1.8. Case study

MIKE MCCOSKER: Hi. I'm Mike McCosker. I'm actually a fourth generation farmer on this farm.

HELEN MCCOSKER: And I'm Helen McCosker. I'm a first generation farmer.

M. MCCOSKER: Our farm is largely a mixed livestock and cropping operation, and we focus on beef cattle. I think the journey really started back in the late 90s – 97, 98.

H. MCCOSKER: Yeah. And I think from there, that really, like, started the momentum of, like, really understanding what is it that we wanted to change on our farm. So we had a feedlot business, and it was, it was 24/7. It was a really hard slog.

And part of that process was, like, really understanding, you know, from a farm planning perspective, what are the things that you know, the opportunity cost? What are the things that we're doing that's not working? And what are the things that we think we should be doing? So there was a real, like, you know, navel-gazing process, wasn't there?

M. MCCOSKER: Those changes were about making the best food that we can make, ensuring that our farm was in excellent health to hand on to the kids because we wanted a generational legacy.

And lastly, it it had to be profitable as well.

Yeah. So a bit of a change of focus, you know, rather than lock the cattle into a small area and grow crops to feed to the cattle, how could we use the cattle differently out on the farm to help regenerate the the pasture land? So the spade test is where we actually get into the soil to see what's going on.

And when we're thinking of soil carbon, what we need is good active biology, and good biological activity will show up as this beautiful crumbly soil structure.

This is what lets the water get into the soil, the rainfall get into the soil. This is what creates the space that holds the moisture in the soil for the plants.

This is what the end result becomes soil carbon in the soil. So the smell should be alive and sweet and earthy.

If this smells like a sewer or even if this smells bland, then the biology is not healthy and not doing its thing of storing carbon.

If the soil is tight and compacted, when the soil carbon is missing, the structure of the soil collapses. So we don't have the pore spaces. This is why the water can't get into the soil.

So some of this, carbon is actually living and cycling in the soil biology, and some of it has been stored and is more stable.

Now I think the chemical model, you know, the cost of inputs just continues to go up and up and up and up. And getting control of that process was actually about coming back to the principles, the underlying principles of soil health.

Do you need an adviser in this? I think you need to work out what works on your own farm, and I think you need a trusted person to talk to.

That trusted person may not be the chemical sales agronomist in town. It might be an agronomist that knows more about soil health or about alternative ways of farming.

That trusted person may be a farmer next door that's trying a few different things and talking to them and seeing what has worked for them and what hasn't worked for them. And I think that's where the communication at a community level comes in. You know, don't be frightened of being a little bit different, and don't be frightened of talking to your neighbours about different ideas.

H. MCCOSKER: Yeah. And I think even from a carbon farming perspective, there is actually, extraordinary value in farmers in an area coming together and working together and you know, understanding the things that aren't working, the things that are working in a mentoring space. Because it's actually farmers that come up with the solutions. You know? So when you're able to be in dialogue with other farmers, then we're actually the perfect advisers, really, aren't we?

M. MCCOSKER: I suppose in the last five years, even though we've been doing this for some time, you know, the the focus has started to come in on to soil carbon, and, you know, there's opportunities there potentially.

What we're doing in our farm plan to build back resilience could give us an extra source of income by actually, you know, being paid for the carbon that we're taking out of the atmosphere and putting back into the soil.

One piece of advice that I would give to people is hasten slowly and that, don't be afraid to fail.

But if you do fail, make sure you've failed on just a little bit of the farm and work that out before you try and do it over the whole farm.

So the transition period is actually the hardest. It's transitioning your knowledge bank into practical profitable farm ability. That transition can be a little tricky, and don't give up on it.

H. MCCOSKER: Yeah. And I think that you talk about risks. It is a risky you know, the change in mindset is the hardest one. So when you're talking about the risk aspect, like, if you sort of feel like, I'm I'm just gonna keep on doing it this way because I know what's in front of me, you need that mindset change of, well, if I keep on doing the same thing, I'm gonna get the same result over and over again.

So what is it that you need to change, as of-

M. MCCOSKER: So if I want a different future for my children, then I have to make a change here.

And how do we take the risk out of the change? Well, we educate ourselves, and we talk about the ideas, and we plan carefully. We implement slowly, but we make sure that we're always moving forward.

So our costs have gone down. You know, we're using a fraction of the chemical that we used to use. We're under five per cent of what we used to use.

The animal performance with, you know, shelter farming. We've improved our calving percentages, and our weaning weights have gone up.

Possibly 40 to 50 kilos per head on you know, across 200 head is a lot of extra kilos of beef that we're producing on the farm.

H. MCCOSKER: And that affects his direct bottom line.

M. MCCOSKER: Absolutely. Yep.