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Healthy Farms Program protects the land
Farmers are taking the high ground in Western Australia's Northern Agricultural region by setting standards to live and work by. Their new work ethic is 'safe' and 'sustainable' as part of an innovative Healthy Farms program run by the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council.
Half of the Mingenew-Irwin Group farmers, based south of Geraldton, have embraced safe and sustainable agricultural practices to improve - and prove - their management skills and techniques.
Funding
The program is funded with $256,000 from the Australian Government and cash and in-kind contributions from the State Government.
Activities
Project Manager Kristy Chapman said farmers had to be involved in all four components -Environmental Management Systems, Quality Assurance, ChemCert and Farmsafe - to be considered a 'healthy farmer'.
"Environmental Management Systems help manage the impacts of a farming organisation's activities on the environment," Kristy said. "It monitors environmental performance similar to the way a financial management system monitors expenditure and income. This system integrates environmental management into a company's daily operations and long term planning."
Chemcert is a voluntary and self-regulatory program that ensures farm chemicals are used safely and effectively. Farmsafe is similar to occupational health and safety in the workplace and improves the wellbeing and productivity of agriculture through better health and safety awareness and practices.
"The key responsibility for safety rests primarily with individual farmers, their families and staff so Farmsafe looks at potential dangers such as tractor rollovers, farm motorcycle safety, horse safety and grain and silo safety," Kristy said. "Most people have staff working with them so FarmSafe will assist to induct them and go through safety procedures with machinery or chemicals."
Healthy Farmers are also quality-assured for the products they produce. At this stage 60 per cent of farmers in the Mingenew-Irwin area are grain quality-assured whereby they provide evidence the grain they deliver meets a certain food quality standard.
"In the first year we attracted 40 farmers and over the next two years we'll pilot the program out to the Northern Agricultural Region because the farmers are quite keen.," Kristy said.
"We also want to promote sustainable practices to the wider public and let people know that farmers use best practice management."
More information
- Kristy Chapman, Project Manager: (08) 9928 1646 or k.chapman@westnet.com.au
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