The Mallee country in the far north west corner of Victoria (Australia) is
semi-arid, flat, scrubby country that stretches across into South
Australia and is bounded to the north by the irrigated richness of the
Murray River lands. To the south, national parks of desert wilderness
have their own native richness, with glorious wildflowers in spring.
The Mallee gum, which characterises these parts, has an extremely tough lignotuber which allows the small tree to cope with drought and
resprout after fires that are sparked by the lightening of dry summer
storms. When the wheat farmers moved in to these marginal lands they
struggled to rip out the mallee gums as fast as possible. The famous
Mallee roots were shipped to Melbourne for firewood and to England to
make pipes from. With the loss of much of the tree cover the area’s
annual rainfall has declined by about one third.
In these parts it is not uncommon to drive through huge swirling clouds
of topsoil that blows after the hint of rain gets farmers out
ploughing. Instead of bringing rain, the winds snatch up the topsoil
and send it east, to dump it in the Tasman sea or on New Zealand (- no
wonder that country is so lush!) It’s like a trip through Armageddon.
I was in Melbourne in 1983 when severe dust storms blackened the
daytime sky as though night had fallen.
The duststorms used to be far worse, going for days on end- filling
houses,and covering fences and roads. Farmers have been trying to
modify their destructive European ways, since the severe drought of
1902, when fallowing and trash retention were introduced to conserve
soil moisture and reduce the dust hazard.
Dryland salinity is another alarming spectre. The whole of the Mallee
used to be a vast inland sea. Salt is harvested from salt lakes there.
Ancient salt deposits in the soil and poor farming practises combine in
destroying farm soils, where once trees thrived. It can be pretty bleak
in this country.
A permaculture outpost
In the heart of thie Sunset Country, on the Mallee Highway to Adelaide,
lies the sleepy little town of Murrayville – a mistaken identity, as it
is far from the Murray River. Dominated by huge wheat silos, like
others nearby, this town of some 310 souls is surprisingly green. Many
ancient mallee gums have been retained throughout and actively
conserved by locals. Rare native plants have survived here and many
birds, such as the Rainbow bee eater, abound.
An abundant supply of fresh bore water makes gardening relatively easy. The loosely defined Mediterranean climate can, however, get very hot for long spells, up to 48C. Rainfall is only 250 – 300mm. Up to 30
frosts are experienced each winter.
Like a small oasis, Murrayville is nestled amongst huge tracts of wheat
and cereal croplands. What the casual visitor may not realise is that
there are many thousands of acres of organically produced crops in the
area. If you were to fly over you would be pleasantly surprised to see
extensive shelter plantings of endemic species. Even 20 acre plus
spirals of saltbush here and there. When I visited, a local was amazed
to report seeing, from a light plane above, the giant word LOVE marked
out in freshly ploughed ground below him.
The ‘pioneer species’ responsible for initiating such Earth-centred
activities, is one Kymbo Kingdon, a member of one of Murrayville’s
multi-generational farming families. With a thirty acre property on the
edge of town that he and wife Kylie manage, with two boys under five,a
seed collection and tree planting business and now sole responsibility
for his parent’s thousand acre wheat and sheep farm, Kymbo is kept very busy.
A traditionally raised farmer’s son, Kymbo has been develping
permacultural alternatives for ten years now and his results have been
outstanding. Running the family farm for the last 7 years under an
organic regime has proved very successful, with consistent increases in
profit margins and protein levels. Another local farmer who grows 100%
organically has retrofitted his soils so remarkably that he’s
considering changing from cereals to legumes.
Kymbo focusses on remineralizing his soil using a product which is a
mixture of rock dusts, and also adds a micro-organism activator. A few
wheat farmers in the area have successfully installed ‘Towers of Power’
and special basalt rock dust from Mt Gambier, to the south, as their
only soil additive.
The old days
In 1935 Kym’s granddad Laurie bought the family farm where his mother was later born.”Back then” he told me, “we used to get 16″ of rain a year. Now it’s only 12″ to 13″.” He reminisced about the severe
droughts of the 30′s and 40′s; the straw bale house someone built 40
years ago in Pinnaroo ( 22km away). Before the advent of the tractor,
Laurie used to manage 18 draught horses to take the wheat to market,
and life revolved around them. He also kept greyhounds, a few pigs and
thousands of broiler fowl, to take advantage of the abundant wheat.
When stubbble burning was outlawed, sheep were used to knock down the stubble. Fields were rested for 2 years out of 3. But with the rise of
chemical farming, the rotation was reduced to a 2 year cycle. Now Kymbo has restored it back to 3 years.
For over 5 year Kymbo has been active in the Landcare movement. Now
only the flat farm areas carry wheat and any higher ground is cloaked
in the perennial shrubs Old Man and Curly Leaved Saltbush – sheep
fodder favourites. Once the lambs were very vulnerable to attack from
crows and foxes. Kymbo brought in just one alpaca to live with the
flock and since then they’ve had no losses to predators.
© Alanna Moore 1999. This article was first published in the Permaculture International Journal #71.