Monocultures vs mixed farming (cropping plus livestock)

March 6th, 2013

A well written quote appeared in yesterday’s Townsville Bulletin Newspaper ‘Youth in Print’ section: “Monoculture is virtually the opposite of biodiversity.  Monocultures occur where a single species is grown – usually for commercial purposes – such as sugar cane or pine forests.  Soil decline with subsequent commercial yield reduction is associated with monocultural systems and [...]

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Australia’s fine wool (Merino) industry

February 6th, 2012

Imagine if a capital city newspaper ran a story on Toyota wheel drives and illustrated it with an image of a Mini Cooper S.  Can you imagine the resulting  laughter, too? Apparently it’s fine to use any old stock library image when it comes to illustrating a story on agriculture, however.  The Feb 4-5 2012 edition of Brisbane’s [...]

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Best Rangeland Practice and Innovation (Bestprac)

January 24th, 2012

There’s a great source of useful rural management stories and interesting information on the ‘Bestprac’ website.  Bestprac is supported by AWI (Australian Wool Innovation) and specialises in the promotion of best practice management of arid rangelands, helping cattle producers as well as sheepmeat/wool producers located in more sparsely settled areas (i.e. lower rainfall farming regions) hear first hand stories from [...]

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Environmentally friendly coffins – made of wool

September 12th, 2011

JC Atkinson, the largest manufacturer and distributor of coffins in the U.K.,  sells more than 60,000 coffins (caskets) per year.  JC Atkinson stocks a number of styles that are fully biodegradable, such as coffins made of willow, seagrass and bamboo – as well as cardboard.  However the unique coffin they sell which would appeal to rural [...]

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The Australian Wool Industry

July 17th, 2010

I’m often asked why I don’t take photographs of sheep.  It’s a good question.  I grew up on a wheat-sheep place and have over the years taken a lot of photographs of sheep and particularly love the wool industry.  But there’s two main reasons why to date, I’ve spent a lot of time concentrating on [...]

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Australian Wool & Lamb Production

November 6th, 2009

Riverina Merino sheep

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Ugg boots – be careful you’re buying genuine Australian owned & manufactured

July 15th, 2009

*Please note – this was written in 2009 and a number of the links are broken; however I have left them here because they contain the original addresses for the reference information used. Ugg boots – footwear made from tanned sheepskins, complete with the wool on the inside – have been popular in Australia for [...]

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