Efficiency and resilience keep Busch Organics going strong

A family’s insightful switch to organic farming has brought growth in both profits and proficiency.

Green thumb: Kane Busch sorts through green beans grown on his family’s Busch Organics farm. Picture: Dannika Bonser

THE Busch family will next year notch up a century of continuously farming horticultural crops in East Gippsland, with the past two decades certified organic.

Fourth generation Kane Busch said the cumulative power of gener­ational knowledge had led to farming efficiency and for four years they have posted an annual growth of 30 per cent.

“It has taken us 100 years to reach our peak,” Kane said.

“Definitely demand for organic has grown, but what has driven the growth is we’ve become better, more efficient and resilient organic farmers with reliable markets.

“The main constraint for us now is access to land. It’s so highly sought-after here it doesn’t even make it for sale.”

Danish immigrant Eiler Busch first started farming on the fertile soils of Lindenow in 1921, the same land farmed by Kane, his brothers Matt and Damien, and parents Chris and Rosette.

Busch Organics grows six vegetable crops year-round on 120ha over two properties, at Lindenow and a leased block at Stratford.

Beetroot is their biggest crop, by weight, harvesting about 1000 tonnes annually, as well as crops of broccoli, beans, celery, cabbage and leek.

Harvested vegetables are packed and stored in an on-farm packing facility and trucked to market daily, with six full-time staff.

All product is sold in domestic wholesale markets including Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, as well as through pre-packers in Adelaide, who on-sell to export markets.

At one stage the Busches exported to Singapore but stopped because of “a number of challenges”, but plan to again export in coming years.

MINIMISING RISK

KANE said one of the keys to the business’ efficiency and resilience was growing on two different sites, which provides an insurance policy against natural events, including flooding over the years.

Both properties have different soil types — medium loam at Lindenow and sandy at Stratford — as well as slightly varying climates. Soil health underscores all the Buschs’ farm management decisions, with crops rotated between the two sites — one crop grown on one area annually.

“We could plant more but we don’t because we don’t want to push the land,” Kane said.

“We are biological farmers. Without soil health we have nothing.”

Cover crops such as oats or field peas are sown in autumn and ploughed back in to the soil at the end of winter.

Cover crops also provide an insurance policy if there is flooding, avoiding the loss of top soil.

Cash crops are then planted, generally alternating with a legume one year, followed by a brassica then a root vegetable, for instance beetroot, then broccoli and beans.

Once a crop is harvested the soil is left to rest to allow weeds to germinate, then dug up.

“Because we can’t use herbicide, this is one way to reduce the weed seed bank,” 32-year-old Kane said.

Weeds are also removed by flaming. Kane said his grandfather, Lex, and father decided to grow organically, becoming certified in 2000, after seeing handfuls of dead worms in the soil.

“He said ‘we’re killing the worms’. It was a turning point for our family’s farming,” Kane said. “They decided not to use chemicals, even before the concept of certification came about.

“We test organic matter yearly and every year it rises, which means it holds nutrients and water, so the soil is doing the work for us. At the same time our carbon reserves are also growing.”

EVIDENCE APLENTY

KANE said the benefits of this decision continued to be seen on the farm, with crop failures from disease diminishing each year as soil gets healthier.

Crop losses still occur, but not with the same severity, he said, adding that organic inputs were allowable to treat disease, such as copper. The soil also receives annual compost, as well as fertiliser such as seaweed and fish solutions.

The Busch family has planted a variety of herbs and flowers in shelter belts and buffer zones around the property to home beneficial insects such as lady bugs.

“If you have a problem you’ve got to solve it yourself. You can’t rely on a bottle,” Kane said. “Over the years we’ve had crop failures, even as late as last year. We still make mistakes and things are out of our control, but it’s much less than in the past and with conventional farming.”

Kane said his grandfather was a lateral thinker, sinking a bore early, which made the farm resilient over dry years.

Each of the Buschs’ two properties provides water security, with access to an irrigation entitlement from the Mitchell River, as well as bore water. For three years they have been in drought conditions, in January and February receiving their first reprieve of more than 100mm. of rain “It has been very challenging and we’re still a long way from being in the clear,” Kane said.

TRICKLE DOWN

NEVERTHELESS the family has invested in irrigation infrastructure, including underground mains and lateral irrigators, over the past five years. Investment has also been made in machinery, including precision planters that cover a larger area faster, to plant out seeds and seedlings in field. Kane said he learnt much from his grandfather, who would advocate selling all specifications of vegetables.

“We don’t just sell the best, we sell all specifications,” he said. “Having said that, being organic, quality has to be as good as a conventional product, because that gives us an ability to sell in all markets.”

Ultimately, the father-of-two young boys said while farming generally — but also farming organically — had its frustrations, the family never regrets becoming certified.

“We’ve now got the fifth generation coming on and I love that my boys can eat really safe, healthy food, and if they want, they have the opportunity to work on a farm that will last many more gener­ations,” Kane said.