CRAIG Forsyth's visionary approach to rotational cattle grazing saw him pick up two awards at this year's State Landcare Awards.
Over the years the Mingenew farmer has worked long and hard to develop a predominantly pastoral farming system that delivers a sustainable commercial return and improves the condition of his land.
And this was recognised when Craig received the Rural Press Primary Producer award and the Australian Government Innovation in Sustainable Practices award.
The humble farmer is locally renowned for his innovation and willingness to pass his pasture knowledge and expertise on to friends, neighbours and other farmers within his district.
"We have done a fair bit in terms of productive pasture systems here on our own farm but we have also done a fair bit to spread the word," Craig said.
He and his family began trialling Tagasaste, a spreading evergreen fodder crop, in the mid-1980s as a tool to increase the production of their property and better its soil health at the same time. But after a prolific start to the project Tagasaste production on the farm stalled in the 1990s due to some self-confessed grazing management hiccups.
But Craig persisted.
He quickly changed from a sheep and cattle focused system to a predominantly cropping one as a result of terrible wool prices during the 1990s and continued to play with pasture production along the way.
Toward the end of the 90s low input prices, steady commodity prices and favourable seasons kept the farm "ticking along" but an unusually wet season in 1999 meant Craig's grain production hit a brick wall.
"Our usual rainfall average is 450 millimetres and we got 800mm that year," Craig said.
"We had a lot of waterlogging, herbicide resistance and disease problems and at the end of the day wind erosion was still a huge problem."
Craig trialled a number of perennial grasses in the mid-1990s but the amount of rain in 1999 was the straw that broke the camel's back.
In 2000 the Forsyth's accelerated their pasture plantings by sowing perennial grasses to get more ground cover and moved from cropping into an intensive time-managed rotational cattle grazing system.
Since then things have never looked better on the 3600 hectare farm.
The 2900ha of arable farmland is now solely dedicated to beef production.
Last year the Forsyth's farm supported 3000 head of grazing cattle at one time, an unimaginable feat just 20 years ago.
Craig solely dedicated 1100ha to perennial pasture and 500ha to Tagasaste each year.
"We're well and truly halfway to our goal in terms of pasture production," he said.
"We have full confidence in the system.
"We've put an extra 100ha of pasture and 50ha of Tagasaste in this year and we're hoping to have the whole farm under perennials by 2015."
Pastures on the property consisted of a number of perennials including Gatton Panic and Signal Grass as well as annuals like Blue Lupin, clover, sub-clovers and serradella.
"We've sown about 30ha of pasture cropping trials this year just to see which are the best wheat, oat or triticale varieties to boost our perennial pastures," Craig said.
"And we've had two cattle grazings off those trials and produced meat in terms of liveweight per hectare already this year."
He said the last three to five years had been below average seasons and none more so than last year.
"We had no spring last year which meant no rain from August onward until a few days before Christmas when we had half an inch," Craig said.
"If we hadn't been rotationally grazing we wouldn't have had beef production because our annuals just weren't there.
"It was only our perennials that kept us going through the year.
"If we didn't have them we would have had to do some serious de-stocking."
Craig said in previous below average seasons when there were less than average rainfall figures the perennial crops and grasses kept the property's production in good stead.
Perennials were extremely water efficient and used every last drop of water available to the plant.
"That was the biggest benefit of the rainfall we had in December and January last year," Craig said.
"The pasture made use of that rain and by the end of June 2011 we had already taken off nearly 100kg of liveweight cattle a hectare."
Currently the Forsyth's pasture system is sustaining nearly 2000 head of cattle but Craig hoped it would have been closer to 3000 head by this time of the year.
But new cattle are arriving from the Kimberley, Pilbara and Gascoyne at the Mingenew property on a regular basis.
The Forsyths worked within a profit-share scheme whereby they entered into agreements with pastoralists.
Northern cattle producers sent their stock to Craig's farm for finishing before being sold and the Forsyths were paid a percentage of the cattle's worth at sale time.
Most finished cattle were sold to the live export market but the Forsyths were always on the look out for new markets due to the recent 350kg weight restrictions imposed by Indonesian processors.
"The live export ban troubles affected us to a certain degree but the biggest affect has been the lack of confidence it has instilled in pastoralists in sending cattle down," Craig said.
"Because they had a good season, pastoralists have been able to hold off mustering. Normally we would have a lot more cattle by this stage of the year."
Craig said he had definitely witnessed a resurgence in WA pasture systems within the last five to 10 years.
"Farmers are identifying which paddocks grow the crops and which best support stock," he said.
"There's no point in spending money on cropping programs for poor land especially when inputs are so high and when there are such wonderful varieties of perennials available.
"We have just been a bit more proactive in looking for the most efficient and effective way to make money from our land.
"The sustainability benchmark is when soil health, ground cover and production is actually improving and that is exactly what we have been able to achieve."
