Farming chemical-free for 22 years

When his cattle disappear into five-foot-high grass, it's not because the place is overgrown. It is by design.

However, a frightening injury means he now has to sell and, just maybe, see a life's work undone.

Frustrated by bureaucratic inaction, the former researcher bought his own farm 22 years ago to prove a point.

"I was employed in the Department of Agriculture for a long time, we established the canola industry in NSW and did research into multi-species cropping and pasture growth," Mr Newell said.

"When they went all bureaucratic, instead of scientific, I decided to leave and do this regenerative farming research, so I have cut out all the rubbish and got the natural solution."

Mr Newell loves "farming" but is scornful of "agriculture". Farming, he said, builds soils and a solid, self-sustaining system, whereas agriculture slowly depletes the land of nutrients and water.

So, convinced there was a better way that simply needed to be demonstrated, he put his money where his mouth was in 2000, buying 193 hectares (478 acres) at Canowindra in NSW's Central West with wife Beverley, and Misty Mountain Creek was born.

As you might expect of a former department man, every inch of the Newell property is studied, managed and measured.

Where his "landsmanship" approach departs from the norm is that Misty Mountain Creek hasn't seen any money spent on infrastructure, herbicides or fertiliser during the Newells' 22 years of ownership.

The first five years, Mr Newell said, were a disaster.

"About 12 months into it, I thought I'd made a mistake," he said.

"We had a really good season and nothing would grow. It grew about an inch high all over the farm."

In the last five years though, Misty Mountain Creek turned a corner with the introduction of partially grain-fed sheep.

Soils changed colour and deepened, weeds disappeared, water became plentiful and grass growth is beyond luxuriant.

In contrast to the previous drought, which led to a total destocking of Misty Mountain Creek, the most recent drought had been far more successfully managed and the Newells even topped up numbers with some agisted cattle.

"One fellow said he didn't think I had any stock and then he saw some cows disappear in the grass because there's five-foot-high grass there," Mr Newell said, laughing.

"They have to eat their way out."

It doesn't stay that way for long. Mobs of about 200 cattle are brought in to smash the grass down to a reasonable length before they're moved onto another of the 40ha (100ac) paddocks.

Then, supplemented with about "half a cup" of home-grown oats and lupins every second day, sheep follow to mow down whatever the cattle leave.

After that, the grasslands are rested for three to five months before the grazing cycle begins again.

As well as trampling in organic matter and their own droppings, Mr Newell said, livestock helped thicken the sward as they fed.

"They're mouthing the soil, trying to pick up the grain but they're actually sowing small grass seeds and, in the wet weather, that grows," Mr Newell said.

He'd used the technique to establish an enormous variety of grasses, shrubs and trees. A survey at Misty Mountain Creek identified more than 200 forageable species.

"All the native grasses that I know of are there now," Mr Newell said.

"I brought them all in from the cemeteries and the roadsides and I feed the sheep with grain on a wet day with that seed, which they sow, so I've got strips on the contour everywhere.

"I allow them to seed down each year and it just grows widely.

"I've changed the botanical composition of whole paddocks in five years, just doing that."

It's not all native pastures. Lucerne, prairie grass and kikuyu are among the many species at Misty Mountain Creek.

Using the same technique, Mr Newell had sown phragmites reeds along contours to slow and retain water that would otherwise run off.

The combination of water management and trampled organic matter built topsoil very quickly and he said the farm's sodic soils of 22 years ago had been transformed.

"The soils were in virtually saline condition and we've completely changed that now from a cream-brown soil to a rich, red-to-black soil," Mr Newell said.

Intensive grazing built soil nutrients to allow for multi-species cropping every year, provided there was a long rotation and Mr Newell never sowed the same crop within nine years.

"You create compost with your stock, virtually, on top of the soil," he said.

It had taken a lot of research to reverse Misty Mountain Creek's fortunes but Mr Newell said the landsmanship model could turn ailing properties around in as little as three to five years.

"It takes five years to overcome the effects of fertiliser on paddocks and that's about the time it takes to get the grasses to grow," he said.

Mr Newell said the method had proven effective on an array of soils.

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"I've restored white sand, soil with white encrusted salt on the top of it, red basalt soils that wouldn't grow anything, and just ordinary rocky soils," he said.

"I don't think there's any land that won't respond, even the Murray Darling can be brought back this way.

"If we work with multiple species of plants and animals, we restore the land, we fix the soil and hydrate it because the biotic pump brings in moisture-laden air, and the mix perennial species provide the cover to stop it evaporating."

Landsmanship demanded a different mindset to conventional farming, Mr Newell said, and he was happy to mentor the purchaser of Misty Mountain Creek.

For example, he said even the most difficult weeds would succumb to slashing or the type of grazing that goats, sheep, poultry and pigs could provide twice within a growing season.

"Some [potential buyers] are already going to come and talk to me," he said, "but I think someone will get the place and unintentionally degrade it."

"I mean, the sum total of it really would be that most people would just get it and build a house or run some cows, it's not going to stay under my management."

After investing so much in Misty Mountain Creek, the possibility of its decline is difficult to accept.

"I'm crying all the time but it's got to be sold because I can't look after it," Mr Newell said.

The decision to sell came after a ladder collapsed under the 81-year-old.

"I'm still very active and everything and I'm now back to where I was before the fall," he said.

"But it really frightened me to realise that I didn't have the stamina to keep working this property, so I decided to sell but I'm still working at my home property and will continue to for the rest of our lives, probably."

What Mr Newell set out to achieve when he left the Department of Agriculture has been realised.

He's confident Misty Mountain Creek, with its productive grasslands and ability to fatten cattle, is living proof that farming without chemicals can be successful.

Mr Newell's landsmanship website is a trove of information documenting a lifetime's work and research, he's mentored many farmers, and even appeared on several episodes of ABC television's Australian Story.

Despite all that, getting the message across to mainstream agriculture remained challenging.

"I think that a private apprenticeship with natural restorers of landscape will be ideal for people rather than going to universities and learning how to do things back to front," Mr Newell said.

"What's being taught in universities and the official version of things is just absolutely silly.

"I can't understand it. I've invited some of these people to the farm, and they will not come, they will not understand what I'm doing because it's very hard to unlearn something."

Misty Mountain Creek will be auctioned on July 29. Call Agri Rural NSW agent Josh Keefe on 0436 926 866.