A love of a challenge, or two

If you’ve travelled from Melbourne to Sydney by road it is likely that you have driven right past Bill and Joy’s property, in the Riverina region of NSW.

“The Hume Highway separates our land. We and our animals can see, hear and even feel so much humanity enclosed in their vehicles as they hurtle past our farm, a blink through our lives.”  Joy says.

While the Hume offers convenience and humanity nearby it was a large amount of native vegetation left untouched and the scope to regenerate the farmed country that they were first attracted to.

Four full-time staff were needed to help Joy and Bill run the farms, along with part-time workers, contact farmers and hay and silage workers and a full-time mechanic/header driver.  The list went on, and then, adding to that poor seasons and failure to thrive from livestock, soil and plants, Bill and Joy were forced to question what they were doing wrong.  First, they tried the Grazing for Profit school and became pasture croppers, grazing and monitoring pastures on a rotational basis, but it wasn’t the complete answer.  Finally, they hit upon the research of Allan Savory and Holistic Management.  It was the revelations they were looking for to turn their farming operation around.

Bill and Joy now follow Holistic Management guidelines and have begun implementing the Natural Sequence methods of rehydrating the land, as taught by Peter Andrews.  In doing so they have gone from employing a staff of four to just one.