Border Rivers Region, Queensland and NSW

Project contact: Rachel Charles, phone (07) 4671 7900, email rachelc@qmdc.org.au

Border Rivers Grain & Graze is striving for financial profit for mixed farmers, environmental profit for an improved environment and social profit, for stronger community. Over the next three years Grain & Graze in the Border Rivers region will be working with farmers to investigate local issues and developing strategies to address these. This information will be passed on to local farmers so that they are then able to make better informed, whole-farm management decisions.

A key objective of the project is to look at the integration of pasture phases into cropping systems to enhance whole farm sustainability. The Border Rivers region is unique, as it has inherently fertile soils, however soil fertility decline on cropping lands is now costing the grain industry about $450 m per year. One way to improve this fertility is to incorporate a pasture phase into these systems.

Grain and Graze Border Rivers has three phases that will help make our region more sustainable:

Phase 1: Defining the Farming Systems

The project has identified the key climatic, economic, natural resource and social drivers of Grain & Graze systems in the region, and this information has been used to set a baseline against which progress can be measured. An assessment of the region's extension capacity was also carried out. From this work, the project intends to develop a process for regional analyses that is easily repeatable for sub-regions within the Border Rivers. This will enable land managers to manage the regions's resources in a more sustainable way and help ensure the economic viability of production and of the community.

Phase 2: Sub-region Research

The project is encouraging producers to become actively involved in local research, development and extension activities. Hence, a major priority for the project is building capacity to extend from the work done on-farm to the wider community of producers in the region.

In this phase, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and extension specialists is working with producer groups to assist in the development of tools and information that will help decision-making processes on farm. This activity is supplemented through field days and demonstration and trial sites.

Five theme areas have been selected for regional activities:� whole-farm management and enterprise integration;� pastures;� feedbase management;� soils and salinity risk; and� biodiversity.

This phase will increase the local information available to help land managers make decisions that will have more sustainable outcomes for their farms.

Phase 3: Capacity Building

A broad-ranging extension program will coordinate activities from private providers, government agencies and regional bodies for landholders to improve their knowledge and skills.

Different types of training will be considered to cover the technical areas of whole-farm management and economics, pastures, feedbase management, biodiversity, soils and salinity. Farmer input and participation from the research phase will assist in developing products and improving access to information about new techniques and tools on-farm.

By June 2008, improvements in the management of whole mixed farming systems across the catchment should be visible.

The project involves local farmers, Landcare, sub-catchment groups, Catchment Management Authorities in Queensland and New South Wales, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, the University of New England and local agribusinesses.