What kinds of things do you do to ensure you have a healthy landscape, clean waterways, and to reduce your carbon footprint?
At the farm we visited in Echuca we asked this question and it really gave us a good insight to how these farmers view the environment and what we should be doing to protect it. Many of the farmers had what some of they like to call a ‘bush block’. A bush block is where you grow lots of trees to lock in carbon and use as firewood. The CO2 absorbed by the tree during its life is trapped and stored in the wood of the tree. The longer the life of the tree, the longer the CO2 is trapped away from the atmosphere.
Farming alpacas is also an amazing way to look after the environment because they have padded feet (so they don’t disturb the earth and low vegetation) and even though they are three times the size of a sheep they eat the same amount of food.
Being near a large river source (the Murray River) the farms we visited have access to a natural water source. Instead of using sprinklers to water their plants, which lets water evaporate and blow away, they use sub-irrigation. Sub-irrigation is where slim pipes are dug into the ground and they run along under the crops. Water comes out of the pipes through small holes and no water is wasted.
Other ways of looking after the environment include:
· At Fraser's grain and cropping farm (Pogue Fodder) in Mooroopna , they are trying to increase the bio-diversity. This means introducing and encouraging a variety of birds, good bugs and other plants into the environment.
· At the dairy farm they use nitrogen fertiliser and they drill it into the ground so it does not evaporate.
· Many farmers are reusing and recycling scraps and composting.
At Frank’s orchard he gave us a very political answer to this question. He believes that he, you and I (aka ‘everyday people’) are not really harming the environment at all. It’s the large manufacturers and big mining companies that are more to blame when it comes to hurting our environment.
Researched & written by Izzy Z
Photos by Ellen H
At the farm we visited in Echuca we asked this question and it really gave us a good insight to how these farmers view the environment and what we should be doing to protect it. Many of the farmers had what some of they like to call a ‘bush block’. A bush block is where you grow lots of trees to lock in carbon and use as firewood. The CO2 absorbed by the tree during its life is trapped and stored in the wood of the tree. The longer the life of the tree, the longer the CO2 is trapped away from the atmosphere.
Farming alpacas is also an amazing way to look after the environment because they have padded feet (so they don’t disturb the earth and low vegetation) and even though they are three times the size of a sheep they eat the same amount of food.
Being near a large river source (the Murray River) the farms we visited have access to a natural water source. Instead of using sprinklers to water their plants, which lets water evaporate and blow away, they use sub-irrigation. Sub-irrigation is where slim pipes are dug into the ground and they run along under the crops. Water comes out of the pipes through small holes and no water is wasted.
Other ways of looking after the environment include:
· At Fraser's grain and cropping farm (Pogue Fodder) in Mooroopna , they are trying to increase the bio-diversity. This means introducing and encouraging a variety of birds, good bugs and other plants into the environment.
· At the dairy farm they use nitrogen fertiliser and they drill it into the ground so it does not evaporate.
· Many farmers are reusing and recycling scraps and composting.
At Frank’s orchard he gave us a very political answer to this question. He believes that he, you and I (aka ‘everyday people’) are not really harming the environment at all. It’s the large manufacturers and big mining companies that are more to blame when it comes to hurting our environment.
Researched & written by Izzy Z
Photos by Ellen H