On The Land
11 October, 2024
Farming for the future
WORLD famous Aussie farmers, Ian and Di Haggerty are coming to town with Jane Slattery to present the innovative methods they have cultivated to restore dry and harsh lands into a thriving ecosystem.
Ian and Di are from the central wheat belt in Western Australia, and they created Natural Intelligence Farming in 2001 alongside co-founder Jane Slattery.
They developed a modern and innovative approach to farming that recreates healthy soils, enabling crops to make the most of the little rain they receive.
“In 2023, we only received about 115 millimetres of rainfall for the entire season, but the land still outperformed and kept green grown year-round,” company director Matthew Haggerty said.
Ian explained that this method has been proven in harsh environments and is therefore not contained to certain landscapes and climates.
“I think the good thing about this example, is that it was a very brittle and harsh environment with very low rainfall,” Ian said.
“And if we can get the results that we’ve been getting here, this can be replicated all over the world.
“Our system isn’t about trying to direct a natural system, we’re just participants of it and are very grateful for that,” Di added.
Natural Intelligence Farming, as the Haggerty’s have coined it, harnesses the dynamic, natural relationships that exist between all organisms in ecosystems, particularly the soil.
These relationships are highly complex and versatile. They involve mutually beneficial interactions between soil, plant seed and roots, microorganisms and the ruminants that feed on the plants, cycling nutrients and microbes back to the soil.
The Haggerty’s have been able to integrate natural intelligence with modern farming methods to create regenerative agricultural ecosystems that produce optimal food, fibre and beverage products.
“It’s well known that Australian soils are some of the oldest in the world, so some of the most leeched from the weathering that’s been going on for millions of years.
“And it’s actually tillage and similar processes that disrupt the microbes in the soil,” Di said.
“Microbe loss has been caused by synthetic fertilisers and chemicals as well,” Ian added.
“With Natural Intelligence Farming, what we’re trying to do is reinvigorate and enable those native microbes that have been here for millions of years to regenerate.”
At their property in Western Australia, the Haggerty’s have planned to restore 30% of the landscape back to natural bushlands and diverse fodder shrub.
This then gives the livestock the opportunity to interact with the natural environment to transfer microbes and nutrients from the bushland out into the paddocks, to help with the cycling process and to optimise animal health.
“It serves a couple of purposes, it helps rebuild the soil health but gives diversity to the livestock and what they can select to eat to optimise their health and their gut microbe biome,” Di said.
“They can come through these pastures and select what they need very quickly with only a few mouthfuls and get all their mineral uptake,” Ian said.
The workshop will take place on 19 October from 8.30am-5pm at Tinaroo Lake Resort and will be delivered by all three co-founders of Natural Intelligence Farming.
Ticket bookings are required for this event, to book search Natural Intelligence Farming on www.eventbrite.com.au
Jane will also be doing a separate “Cultivating Inner Harmony and Environmental Stewardship” workshop on 22 October, to book email workshopnif@gmail.com
