SHORT COMMUNICATION
EverGraze - a project to achieve profit and
environmental outcomes in the Australian grazing
industries
More details
Hide details
1
EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Charles Sturt Universit,
and NSW Department of Primary Industries
Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia
2
Co-operative Research Centre for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity,
University of Western Australia,
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
3
CSIRO Livestock Industries,Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia
4
Primary Industries Research Victoria,
RMB 1145, Rutherglen, Vic 3685, Australia
Publication date: 2007-09-17
Corresponding author
M. A. Friend
EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Charles Sturt Universit,
and NSW Department of Primary Industries
Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia
J. Anim. Feed Sci. 2007;16(Suppl. 2):70-75
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Australian agriculture is faced with environmental issues including increasing land and river
salinity and reduced biodiversity. Key to the addressing these are to develop livestock systems that
achieve improved environmental outcomes and increased profit, in order to promote widespread
adoption. EverGraze is a national research and extension project developing innovative livestock
production systems based on perennial pastures which will deliver improved profit and environmental
outcomes. Integrated bioeconomic and biophysical modeling (in consultation with farmers and
catchment managers) was used to identify farming systems which have the potential to deliver
improved profit and environmental outcomes, as well as identifying constraints to achieving these
outcomes. Whole farm systems and component research is now underway across several sites in the
high rainfall zones (>550 mm) of southern Australia to test the potential of new livestock systems
and to investigate the specific benefits of parts of these systems (e.g., improving sheep reproductive
performance through perennial pastures and shrubs). This paper presents modelling results and how
they were used to design field experiments, and preliminary experimental results from one of these
experiments.
CITATIONS (4):