Clifton farmers lead the way with ALMS

19-Dec-2007

The Clifton farmers are justifiably proud of their achievements, which were recognised at at the ALMS certification Awards night

Farmers at Clifton on the Queensland Darling Downs have used state of the art technology and an internationally recognised management system to justify the ‘green’ image of Australian farming.

Not content just to claim the ‘green’ badge the Clifton farmers have adopted the Australian Landcare Management System (ALMS) using a specially designed internet based software package, myEMS.

“This is an exciting development and we are delighted that our Clifton Farmers are leading the way’ according to project coordinator, Louise Skidmore, speaking at the ALMS Certification Awards night at Clifton on Wednesday 5th December.

One of the Clifton Farmers, Clive Strong put it this way: “We are an active group of farmers strongly committed to good environmental practice. But we get little or no recognition. That is why we have joined ALMS, as a way to get recognition and to further improve our management”.  

Louise is immensely proud of the group’s achievements which were enabled by high quality training provided by Peter Crawford of North East Downs Landcare and Darren Marshall of Queensland Murray Darling Committee.

Clifton Shire Council’s Bernadette Trimingham was very supportive in providing essential internet access at the library where myEMS training took place.   

‘Until now’ according to Tony Gleeson, Executive Director of the ALMS Group, ‘we have not had a national whole-of-farm catchment-linked management system to enable farmers to improve productivity and environmental outcomes and to be recognised for improving environmental performance’.

Gleeson says Australian farmers have been at the forefront of adopting new production systems using state of the art technology but until now these have not been applied to the environmental field.

The need for a system like ALMS was the brainchild of Jock Douglas, a well recognised industry, community and Landcare leader from Roma, Queensland. Jock’s efforts dating back to 2000 have led to the design of ALMS and the production of a number of helpful tools, principally the web based software tool, myEMS.

In partnerships with catchment management authorities, NRM Boards and industry groups ALMS is now being applied across several States.

The ALMS Group maintains close links with global agribusiness organisations and environmental groups. At a recent national conference at Mudgee in New South Wales there was consideration of ALMS as a platform to enable certification for carbon trading.

The ALMS  myEMS  system was part of ‘NRM Capacity Building Workshops for Clifton Landholders’ an Envirofund project, developed and coordinated by Louise Skidmore for Clifton Landcare.  The project provided training for land managers in healthy soil, property planning and management, GIS mapping, and culminated in audited ISO 14001 ALMS using the web based myEMS software.

The ALMS Group is supported by Elders, several catchment management authorities, Private Forestry Southern Qld Inc and Australian Wool Innovation.

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