Redesigning Animal Agriculture

178 I. Gordon and B. Nelson
on-ground activities to improve the natural
resources of the rangelands.
In the 1990s with increasing interest
from the grazing industry, research agencies
started investigating how the grazing ecosystem
worked, defining what was meant
by ‘sustainable production’ and quantifying
degradation processes. Between 1990 and
2000 considerable research was carried out
in the rangelands of the GBR catchment (see
McCullough and Musso, 2004); however, in
the late 1990s it was recognized that industry
could be getting greater benefit from the
information and outputs of past research
and development programmes, particularly
those with an ecological approach to grazing
land management. A development and
extension phase consequently began.
Education packages that would enhance
management of grazing lands in northern
Australia by transfer of the best R&D information
to graziers were commissioned by industry
in early 2000. The Grazing Land Management
(GLM) Workshop (Chilcott et al., 2003) was
developed in 2003 for the Burdekin, Burnett,
Victoria River Downs (Northern Territory),
and Mitchell Grasslands of Queensland.
Expansion of the GLM Workshop to all regions
within Queensland, Central Australia, and
other regions within the Northern Territory
were completed in late 2006.
The State government through its Department
of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI
& F) led a consortium of organizations in the
development of the Grazing Land Management
(GLM) education package, in partner ship with
Meat and Livestock Australia. Development
of the education package has been guided by
market research which identified that:
● Producers wanted to address both the
landscape health and productivity of
their properties;
● There was a strong need for on-going
technical support to ensure implementation
and on-going exchange of
information;
● There was a strong preference for
locally derived and calibrated information
and decision tools.
The GLM education package has assembled
the best local R&D information acces-
sible to industry in a structured learning
environment. The education package is
delivered through focused workshops
which include education modules and
participatory activities to understand the
grazing ecosystem, and to manage grazing,
fire, the tree–grass balance, weeds, and
sown pastures. As new research information
becomes available from local trials and
demonstration sites each workshop module
is updated.
During the workshop the R&D information
is applied to a case study property and
then to the participants’ situation to ensure
relevance and learning by doing. One of
the main outcomes of the workshop, is for
participants to start a grazing land management
plan for their property. Participants
are asked, throughout the workshop, to
think about how the R&D information can
be used to improve land condition and productivity
within their beef business. To this
end, information relating to ground cover
thresholds, how to improve land condition,
and how to reduce sediment and nutrient
leaving their property is used to plan activities
and to design sustainable grazing systems.
Participants are asked to implement
part of their grazing land management plan
within 3 months after the workshop and the
group will then meet to discuss each other’s
progress and to refresh key concepts, such
as the ABCD Land Condition Framework
(Fig. 10.4).
The Land Condition Framework was
developed for the GLM Workshop decisionsupport
tool kit so that producers could
understand the characteristics and visual
attributes of land in good to very poor condition.
As land condition characteristics, such
as the variety of native pasture species, weed
species, tree density and soil erosive potential,
are dependent on land type, the ABCD
condition classes were developed for a broad
range of land types throughout Queensland.
The framework has proven to be very successful,
with graziers finding the classification
scheme easy to relate to what they are seeing
in the paddock. It is has also allowed participants
to benchmark their current management
practices against land type and land condition
classes and to use this information to monitor