This paper has been prepared to highlight opportunities for improved management strategies to allow profitable yet sustainable sugar growing practices. There are clear links between several of the soil management strategies which add synergy to profitability and sustainability of the production system. For example successful management of acid soil improves root growth, access to and availability of nutrients, which in turn will improve crop water use efficiency. Management
of compaction and adoption of the GCTB system also improves access to nutrients and water, while improved management of pest and disease and the harvesting systems ensures that maximum return is acheived from inputs.
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Profitable yet sustainable sugar growing practices
Paper presented by Ross Digman
The Canegrowers' booklet "Caring for the Environment" shows that at least some of our industry representatives realize the importance of the sugar industry appearing to be environmentally sensitive.
However it is one thing to put out a booklet such as this, another thing entirely, to be able to defend the industry should its environmental record come under scrutiny.
An attack could come from any quarter. Some of you may have seen the April edition of Fishing World. A copy of page 15 of that issue has been included in your handout. This article details legal
action taken by a group of fishermen in northern NSW, to prevent adverse effects on the Richmond River from canefarm drainage of acid sulphate soils. The group, known as Fishwatch, has 3500 members who were fed up with the lack of appreciation by the farming community of the damage they were doing to fish habitat. Its founder and president, a solicitor by the name of Elton Stone, is more than confident of success in the courts, and under existing legislation, canegrowers and developers could be obliged to undertake substantial works to prevent polluted waters from draining from their properties into adjacent waterways.
Instead of government legislation requiring that certain environmental standards be achieved, industries obviously prefer some form of self-regulation, or Voluntary Code of Practice. However, to avoid government legislation, a VCP requires much more than the QCGC just saying our industry is
environmentally responsible.
Should we come under attack, how are our representatives going to defend an industry which is currently in an indefensible position.
To have any credibility when attempting to defend our industry, we must first acknowledge that expansion over the years has had major adverse environmental effects. Denying the obvious is pointless.
We must then be able to point to positive action by our industry, and that involves a lot more than simply publishing booklets.
Pointing to green cane harvesting as evidence of our environmental sensitivity will not be sufficient.
While certainly a beneficial practice, relying solely on this as a defence will simply demonstrate how little we do know of the environment.
We must recognize that we have done, and some are still doing, significant environmental damage. The destruction of forest for growing cane is readily apparent, but damage has occurred in many other areas.
Apart from the acid sulphate drainage problem I've already mentioned, farm drainage lowers the water table and results in the drying up and loss of shallow wetlands. It is not environmentally sensitive to convert a rich wetland into a depression full of nothing but grass and weeds. The Million Hole lagoon was so named because of the huge number of waterfowl which were once found there. Like so many others, it's now a dry depression, with a drain running right through the middle.
In many cases, forming on the low-lying land surrounding these wetlands has proven to be futile. So for little economic benefit, we're leaving ourselves wideopen to public condemnation.
What can we do?
As some of you may be aware, I had an artificial lagoon excavated on my farm to compensate in a small 2
way for the adverse effects of my drains. The excavation took place four and a half years ago, and the lagoon is now a little oasis among the canefields.
20 local conservationists assisted with the planting of about 500 trees around the perimeter. That alone demonstrates the public relations value of such an undertaking.
Since run-off from farmland will be most concentrated in these lagoons, if fish start dying there, corrective action can perhaps be taken before major adverse effects become apparent further afield.
Farm lagoons can therefore be good biological indicators of the impacts of farming operations.
Although this lagoon was constructed primarily for environmental purposes, it has actually paid for itself through increased production of cane on surrounding land, over only three seasons.
The dark area on this overhead is my lagoon. The red and green shaded sections indicate the area of previously unproductive land on which soil excavated from the lagoon was deposited. Those shaded
sections are of equal area, and similar increases in production were experienced on both blocks.
Production figures on the red shaded area alone show an increase of roughly 300 tonnes each season.
In only three seasons, a total of roughly 1800 tonnes has been grown on previously unusable land.
Although such economic benefit will not be achieved in all cases, this does demonstrate that with a little thought, farmers can undertake environmentally beneficial works at little or no cost. To me, such immediate economic benefit was simply icing on the cake, since the lagoon itself has been a source of
continuing pleasure and satisfaction.
Although perhaps a nuisance from a fanning point of view, the meandering nature of creeks results in features such as eddies and deeper holes which are vital for fish survival, particularly during drier periods.
For ease of farming operations, creeks have been straightened and lost most of their habitat value to become no more than drains.
Once the banks of watercourses are cleared of trees, those watercourses rapidly become choked with the likes of paragrass or other exotic weeds. The capacity of these channels to carry away floodwaters is severely reduced, and they become major harbourages for cane-rats.
Replanting of trees along such watercourses obviously does lead to the need for greater concentration on the part of machinery operators, to avoid damage to both trees and machinery. However a corridor of trees adjacent to a watercourse does reduce the possibility of a fatal tractor roll-over. My father was lucky to survive being trapped under an old Farmall after a roll-over along this particular creek about 40 years ago. All the profit derived over the years, from growing cane in close proximity to the watercourse could have been lost in just that one incident.
Rehabilitation efforts such as this soften the landscape, and reduce the monotony and starkness of endless fields of cane. It's very satisfying, and makes the farm a much more pleasant place on which to work. An additional benefit is the privacy afforded by a tree corridor. Farming operations can be undertaken without such close scrutiny by farmers driving by. If others can't see your drills, it doesrft matter if they are crooked!
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A rehabilitation resource now available to landholders from Mackay north is the Community Rainforest Reafforestation Program. Under this program, over a thousand cabinet timber trees were planted on a 2 hectare river flat on my property in March 1993. If the intention is to harvest the timber, this could be seen as a form of superannuation. To avoid the devastation of a clear felling operation when timber cutting commences, it is a good idea to plant a wide selection of species which mature at different ages.
There are 8 species in this plot.
I mentioned at the beginning, the action undertaken by Fishwatch in NSW. Fishing is acknowledged as one of the most popular recreational activities. A day out on a beautiful river is a wonderful experience.
However development has resulted in major degradation of our river systems, and this is naturally of major concern to fishermen.. This degradation can be reversed. Once the base or toe of the river bank has been rock stabilized, trees can be established.
Revegetation should not just be limited to the very edge of the bank. In north Queensland, continuity of a 20 metre wide riparian tree corridor is believed to be essential to the survival of the endangered cassowary, enabling it to access presently isolated remnant forest areas. Remember, cassowaries and other wildlife can
!t run down to the nearest supermarket to stockup when supplies are low. They must have a wide variety of fruits and berries which ripen throughout the year.
If timber trees are intermixed with other food species, this will eventually offset on-farm losses from sugar production. Whether that return will be realised in the lifetime of many farmers is debatable, but timber tree plots could be seen as a farm asset steadily increasing in value.
Tree corridors also reduce the rate of outflow of floodwaters from rivers, and consequently reduce erosion of adjacent fallow paddocks.
There is some concern by mills at the loss of assigned land from the establishment of riparian tree corridors. A study of the Tully River shows that a 20 metre wide tree corridor along both banks of the river from its mouth to the mountains, a distance of 70 kilometres, would represent an area of only 280 hectares, much of which is not presently growing cane anyway. In 1994, the Tully Mill's assigned area increased by 1200 hectares alone, to a total of 23,806 hectares. It can be seen from those figures, that the loss is really insignificant. Tree corridors along tributaries will obviously increase the area lost to agriculture, but the total area involved is still only minor.
There are some in the industry who maintain that the riparian tree corridor concept is too idealistic. I have no doubt that the ideal from a radical greenie perspective would be to reinstate all canegrowing land to its original condition. That may be unrealistic. However, the expectation that all available land be utilized and converted to the sole purpose of canegrowing, could also be said to be too idealistic. It is certainly becoming increasingly unacceptable.
An environmentally responsible industry would see the loss of a small portion of its assigned land as a satisfactory compromise. Since river frontages vary considerably from farm to farm, the establishment of riparian tree corridor will be of concern to some landholders. Since rate relief alone for such areas may not be sufficient, I believe our representatives should really be devoting their efforts to ensuring that such landholders receive adequate compensation.
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It was mentioned in my introduction that I'm on the Steering Committee overseeing the implementation of the Sugar Industry Infrastructure Package in the Tully area. That committee is increasingly recognizing that the SUP offers a low cost opportunity to rectify at least a little of the damage done. As a precondition of the state and federal governments contributing two-thirds of the $5.6 million cost of a Water Management Scheme proposed under the SUP, an Environmental Assessment Study of the Tully-Murray floodplain was required to be undertaken .
I've produced a video which details some the work done for that EAS by DPI Fisheries Research staff into the state of wetlands and other fish habitat on the floodplain. The results of their research are likely to have ramifications for many sugargrowing regions.
One of the subjects dealt with in some detail in the video is farm drainage and its adverse environmental effects, one of which appears to be a reduction in oxygen levels in remaining lagoons. Barramundi seem to require a minimum oxygen level above 3 mg/litre. Some of the largest natural lagoons were found to have zero and close to zero levels of oxygen. Yet studies by Fisheries Research staff a decade or more ago showed that these same lagoons were once full of barramundi.
It should be obvious by now, that there is ample evidence out there of our industry's adverse environmental impact.
I'm aware that the Australian Conservation Foundation is working on a position paper on the sugar industry.
Our local Landcare group, and a number of Tully farmers, including Angelo Crema and Ron Zamora, Eric Hassall, Dick Camilleri, Scotchy McLeod, and Mori Johnson have either excavated lagoons on their properties, or have told me they intend to do so in the not too distant future. Provided excavated soil is not used to fill still viable surrounding wetlands, thereby doing further damage, and other possible adverse environmental effects are addressed, widespread adoption by canefarmers of this and other concepts I briefly outlined today will ensure we are not totally crucified in an environmental debate.
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