Gippsland Water’s Dutson Downs farm hosted a monthly meeting of Agribusiness Gippsland on November 14.
CAPTION: Pictured at Dutson Downs were (standing) AGI director Mark Cockerill (left) and Jono Craven. Seated (L to R) are AGI directors Alex Arbuthnot, Christine Holland and Nikky Hellyer.
Manager Jono Craven welcomed the not-for-profit farming group which held its meeting at the farm and wastewater treatment facility near Sale.
Agribusiness Gippsland chair Alex Arbuthnot AM noted the strength of the farming venture, which receives no cross-subsidies from other Gippsland Water operations, and praised the financial and environmental gains of the two-year-old SORF organic recycling facility. “It also performs a vital role as the eventual destination of some food processing wastes – such as milk and egg waste – of the region,” he said.
Once composted, the wastes are applied over 3000ha/year on Gippsland Water sites at a rate of 3tonnes/ha, not only for the nutrient benefit but also to benefit soil biology by increasing carbon and improve moisture-holding capacity, Jono explained.
Gippsland Water Agribusiness (GWA) deals with waste water from Drouin to Stratford either through plantations around water catchment or dispersal through irrigation over 12,000ha. A requirement of GWA’s EPA licence is to recycle as much as possible.
It operates 12 sites across Gippsland, seven are irrigation sites and primarily growing grass for cattle production. Dutson Downs is the largest at 8500ha. About half site is arable. Major enterprise is 1000 breeding cows. Calves turned off to the other Gippsland Water irrigation properties for finishing.
Also there’s a large amount of remnant vegetation which hosts several endangered species. “As an organisation we’re seeing Dutson Downs as an integrated business,” said Jono.
Gippsland Water grows 400 ha of softwood at Dutson Downs. Other enterprises are 1000ha cropped to mainly winter cereals barley, wheat, triticale, lupins and canola. They try to grow a rotation crops for weed control and fertility and to rehabilitate country which had been debilitated over time. Property used to run 30,000 sheep and employed 30 people. The property was irrigated with raw waste water which left a legacy of high salt levels.
The operations no longer use untreated waste water – it goes to treatment lagoons and held for 90 days then released to outfall.
The Gippsland Water Factory takes industrial and domestic waste water. It treats and removes solids – also overcomes much of the odour – however salt is retained, so we don’t use that for irrigation.
In future, all Sale and Fulham’s water will be separated for treatment in a separate lagoon in next 12-18 months and fed onto 300ha of centre pivot for crops. “It’s basically residential water with not much salt in it,” said Jono.
Gippsland Water operates on leasehold or Crown land with seven staff operating farms at Drouin, Mirboo North, Trafalgar, Seaspray, Maffra, Heyfield and Stratford. Jono is seeking to increase productive capacity and not increase staff but increase contractor use.
Trends are less reliance on inputs. “We used to make a lot of silage but are now growing dual purpose crops also doing a lot of livestock
trading to use more feed and improve revenues. We don’t use saleyards, it’s all private trades direct to end user,” said Jono.
Jono said Gippsland Water would welcome similar visits by groups with specific agriculture or waste
recycling interests.
