Sustainability
Sustainable farming
Valuing the essential role the environment plays in our business we strive to maximise sustainability in our own commercial farming operations and in the stewardship of our partner growers via the below initiatives:
- Pyrethrum plants bred for Australian conditions – hardy and disease resistant, our advanced plant material contains more Pyrethrins in each flower, meaning we produce more with less
- Advanced soil management practices – crops are rotated to keep soils fertile and healthy, while soil erosion and soil structure degradation is prevented via the application of minimum tillage and stale seedbeds, year round soil surface cover, and swift control of runoff
- Water from sustainable sources – water for irrigation comes from rain and spring filled dams and irrigation schemes that source water from rivers in preference of underground aquifers
- Nutrient requirements based on soil testing and crop monitoring – our field research and development team, and expert agronomists, closely monitor the pyrethrum daisy at all stages in its growth cycle to ensure it has the optimal nutrients and inputs needed to thrive
- Non chemical methods of weed and disease control – to further reduce use of agricultural inputs we steam our hardy and disease resistant seed prior to planting, and combine regular hand-weeding with optimised plant densities and crop rotations
Zero waste
In striving for ‘zero waste’ our specialist plant breeders are tasked with continuous improvement of our pyrethrum plant material, using natural plant selection methods to commercialise only the hardiest, disease resistant pyrethrum plants.
The R&D field implementation team runs trials year round to ensure that we lead-by-example with the optimal application of inputs, while our expert agronomists work hand-in-hand with our commercial farming team and partner growers to replicate best-practice in the field.
The proprietary process that we use to extract our Australian grown Pyrethrins uses responsibly sourced solvents in an advanced closed system – inputs are recycled and reused and 100% of the green waste is applied as a soil amendment in the field or converted into bio-fuel to power our own operations and those of other Tasmanian agri-businesses.
To maximise productivity and reduce interactions in the field we are investing in the latest technological innovations including in-field robotics, drone crop inspection with remote sensing, GPS guided irrigators, and cloud-based tablet applications to capture and refine our agronomists’ recommendations in the field in real-time.