Friday 20 September 2013

Talking to Dairy Farmer Rob McIntosh



Rob McIntosh with the Shoalhaven High Archibull Team at our farm

You might remember that we featured Rob in an earlier blog just before the federal election.

Rob is a dairy farmer from Woodhill just out of Berry in NSW and we decided to interview him about the challenges facing dairy farmers, sustainability in action on his farm and the future of the Dairy Industry in Australia.

You can watch our video at the link below:

http://youtu.be/0ma7e01KMus

A huge thanks to Rob for giving up his valuable time to come and talk to us.

SUPPORT AUSTRALIAN FARMERS - Without them we wouldn't have the quality of life that we do in Australia.

These images from Rob's farm Woodside are courtesy of Lynne Strong.













What a wonderful farmer to take the time to educate children about dairy farming

Bringing Udder Brilliance to Life

We thought we would just do this with images.....pictures and video of our teamwork in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBsMx0HHi0s&feature=youtu.be







 Cutting out cows
 
 Rebekah and Chloe
 
 Team work
 
 Our futuristic hat for Udder Brilliance
          
 Discussing the base
 
 Chloe working on our futuristic rotary robotic dairy for her hat
 
 Deborah geting the cow shape right
 
 Marni and Amy hard at work
 
 Jacob and Kirsty draw cows for the hat
 
 our custom built base to grow our pasture in
 
 we started with peat moss
 
 adding water crystals to prevent it drying out too much while on display
 
 organic matter and worms from our compost heap is added
 
 adding perlite to the soil mixture to keep it as ligh as possible
 
 The final mixture - nice and light but full of goodness
 
 A novel use for recycled milk containers
 
 planting out the rye grass
 
Kangaroo Valley Rye Grass will be the main species in our pasture base

Making Headlines

We are very proud of the fact that the local paper today featured a whole page about our Agricultural achievements with our Archibull Prize and cheese making.


Thursday 19 September 2013

Award winning cheese makers- Camembert in the Classroom


Shoalhaven High Year 10 Agriculture students have been learning the process of cheese making over the past term. Camembert in the Classroom is a Dairy Australia project that trains staff in the process of camembert making so that they can teach students at school. This is the first year that we have entered this competition and we had a Silver Award Cheese which was only half a mark behind the winning cheese. Congratulations to Shannon and Dylan The Orange Royals Team who were the makers of this fine camembert cheese.

 
 students in the process of making camembert cheese
 
 pH testing
 
 Year 10 Ag
 
Mrs McNeil accepting the award at the judging
 
The final stages
 


Wrapping the cheese
 

Hannah
 
 
 

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Water - a precious natural resource

The Art4Agriculture blog http://art4agriculturechat.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/water-water-everywhere-just-who-are-we-kidding/ has just posted a really important story about just how precious water resources are and the unsustainable global reliance of millions of people on aquifers to provide them with water. Luckily things aren't too out of control here in Australia yet.

One of the great threats to some of the aquifers in the Great Artesian Basin is Coal Seam Gas mining. Research has demonstrated that in the Sydney Basin where we live, that groundwater is already contaminated from the fracking processes that is associated with CSG mining. In many parts of Australia, farmers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of mining on our small pockets of rich and fertile agricultural land. Hopefully our Governments will realise the importance of sustaining our natural water resources such as the Murray-Darling River system, which has been impacted severly by generations of excessive water titles for irrigators. Maybe we need to move more towards permaculture solutions for food production and away from monocultures that will be less resistant to climate extremes that will come as the climate changes.
An aquifer


 

Earlier this year at Shoalhaven High we held an event to raise awareness for World Water Day. All Year 10 Science classes spent a week learning about water as a resource and began to realise just how incredibly lucky we are in Australia to be able to turn on taps and have clean, safe water to drink. So all of the Year 10 students made placards and signs and walked 6 kilometres carrying 6 kg on their backs to represent the average distance that more than half the world's population has to walk to collect their water and then carry it back home. We invited Eric Zarella from Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority to come and give us a talk about our local water resources and how they are managed. The local paper came and did a story on our event and we have decorated the downstairs walls of the Science block with all the signs and placards that we made. Our big message was to get students to become aware of how easily precious water can be wasted and to take action. They also got to walk in the shoes of another. ACT LOCALLY - Think globally!


Year 10 ready to Walk for Water



In the Shoalhaven a scheme has been set up to recycle the wastewater from Culburra and Callala and treat it to the point where it can be used by farmers for increasing pasture production when rainfall is low and for council to use on recreation fields and parks. This REMS scheme is an amazing way of reclaiming sewage so that it is a useful source of non-potable water. The foecal colliform content of the REMS water that is recycled is lower than our town drinking water supply. It is piped to farms in special lilac coloured pipes and released through boom spayers or used to wash down milking areas where it is then often collected in on farm effluent ponds for fertiliser.

REMS – Northern Shoalhaven Reclaimed water management scheme  

The REMS is one of the largest and more complex water-recycling schemes undertaken by an Australian local government water authority. It is being developed in two stages at a total cost of $64.5m and will utilise up to 80% of the reclaimed water from six Shoalhaven Water wastewater treatment plants to irrigate local dairy farms, golf courses and sporting fields.
Substantial innovations in the design of the scheme greatly reduced construction and operating costs from original estimated.

Objectives

To re-use up to 2000 million litres of reclaimed water for beneficial purposes rather than disposing of it into the environment
To supply high quality irrigation water to the region’s farmers to improve their sustainability
To provide sufficient water to irrigate local sporting facilities and golf courses

Current Status

REMS Stage 1A has entered its ninth year of operation with Callala, Vincentia, Culburra Beach and St Georges Basin Wastewater Treatment Plants (WwTPs) contributing reclaimed water of a very high quality.



REMS fits within Shoalhaven City Council’s

economic development strategy by boosting

rural production and farming opportunities. It

is anticipated that by 2015 up to 1,000

hectares of land will be under irrigation. This

could result in up to 80 additional jobs in the

region and a boost to regional farm and food

processing incomShoalhaven High students at REMS


Images from our WALK FOR WATER on World Water Day at Shoalhaven High School