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An Overview Of Our Solution

Healthy Soils Australia is a NGO working within a network of over 1000 innovative leading farmers to help regenerate soils and bio-diversity in Australia and the US. Our work over the past 8 years has included private consultation/mentoring of the top innovators and workshops supporting groups of early adopters. In support of Soils for Life, we have also helped descriptively document leading case studies of how farmers have restored the productivity and bio-diversity of arid lands. The farmers have achieved this by harvesting water from our ‘aerial rivers’ back into our soils, thus helping rehydrate healthy bio-systems, biodiversity and cooling the climate.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

À but non lucratif

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Deserts

Grasslands

Population impacted

5,000 farmers in Australia

Size of agricultural area

400 m ha in Australia

Production quantity

1 billion tons additional carbon draw down

People employed

Describe your solution

Over the past 8 years we have worked with leading farmers to refine the following practices and outcomes. With the prize money we will scientifically document these for wider global scrutiny and extension, how we are: 1. Helping restore the natural soil carbon sponge and thus the infiltration of up to 98/100 2. Restoring the farm's and regions soil structure and thus former 'in soil reservoirs' 3. Enabling the natural regeneration of shelterwood vegetation 4. Extending the availability of water and thus longevity of green growth 5. Buffering the hydrological extremes 6. Limiting flood runoff from and the erosion of such bio-systems and the loss of this critical water resource 7. Aiding the sustained sub-soil recharge of springs, wetlands and streams . 8. Aiding soil structures and the proliferation of perennial roots to depth 9. Helping recharge deeper groundwater aquifers and the more extended, longer term resilience of more bio-diverse agro-ecosystems 10. Helping rehydrate such landscapes, their transpiration, ability to harvest water from aerial water flows and the hydrological cooling of these regions.

Describe your implementation

We ensured our solution was adopted by working with leading farmers for 8 years to refine practices and outcomes. This has included private consultation/mentoring and workshops supporting groups of innovative farmers. With our support the activities our innovators continue to undertake include: • Applying organic composts, fertilisers and bio-amendments • Encouraging natural biological cycles and nutrient transfer • Adopting Holistic Management • Implementing time-controlled planned grazing. • Using grazing management and animal impact as farm and ecosystem development tools • Retaining stubble or performing biological stubble breakdown • Constructing interventions in the landscape or waterways to slow or capture the flow of water • Fencing off water ways and implementing water reticulation for stock • Investing in revegetation • Pasture cropping • Direct-drill cropping and pasture sowing • Changing crop rotations • Incorporating green manure or under-sowing of legumes • Managing for increasing species diversity • Reducing or ceasing synthetic chemical inputs • Integrating enterprises

External connections

This has enabled the wider dissemination of our findings and their extension. We provide direct support to Michael Jeffery, Australia’s National Soils Advocate.We have supported him to work hard to raise public awareness of the critical role soil plays (integrated with good water and vegetation management) in underpinning sustainable productivity, delivering high quality ecosystem services and helping to meet global challenges including food security and climate change. We provided advise to his input into the first national soil research, development and extension strategy, and continue to support the implementation of the strategy. Michael Jeffery’s organisation Soils for Life is a sister organization with us and they are partners with Landcare Australia. We have collaborated with the UK’s Sustainable Food Trust during our session at Global Soil Week and helped Regeneration International build their Regeneration Hub. We also work closely with Soil Carbon Coalition in the US. Within Australia we have collaborated with Resource Consulting Service, STIPA and Carbon Farmers of Australia.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

The challenge targeted is the increased aridification caused by dangerous climate extremes that threatens the viability of bio-systems and their biodiversity. Much of the Earth’s 6 b ha of rangelands and 5 b ha of man-made wastelands are being impacted. Of this, Australia is one of the countries on the frontline. Many of these targeted bio-systems were previously hydrated by natural processes that harvested water from the aerial rivers that still flow over these areas. These natural processes conserved that harvested water in soils thus sustaining their bio-diversity. Sadly we have grossly impaired these processes. Fortunately, our lead farmers of our network solution have confirmed innovative practical solutions that restore these processes. These solutions enable the rehydration and restoration of the bio-diversity and hydrological cooling of these at-risk regions.

Describe the context in which you are operating

Much of Australia’s semi-arid rangelands and croplands that extend over 500 million hectares are systemically aridifying due to climate changes. This is threatening the ecological and economic viability of these agro-ecosystems and the over 5000 farmers and communities dependent on them. Similar stresses are impacting many semi-arid regions and farmers globally:

- increasing acidification
- declining soil health, caused by the loss of soil organic carbon
- erosion
- severe salinity
- diminishing river flows
- high evaporation and runoff rates
- decreasing availability of groundwater
- reduced resilience to impacts of extreme and variable weather events such as drought, flood and fire

To restore the viability of these agro-ecosystems additional sustained water supplies are needed. Our lead farmers confirm that this can be secured naturally from the rivers of humid air that still flow over most of these regions via innovative practical dew condensation, rainfall nucleation, soil conservation and shelterwood regeneration practices. Our documentation, verification and extension of these practices with the prize money will be of global strategic significance.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

We improved biodiversity and positively impacted the local environment by helping farmers to: • adopt an ecosystem approach, capitalizing on biological processes and harvesting resources without compromising natural capital such as biodiversity and ecosystem services • limit the clearing of wooded land or grassland • retain property trees, revegetate or regenerate trees in pasture/grazing land (eg see Dukes Plain case study) • leave a natural ‘biodiversity’ patch, perhaps on unproductive or less productive parts of the property, to provide habitat for a diversity of species (eg see Lana and Inveraray Downs case studies) • encourage pasture diversity through techniques such as planned rotational grazing in response to vegetation seeding and trigger points (eg see Tallawang, Gilgunnia Station case studies) • limit the overuse/mis-use of agro-chemicals, especially the biocides (herbicides, fungicides, pesticides) Our documentation using the prize money will outline specific bio-diversity improvements outcomes and benefits in each of the case studies and from each of the rehydration processes.

Language(s)

Which language(s) are spoken in the area where your solution is implemented?

Water

Initial evidence is that these processes may be able to provide and conserve up to an additional 300 mm of water/annum for on farm use and some 1 m gigalitres across semi-arid Australia. This is achieved by:

Food Security/Nutrition

The securing of this additional reliable water significantly aids the sustainable production of grain and protein from these marginal regions. Again our scientific documentation of our case studies using the prize money will detail this.

Economic/Sustainable Development

Our work helps to revitalize the soils, bio-systems, bio-diversity and viability of these marginal farms and regions. The evidence documented via these case studies should contribute significantly to the economic and sustainable development of these regions and other global equivalents.

Climate

The rehydration of these regions greatly enhances their capacity to buffer and survive climate extremes and help to naturally hydrologically cool these regions and the climate.

Sustainability

No, our solution does not rely on any funding, subsidies or revenue. Market interest and income alone should enable its wider extension.

Further, the project to document and disseminate the evidence of these processes and outcomes will be paid for using the prize money funding. From there it will be fully sustainable without the need for further funding.

Return on investment

Healthy Soils Australia’s investment in our solution has been self-funded by the individuals involved. The travel has usually been externally funded and we leverage off other organizations. As such the investment is pro bono man hours. Our innovative farmers have invested significant variable amounts to refine and demonstrate these outcomes. Practically all have achieved a sound or better return on their investments, often largely because of decreased inputs. Healthy Soils Australia using the prize money to professionally document the evidence via these scientific case studies is a small investment on your behalf. This investment will deliver a major benefit and return on this investment to benefit the public interest and future.

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

We can successfully replicate this solution elsewhere by awarding the prize to Healthy Soils Australia. We have proven that the best way to extend regenerative practices is to support innovators and build groups of early adopters and we can . Based on evidence documented so far on our case studies, each of these innovations and outcomes will be able to be replicated successfully at a range of relevant scales and locations globally. Our further documentation with the prize money will not specify these. However detailed advice can be provided to interested stakeholders on such extension options and resource needs.

Overview

Healthy Soils Australia Ltd