The grower organisation is highlighting the industry's stewardship and environmental credentials.
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NewsTranscript
00:00This place is my lifeblood.
00:03We've got a lot of passion for our land and our business
00:07and how we look after our crops is really important to us.
00:10Australia is a really hard environment to farm in.
00:12We've got a little bit of moisture, we've got a lot of heat.
00:15Over the last 30 to 40 years, we've seen a revolution
00:18in how we farm in Australia
00:20and that's largely underpinned by our ability to manage weeds.
00:23Chemicals are vital to our system of farming
00:26so we wouldn't be able to control weeds in our crops
00:30and grow the volume of grain that we grow to support the world.
00:35We use herbicides to control the weeds
00:37so that they're not sucking up the nutrients and moisture.
00:40Modern chemicals enable us to kill weeds really effectively.
00:44If those products are removed from the Australian environment,
00:46it would actually mean we would have to manage weeds
00:49through far more interventionist practices
00:51like what we used to do in the 70s and 80s,
00:54which was called tillage,
00:55which was when you would actually break up the soil surface
00:58in its entirety to destroy the weeds.
01:00It cost a lot of diesel, it cost a lot of wind and water erosion
01:04and it cost a lot of moisture.
01:05The environmental outcomes of the way we used to farm
01:08by today's standards are very, very poor.
01:11If we were to take a step back and lose chemistry, lose chemical
01:15and go back to farming practices that involve tillage
01:19and burning up diesel, big four-wheel drive tractors,
01:22high emissions, it's 1,000 steps back.
01:25If we went back to ploughing, there would be no crop here.
01:28We'll actually grow a crop this year,
01:30whereas if you go back to the 80s and earlier,
01:33they wouldn't have got a crop off this year.
01:35Particularly in WA with our fragile soils,
01:37our ability to manage weeds,
01:40we really require these different types of chemicals
01:43and if they were not at our disposal anymore,
01:45we would end up having to change back to old technology,
01:50which is something that is not great for our soil
01:54and I think my husband would break his heart
01:57to go back to something like that
01:58and we definitely wouldn't be breaking even.
02:01It's really important to be operating in a safe environment.
02:04We monitor the weather conditions to make sure
02:07that we're applying chemicals in the right conditions
02:10so it's safe to do so.
02:12The technology with the application equipment,
02:14the sprayers that we use are very high tech these days.
02:18With the use of a camera sprayer,
02:20we're able to get good amounts of chemical at the target
02:24on small percentages of the area of the paddock.
02:27Inside the machine when we're applying,
02:29it's a full carbon filtered sealed cab unit
02:32so while we're in there, we're clean.
02:36Every load of grain that leaves our farm is tested
02:38to make sure that it meets the strict food safety standards.
02:41If it's something that we're producing,
02:43we want to eat it and we want to make sure it's safe to eat
02:45and this is all food that is on our table as well as yours.