Rosnay Organic, one of Canowindra’s organic farms and vineyards has been presented with a Sustainable Farm Practices NSW Landcare Award at a 3-day Landcare Conference in Orange. There were two other award winners in the
Sustainable Farm Practices category, and five other categories for community groups, councils and partnerships.
“For us it’s awesome,” says Sam Statham, “because it means that Landcare are now embracing soil building and organic farming as equally important to planting trees.” “When you look at the big picture, it is loss of organic matter in soil that is a bigger contributor to global warming than fossil fuel use.”
The Statham family came to Canowindra in 1995 and have since converted their property using organic farming methods and redesigning the farm as an organic Community Title plan now known as Rivers Road Organic Farms.
In the years after their arrival to the Canowindra property, the Stathams planted thousands of native trees between the farms, 20ha of wine grapes, 10ha of olives and 0.5ha of figs, as well as growing potatoes, melons, wheat,
mustard and lupins using many organic farming techniques in the aim of growing organic matter and life in the dusty, dispersive soils.
“We’ve found our farm produces as good as conventional farms, particularly in the difficult times,” says Sam. “When it’s a bad year for disease, we generally do better than the other guys.”
The NSW Landcare Award for Sustainable Farm Practices is selected through a list of criteria that covers the aspects of innovation and sustainability throughout farm and land management. The award is given to primary producers or enterprises that have implemented innovative farm and/or land management and productivity outcomes. The term “innovation” is defined in this award as the demonstration of early adoption, excellence and/or leading
edge projects and practises.