Peter Andrews does not have a university degree underpinning his wealth of knowledge.
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Then again, he says he doesn’t need one.
“The university of hard knocks,” he says proudly.
Mr Andrews gained fame as the pioneer of natural sequence farming, aimed at restoring natural landscapes and processes to invigorate fertility.
His back to basics approach on his former Hunter Valley property, Tarwyn Park, has featured on the ABC’s Australian Story and attracted both praise and controversy.
But it’s a practice in which he believes passionately and doesn’t plan changing anytime soon.
Now, in between consultancies and working on Gerry Harvey’s Hunter Valley property, he’s turning his attention to Woodward Creek at Bungonia. Mr Andrews moved to a 120-acre bush block on the town’s outskirts 18 months ago.
Multiquip Quarry owner Steve Mikosic enlisted his unconventional approach to restore the severely eroded creek, 3km to 4km of which runs through the quarry’s Ardmore Park property.
“It won’t take long. All I need is a tractor,” Mr Andrews quipped, surveying the scoured landscape.
“I’ll rebuild the banks to become one of the best hay paddocks around, with orchards, grassland and chain-of-ponds. I’ve convinced people around here to do it, but not government.”
Butting heads with bureaucracy and challenging conventional thought is nothing new for Andrews. He told The Post that governments kept throwing money at a ‘solution’ but had only made the landscape and climate change worse.
“I thought I needed to make people understand how simple it was but instead, it has been incredibly difficult,” he said.
“...The sadness is that greed and self interest have had carriage of the system.”
Arriving at his Bungonia property, through which part of Woodward Creek runs, it becomes clear he’s tackling a catchment, not just a waterway.
Water and plants are the key. As he explains, water can be “the most necessary and most destructive component.” It’s just the way it’s managed. His system turns water forces in on themselves to lose energy and create “pockets.” In turn, it reduces erosion.
“Plants will be the engineers and I’ll be the manipulator,” Mr Andrews said.
“I’ll fill it with whatever plants I can find. It is down to clay now and has no fertility and the only way we can restore it is to put the plants back and contribute to the atmosphere.”
He described plants as a “natural air-conditioning system” that hadn’t been managed well since European settlement.
Andrews is no fan of eucalypt trees, which he says are toxic to the ground and waterways. In contrast, the right vegetation will better manage heat and alkalinity.
Under regulations he can’t remove the trees but plans to plant under-storeys of “more suitable” ones. He’s even proposing willow trees for the creek, some species of which can control erosion.
“We’ve had one of the best seasons in years around here but nothing is growing,” he said.
Mr Andrews said concrete flumes built upstream by authorities had not worked. He plans to build a contour, which will also assist filtration, and create a mulch-like environment.
He’s no stranger to the area, having worked on various projects, including at Mulloon Creek, over the past 12 years. These days he works with numerous people wanting to restore their landscape.
“It keeps changing,” Mr Andrews said.
“You can’t write a manual on it. We have the means of communication and the knowledge and there’s no reason it can’t happen tomorrow if the will is there.”
As for Woodward Creek, he’s vowing to turn it into a reproductive “fairy land.”
Words of wisdom
“What are the engines that run any farm?” Peter Andrews asks.
Is it a trick question? Before pondering a reply he answers – “sunlight and gravity.”
“How do you assess basic farm productivity?” In his book it’s the conversion of sunlight to organic matter.
“What is the most available and natural resource on a property?” It’s dew, Mr Andrews says, and understanding its role is fundamental.
Finally, “what powers a cyclone, typhoon, tornado or high or low pressure system?”
“It’s the change of the state of water from a gas to a liquid,” he explains.
These are just some of the questions he asks people during his natural sequence farming sessions.
Understanding elements’ interplay is critical to improving fertility and productivity, Mr Andrews tells The Post.
“The Australian landscape looked after itself for thousands of years but we came along and buggered it up,” he said.
“...I believe any landscape can go from forestry to fertility.”