The Increasing Groundcover to Build Resilient Soils in the Western Fitzgerald Biosphere project had two overarching objectives.
- One, to increase soil health across our landscapes by encouraging farmers to experiment with new and innovative ways of keeping continuous groundcover on their paddocks.
- The second is to actively seek out and support key local farmers who are innovators and early adopters of transformative NRM practices.
The intention is to strive for a critical tipping point in acceptance, ownership and adoption of these practices in the Fitzgerald Biosphere area.
To increase the proportion of agricultural soils under permanent ground cover we provided incentives to experiment with practices not used in our area, including the establishment of:
- Perennial palatable native fodder species using the *Enrich model
- Multi-species forage pastures
- Cool and warm season covers
- Native grasses or other novel perennial fodder pastures
- Protection and reclamation of marginal and salt-affected soils by fencing and establishing permanent perennial fodder groundcover combinations.
*The CSIRO’s Enrich Project assessed the edible biomass, nutritional value, health benefits and grazing preference for 94 Australian native shrub species. It demonstrated that farm profitability could be increased by up to 20% if between 5 – 20% of a farm were converted to a shrub-based system.
