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Results of six-year Cicerone farm project to be presented

May 03, 2006

Scott and HoadMore than six years of research in a unique, realistic farm trial will culminate in the 2006 Cicerone symposium “Coming to conclusions?” on Thursday 11 May. The Cicerone Project, which has been generously funded by Australian Wool Innovation, is likely to wind up this year. The symposium will be a unique opportunity to hear about the findings of the project, which has used real farm conditions to explore – scientifically – whole farm performance under different management systems.

“Graziers manage complex systems dependent on variable rainfall, challenging prices, changing pastures and soil fertility, animal parasites, rising costs, and other factors,” said Jim Scott, Professor of Mixed Farming Systems at The University of New England. “And all the while, society is demanding that farmers manage their farms in a sustainable way. This trial has proved a great way of delivering the facts about the profitability and sustainability of grazing farms on the Northern Tablelands.” Professor Scott is a Cicerone Project Board member.

The Cicerone Project is based at CSIRO’s McMaster Field Laboratory, Chiswick (17 km south of Armidale on the New England Highway). The symposium, in the laboratory’s Liaison Centre, will begin with registration at 9 am.

“Farmers (including Cicerone members), representatives of funding, research and government bodies, Catchment Management Authority representatives and interested community members should come along from 9 am to 5 pm for a day of ‘coming to conclusions’,” Professor Scott said. “It will be a fascinating chance to hear key researchers (including four UNE postgraduates) and extension experts talk about their conclusions from the past several years of work. We will also hear from some of our farmer members about what it means to them.”

“Members – mostly farmers – have guided the research questions,” Professor Scott explained. “Our research partners (UNE and its postgraduates, CSIRO, and the Australian Sheep Industry Cooperative Research Centre) have helped with the trials, and our adoption partners (such as the NSW Department of Primary Industries and veterinary consultants) and education partners (UNE and TAFE) have assisted in conveying our messages to existing and future farmers and their advisers.”

“Whole-farm profitability and sustainability is a difficult thing to assess,” he continued. “In 1999, Cicerone started with 200 ha of land leased from CSIRO which was then re-fenced and re-arranged, after much planning, to ensure that the three farmlets had the same natural resources in terms of landscape, soils, and past fertiliser history. Then, in July 2000, the three farm management regimes judged by our members to be the most interesting were initiated. The farm systems investigated have included ‘typical’, ‘high input’ and ‘intensive rotational grazing’.

“Over the duration of the trial, we have measured the weights of all our animals every six weeks, all our pastures every month, all fleece weights and quality factors, all inputs and products, all costs and income, and even the amount of labour used. We have also established trees on 2% of each farmlet. The Cicerone Project is not ‘white peg agronomy’. It is measuring everything we can at a scale which farmers find believable. The researchers have found it challenging to measure so many things at this scale.”

“Decisions we’ve made have been just like those you’d find in any real farm situation,” said Justin Hoad, the project’s Farm Manager. “When the drought got bad, we had to feed stock. The project hasn’t been insulated from normal farming variables, and that makes it more believable for the farmers who might adopt some of the conclusions.”

The Board of Cicerone is keen to find ways in which this unique farmer-adoption-research partnership might find support to continue with its important applied research leading to adoption. “In particular, we need to get a better understanding of the environmental consequences of the different farming systems, as many questions about longer-term sustainability have not yet been answered,” Professor Scott said.

The cost of attending the symposium is $30 for Cicerone members and $50 for non-members. For more information, please contact Professor Jim Scott on (02) 6773 2436 or Justin Hoad on (02) 6778 3871.

The photograph displayed here shows Professor Jim Scott (left) and Justin Hoad assessing pastures at the Cicerone Project.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 3, 2006 03:02 PM