“We’ve got to seriously consider this”: How rethinking soil and farming systems could help West Vic farmers pivot from fuel and fertiliser

As farmers grapple with rising fuel costs, fertiliser shortages and growing concern over Australia’s reliance on overseas resources, a Deans Marsh producer believes the answer may lie beneath their feet.

What could be changed? Andrew Stewart, a fourth-generation carbon-neutral farmer at Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, told the Brolga improving soil health and redesigning farm systems to work more with nature could help agriculture become less reliant on diesel and synthetic fertilisers.

• Stewart and his family manage a 230-hectare regenerative farm and agroforestry property on the edge of the Otways, where decades of revegetation and rotational livestock grazing have transformed a once-degraded landscape into an almost carbon-neutral farming operation.

“We’ve got to seriously consider this, don’t we?” he said.

“Why haven’t we gone into electrification more quickly than what we have to reduce the reliance on these imports, the nitrogenous fertiliser, the urea coming in? Most of it comes from overseas”.

How it’s going: Stewart’s property now supports between 1,600 and 1,800 prime lambs annually alongside wool, timber and floristry products, while more than 50,000 trees and shrubs planted across the farm provide shelter, habitat and additional income streams.

How it started: The Stewarts’ whole-farm plan, first completed in 1991, divided the property into land classes, with trees and shrubs planted strategically along boundaries, drainage lines, waterlogged areas and salt-affected ground.

Since then, vegetation cover on the farm has grown from just 3 percent to 19 percent.

What are the benefits? “The environmental benefits [include] reduction of erosion, reduction of salinity, protecting the livestock, protecting the grasses and making it a better place to live,” Stewart told the Brolga.

• The changes have also improved productivity. Cover from trees reduces wind chill during lambing season, helping ewes remain calmer and improving bonding with newborn lambs.

“If you can cut the wind speed down by 20 kilometres an hour with good plantations, you’re reducing the stress factors on that ewe,” Stewart said.

“She’s more likely to stay at the birthing site and develop a bond that is critical six to eight hours after birthing.”

Managing their bottom line: Stewart said the farm’s model had also created multiple income streams beyond livestock.

• The family now harvests sawlogs and round timber from agroforestry plantings, while wife Jill Stewart runs a floristry business using banksias and native foliage grown on less productive parts of the property.

“It certainly helps. Farming is a tough game … you need everything going for you,” Stewart said. “But you can add these little bits and pieces coming in for some diversity.” 

Using the resources on farm: For Stewart, however, the broader lesson is reducing dependence on external inputs altogether.

He argued many farmers could cut fertiliser use by focusing more on soil biology, rotational grazing and legume-based pasture systems that naturally draw nitrogen from the air.

“The better way to look at it is to look after the soils more so you don’t need as much of this stuff,” he said. “Then think about the plant rotations with the leguminous plant, so you can suck in the nitrogen from the atmosphere.”

Looking ahead: As global supply chains remain volatile, Stewart believes building more resilient farm systems will be critical for the future of Australian agriculture.

“We should be getting that front and centre,” he said. “Thinking about different ways of managing our soils, managing the crop rotations [and] livestock rotations to come up with more sustainable and farm-friendly programs on our properties.”