Overcoming farming’s Great Barriers

Graziers and farmers near the Great Barrier Reef have been helped to take on regenerative agricultural practices that have reduced erosion and run-off.

Story Ken Eastwood   Photo Kent Ward 

Charters Towers grazier Karin Robinson reckons the regenerative agriculture training she and her husband Kale received as part of Project Pioneer was better than getting a cash grant to undertake work on their property. "There's a saying something like, 'Once you know better, you do better'," she says. "And that's what it's like. We would have just done what we've always done. Project Pioner has opened up new ways of thinking and a different approach that we can marry with our traditional understanding of the land and grazing."

Over the past four years, 150 farming families in catchment areas beside the Great Barrier Reef have been helped by Project Pioneer to understand how to better manage their properties in terms of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Set up by Resource Consulting Service (RCS) and funded by a partnership between the Australian Government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the project instils farm management practices that promote soil health and biodiversity, with the aim of reducing destructive sediment run-off into Great Barrier Reef catchments.