Balanced approach for Bryce Garnock of South Bukalong at Bombala in southern NSW

FLEXIBILITY and a focus on the land and animals is paying dividends at South Bukalong, in southern NSW near Bombala, for farmer Bryce Garnock.

High steaks: Bryce Garnock of South Bukalong at Bombala in NSW.

WHEN Bryce Garnock studied farm management at Marcus Oldham agricultural college he learnt an invaluable lesson: question the status quo.

“Information was the key,” Bryce, 40, said.

“Find out as much as you can about as much as you can and bring it to your own ­systems.

“Marcus Oldham made me think differently, to have an inquisitive mind, not to assume that you are right and don’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results.”

So when Bryce returned to his family’s sixth-generation farm, the 2200ha South Bukalong, in southern NSW near Bombala, taking over in 2007 he questioned farm management methods.

He turned the property’s production around, going from high input and high output, to low input holistic management. Bryce currently stocks 700 cows, 300 heifer yearlings, 300 steer yearlings and 2000 Merino sheep. But even this does not adequately represent farm production.

An opportunistic buyer and seller, he has no affiliation to breed, gender, or age of livestock, with his No 1 rule simply “buying underpriced animals”.

His plans are to sell the Merino flock and buy prime lambs this year. And most ­recently he decided to give value-adding a go, selling through a new tech start-up company, Crowd Carnivore.

“As a holistic manager everything I do is for the land and for the animals,” said Bryce, who runs the farm with his wife Sarah and three ­children.

“I’ve learnt that Mother ­Nature will have the ultimate say. So I just go with the flow, If it’s dry I destock and if it rains I buy more stock.”

REDUCING RISK

BRYCE took over the property in 2007 with a huge dispersal sale. When he came back to the farm in 1998 it was the start of the drought and his father Murray ran it as a stud with Herefords and Poll Herefords, Merinos and Poll Dorsets.

“My dad (Murray) was the pinnacle of risk. In the drought he’d feed the cattle and not be able to sell because clients wouldn’t need a bull or ram,” said Bryce of the sixth generation farm started in 1842 by George Garnock.

“He loved playing chess — running a highly intensive farm with huge amounts of effort. He was an eternal optimist and always said it was going to rain. I’m of the opinion it doesn’t have to.”

It was in 1998 that Bryce took part in an holistic management course in Bombala and the decision changed the course of his farm management for good.

“It showed me there were alternatives to high input high output,” said Bryce, adding that the method is still a “work in progress”.

“I’m not elitist. Different methods work for different farms. Holistic management is such a simple concept but so hard to do.”

One of the fundamentals of holistic management, developed by Zimbabwean Allan Savory for reversing desertification, is stock ­rotation.

PENNED IN

BRYCE has installed Westonfence ($3500/km), changing from the old 30ha paddocks to new 15ha paddocks (“that’s the magic number I’ve found”), with Kiwitech hot wires segmenting off sections for fast rotation: between one and three days.

 Depending on growing conditions paddocks are rested for between 60-180 days.

“The idea is that you ­increase the density of animals per square metre and it does amazing things — carbon sequestration goes through the roof, grass utilisation goes through the roof, there’s no oxidisation of dry matter and the microflora and fauna underground intensifies, all the worms, dung beetles and microorganisms.

“The cows are a way to ­repair and improve the land,” Bryce says.

“Because you’ve got healthy plants, healthy soil and healthy animals the country hangs on a lot better and responds quickly.”

Pastures aren’t slashed but litter left on the ground “acting like a doona in winter and shade cloth in summer”.

ON THE SLATE

ABOUT 40 per cent of the property’s soil is slate, 40 per cent basalt and the rest granite. Bryce’s father improved pastures in the ‘70s and ‘80s with phalaris and cocksfoot.

Rather than renovating pastures, Bryce aims to “manipulate” pastures by using a combination of the likes of livestock and dung beetles — trialling methods created by Australian farmer Colin Seis’ and his pasture cropping theory.

The only supplement he feeds stock is a mineral additive through stock water — ­because the area is deficient in copper, cobalt and selenium.

Bryce has just finished ­installing 40km of 63mm pipe across much of the property for stock and domestic water.

In the drought years they relied on bores, springs and dams, which all dried up, but he has now installed three pumps — one solar and two diesel — from the Bombala River to pump 100,000 litres a day to an elevation of 180m.

Average annual rainfall around Bombala is 600mm (in the drought it only reached 300mm).

Bryce says he buys and sells stock throughout the year, tagging, weighing, pregnancy-testing, drenching, vaccinating and quarantining new stock for two days before splitting them into groups of either pregnancy-tested-in-calf cows, calves, heifers, steers or store cattle, then ­focusing on low stock stress handling.

“I put them into an environment where they learn about dogs, bikes, horses, humans and trucks so they stay calm and respond quickly.”

MARKET FORCES

WITH livestock tagged and weight-monitored, Bryce knows what he can sell and when, selling through AuctionsPlus or Wagga Wagga and Cooma saleyards.

Most recently he’s joined Crowd Carnivore, a new ­agtech start-up that crowdfunds the sale of his beef direct from his farm to customers around NSW and most ­recently Victoria, via an abattoir in Orbost and a butcher in Bombala.

In Crowd Carnivore’s first five weeks in March-April, he has slaughtered a beast a week, 220kg carcass weight, which is then marketed as ethical and ecologically-reared.

“It’s a small part of the business but I’m getting rewarded for the work I’m doing.”