The GRDC, in partnership with the Australian Government’s Caring for our Country program, have worked with Solutions Marketing and Umbers Rural Services to conduct a national survey of growers to capture and present information about the farming practices currently in use on grain and mixed farms across Australia.

This information provides an important means for monitoring and evaluating the success of RD&E investments, i.e. the levels of adoption around Australia, identification of successes and gaps, and for assistance in directing future investments, or for modifying existing projects.

Recently, the GRDC and associated agencies in the grains industry identified a number of key management practices, considered important in driving productivity, profitability, sustainability and environmental improvements on grain farms. 

This Report details the scale at which these farming practices are being used by Australian grain growers and will become a focal point in planning and evaluating GRDC R&D initiatives such as its Water Use Efficiency, Grain & Graze 2 and Crop Sequencing programs.

We look forward to working with our industry’s growers, advisers and research partners in new and proven ways to improve these baselines, making our industry more sustainable and profitable. 

To view the complete report, click here

2008 Farm Practices Survey

About Us
How to Fill in the Data Form
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Contact Us 
 

About Us

Welcome to the GRDC Sustainable Farming Practices data gathering and reporting initiative.
If you are a farmer or manage farmland, please visit the dedicated website, enter some information about your farm using either the PDF data form or directly on the website. You will be assisting GRDC with evaluating how well growers are using the outcomes from research, assisting with showing productivity and environmental management and you will receive a report showing how your farm and practices compare to others in your area.
We have tried to keep it as simple as possible, because we know that you don't really want to fill out another form.
However, it is important, because the industry doesn't have this information.
The aims of the initiative are many, and include:
• The need to find identify what practices are being done and at what level they are being carried out.
• What effects this has on production and sustainability.
• To assist with evaluating the successes of investments in farming systems research
• To identify area where investment is needed
• To assist with showing trends and progress in the industry to a range of audiences
To find out more, see what reports are available and enter your data go to:
www.farmingpractices.com.au 

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GRDC Farming Practices Dataform

GRDC Farming Practices Dataform can be downloaded at http://www.farmingpractices.com.au/pdfentryform.html
or e-mail us at admin@farmingpractices.com.au  

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
If your questions are not answered on this page, please contact us at admin@farmingpractices.com.au  

Currently there is very little complete data on a national level on what farming practices are being carried out. This data is necessary to make accurate judgments on the effectiveness of modern farming practices on a variety of outcomes, such as productivity and sustainable land use.

As well as this, with global warming becoming one of the most talked about issues for urban dwellers, the industry needs accumulated hard evidence that they are using the best practices possible. 

GRDC invests around $35 million annually in research related to farming practices. By identifying where various practices are used and the productivity flowing from these, GRDC can better evaluate the successes of this investment in research, and identify where new investments are best likely to provide benefits. 

By simply taking the time to fill in the data form growers can have a direct input into better evaluating these successes and highlighting where investment is warranted. 

Is my personal information safe?
Individual data from a grower will not be used individually other than when it is returned in the report that is sent back to all who submit their data. 

An individual identifying number is issued when the data is received, and then this is how data is identified within the database. Personal details and data are not stored together. 

Information is only used in an amalgamated form. Data is combined into shires and is not used until a 25% of total accumulated data is achieved to guarantee anonymity. 

Will this service continue?
There is considerable interest from many bodies who need this type of amalgamated information.
You will no doubt have been asked to do many surveys over the years. By a national organisation like GRDC gathering these data it is hoped the need for additional or duplicate surveys will be diminished.

Why should I do this?
• Because you get something back (a comparative report for your farm) that may be valuable to you. The report lets you see how you are doing against the area averages, and also gives you a specific report on how your farming practices are impacting on your farm.
• It gives some indicators, for example, water use efficiency, nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency, erosion and other types of similar impacts. These calculations are based on scientific research and have been verified by other scientists and agronomists.
• Your data, along with everyone else’s can have great power for evaluating how well growers are managing in the current climate, how well GRDC investments in farming practices are being adopted, where ‘gaps’ exist, and where further investments will be of most use. This is a chance to directly contribute to your industry better being able to show progress and highlight needs.
AND its a free service provided for you, to help you avoid possible regulation.

My data form won't open in the PDF Reader or internet browser
This may occur if internet explorers security setting or your virus software has blocked it. Right click on your mouse and select 'Save target as" to save it to your computer. Open on your computer and continue as normal.
We have found an excellent (free) PDF reader that will work with our dataform, and that allows you to easily save you form to your computer. Go to http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/index.php Version 3 seems to work well.

When does the data collection end?
The data collection doesn't end. The system is designed to be open ended for both previous and future years of data collection. You can submit data from as many previous years as you like.
Data will continue to be collected into the future. Many surveys are snapshots of a small area and within a short time frame. The database has been designed to continuously accumulate data, returning reports as the data is received. When a major change is made to the report, a new one will be sent to you. In this way, we can build a clear picture of agricultural farming practices in Australia.

What year data do I put in?
You can put whichever year in that you wish, the more years of data that are submitted, the better the trend report. The year is taken from the 1st of January to the 31st of December which covers in general the sowing and harvesting of the wheat crop in Australia. At present we are focussing on 2008 crop year. 

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Contact Us

Alan Umbers
Project Consultant
E-mail: alan@farmingpractices.com.au  
Ph: 02 63 437188
Fax: 02 8088 1052
Mob: 0428 432 557

Region National, North, South, West