It was during the drought of 2019 that Biega decided he needed to do something about his water situation. His supply was Bootawa Dam, which is also used by the local population. It’s a small dam that’s topped up with water from the river.

“So, we had an unreserved water supply,” he says. “But in 2019, during the drought, it was showing that it’s a bit fragile.

“And we were just on the verge of going on level five water restrictions, which means you can use your washing machine on odd and even days. And here I am using 6000 litres of water [a day] to hose poo off the yard. How can I justify this to the community?”

He discovered a solution: a $125,000 solar-powered desalination system, which became affordable when he successfully applied for a $100,000 grant from the Woolworths Dairy Innovation Fund.

The system turns salty river water into potable water that Biega plans to use in several ways, including washing down dairy yards, cooling fresh milk in the dairy’s heat exchange unit, providing drinking water for the cows, and being funnelled into irrigation across 12 hectares of pasture.

It’s not only going to reduce the farm’s input costs, but is a win for the environment and the local people, he says. “The locals can have their shower because I won’t pinch their water.”

And there’s no reason why farmers nationwide can’t adopt a similar approach, Biega says. “[Farms on] estuaries from Brisbane to Perth can do the same thing.”

Low impact, high rewards

For Andrew Johanson, it’s pretty obvious why sustainable farming is important. “We need to make sure the farm is still productive for future generations,” he says. “We’re always trying to make sure that the farms are in a better shape than when we found them.”

Johanson is the sustainable farming practices manager and agronomy process improvement manager with Mulgowie Farming Company, based in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley. Mulgowie grows vegetables in several locations across Australia, has been supplying Woolworths with sweetcorn and green beans for more than 40 years, and was recently named Woolworths’ Fruit and Vegetable Supplier of the Year and Sustainability Supplier of the Year.

The business puts a big emphasis on soil health and employs an integrated pest management (IPM) system, which uses bugs to fight bugs. The results are lower costs, less pesticide and fertiliser use, better soil, and crops that are more capable of coping with the increasing unpredictability of Australia’s climate.

“A lot more extreme weather conditions get thrown at us,” Johanson says. “So we’ve got to grow a more resilient plant.”

Mulgowie has three soil principles:

• Keeping living plants and roots in the soil
• Maximising soil cover
• Minimising soil disturbance

It does this through strategies including the use of cover crops (crops grown to improve the soil) and tramline farming (in which GPS-guided equipment runs on the same tracks every time, and never on growing areas).

Combined with an increased use of compost, the result is a more friable soil with better water infiltration and holding abilities, and packed with life – from worms, which do the job that tractors and rippers used to do, to microbiology, which makes nutrients more available to plants.

“That’s all-proven science ...” Johanson says. “It’s amazing to see it working.”

As a result of having all this healthy, living soil, Mulgowie has less need for chemical fertilisers. Its farms also have a much-reduced need for pesticides, thanks to an IPM system that includes the release of beneficial insects to kill pests – such as a very tiny wasp that lays eggs inside heliothis eggs.

Mulgowie’s methods are showing that food growing can actually capture carbon. It recently became the first vegetable grower in Australia to generate Carbon Friendly carbon inset credits, certified to international standards. Three years of statistics on sweetcorn that it grew on a zero-till farm in Bowen revealed something remarkable, Johanson says.

“It was sequestering 213 kilograms of carbon for every tonne of corn we grow.”

Woolworths Group continues to partner with conventional and organic fruit and vegetable growers like Mulgowie through the Woolworths Organic Growth Fund and the Dairy Innovation Fund to offer interest-free loans and grants to support sustainable farming journeys towards a better tomorrow.

For more information on how Woolworths Group is creating a better tomorrow please visit woolworthsgroup.com.au/sustainability