of waterways, enhances the quality of natural
habitats, promotes biodiversity and strengthens natural resilience within the landscape,
thereby ensuring continuing sustainability of the constituent ecosystems. These benefits
arise from implementing NSF procedures on the basis of a clear understanding of
connections between the different ecological units within landscapes modified for various
forms of agriculture. The introduction of NSF practices will also make Australian
agriculture more compatible with natural ecological processes in the landscape. This will
promote the potential to increase cost-effectiveness of farming in Australia, for example,
by decreasing reliance on expensive, artificially intrusive procedures to improve pastures
and increase organic matter content of soils.”
The commercial opportunities
“NSF applies to a wide range of land-based commercial ventures. It was originally developed
on a horse stud farm to correct problems being caused by increasing salinity of water
2
draining from wet pastures. Subsequently the process was shown to have a number of
incidental benefits including the development of particularly strong bone structures in the
horses feeding from those pastures. It is now known that the same techniques are equally
applicable in other forms of plant and animal husbandry, including the production of crops
and pastures, fruit and vegetables, and can even be applied to aquaculture systems. In all
cases, these holistic natural processes enhance quality, nutrition and sustainability.”
The significance for Australia
“NSF reduces greenhouse gas emissions as well as contributing to the welfare of the
environment in the ways outlined previously. It therefore provides opportunities, locally,
nationally, and internationally, to ameliorate degradation of ecosystems by facilitating its
incorporation in policies for managing the environment. Natural Sequence Farming is
currently generating strong interest in rural populations and is also likely to be attractive to
ecologically concerned urban dwellers.”
An outline of current progress
“Following an extensive period of development, a consortium of interests involving federal
and state departments, universities, catchment trusts, private enterprise, and other
interested people has been formed. A Steering Committee and an International Reference
Panel have been established and have met. Membership of the former is largely drawn from
the consortium of interests outlined above. The latter is chaired by an eminent Australian
scientist and includes membership of two eminent scientists from Europe with particular
expertise in the holistic management of landscapes in several countries.
A manual describing the process is currently being compiled. This will allow several
practitioners to be trained and licensed to carry out the relatively minor earthworks that
are required. Other machinery has been developed to assist implementation of organic
content of the soil through mulching natural organic production over the surface of the soil.
The Australian Research Council (ASR) has provided a grant to finance research by leading
experts in relevant scientific disciplines. Additional demonstrations of NSF in different
parts of the country are planned or underway. However, the rate of progress is being
constrained by ready access to financial support of sufficient long term duration to
maintain progress and continue the extension of the technique into new areas. Considerable
financial assistance is being contributed by private enterprise together with extensive inkind contributions from farmers, scientists and other interested parties. But these are
insufficient to maintain a rate of progress commensurate with the urgency of the task.”
The need for further support
“Considerable injection of further financial support is now required to build on the ARC
research program and extend the process further into the agricultural community. These
funds should be sourced from existing programs for agriculture and for repair to degraded
landscapes and augmented from private enterprise, which would gain from more efficient
use of water and more sustainable landscapes.
3