'Traffic jam' at historic conference

I have doubt it will be recorded, that the national Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) conference held in Perth, marked the ‘official’ start of what farming into the future will look like.

It brought back memories for the many farmers who attended the halcyon days in the 1980s of frequent Kondinin Group field days and seminars and the 1990s, when the WA No Till Farmers Association (WANTFA) was formed to put WA dryland broadacre cropping on a new pathway.

Ironically, the first national CTF conference was held in 1995 and the last time Perth hosted the event was in 2007.

Twenty two years on, farmers are obviously jumping off the proverbial fence, keen to embrace a technology which a few of their peers having been practising from about 2000, mainly along the South Coast and the Mid West.

More than 300 farmers attended the conference last Tuesday, a strong indication of the thirst for knowledge of a system generally highly regarded.

And on the ‘northern’ paddock walk I attended the following day, more than 130 farmers turned up to check out a CTF system on Bolgart farmer Trevor Syme’s property.

There are a lot of farmers I know who practice what I call ‘pseudo CTF’ using RTK guidance and following the boomsprayer tracks.

The reason they don’t embrace full CTF is mainly cost of turning over old machinery and buying new gear on three metre axles.

Thankfully the take-home message from the conference was a good one – don’t get too legalistic about CTF.

Arguably the best speakers were those who got up and said, “I buggered it up a few times when I first started”, or, “I just took my time getting the machinery I wanted and I gradually evolved into it”.

The conference provided attendees with a suite of subject matter, from barriers, myths and challenges to adopting CTF into livestock enterprises.

Agronomic, economic and ‘precisionomic’ subjects also were covered in what could be described as one of the best farmer conferences held in this State for a long time.

For those starting out, probably the biggest take-home message was to deep rip or renovate all your paddocks after you’ve worked out your run lines.

The conference was organised by the Australian Controlled Traffic Association (ACTFA), WANTFA and the fledgling WA Controller Traffic Farming Association (WACFA), organised by former Department of Agriculture and Food WA researcher Dr Paul Blackwell.

During the conference he quipped to this writer, “I’m getting more done these days as a servant to the public, rather than being a public servant”.

The other heartening aspect of this conference was the welcoming of the Farm Machinery & Industry Association (FMIA).

FMIA executive officer John Henchy and Nufab Equipment manufacturer and FMIA executive committee member Peter Nunn, Dongara, were official conference speakers, reflecting the recognition by organisers of the vital role the farm mechanisation industry is playing in promoting CTF.

This whole of industry approach bodes well for the future success of CTF in WA.