Lucerne growers take 'small steps' towards QA

摘要

Spare a thought for how difficult it is for a farmer to manually monitor the activities in every square metre of a paddock, when it is near impossible for 18 AFL football players to guard all 22,900.92 square metres of the Melbourne Cricket Ground'splaying surface during a match. Farmers need tools to help them streamline their farming operations and improve profitability to be more effective environmental managers. So called 'paper trails' are proving far too onerous as evidenced by the steady departure of farmers from many Quality Assurance (QA) programs emerging in recent years. Mid Murray Lucerne Inc is one farming group that survived the QA exodus. The association represents 60-plus farmers from Northern Victoria and South Western Riverina inNew South Wales and is making headway to ready growers for ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) accreditation to meet regional catchment strategy targets.