Topsoil Organics and Soil Land Food held two Compost as a Catalyst for Cropping field days in Narromine to demonstrate how green waste from towns is being used to make high quality fertilisers for use in agriculture. 

Narromine farmer Bruce Maynard said the project was supported by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority as part of the Waste Less, Recycle More program, and is a way to demonstrate first hand and listen to experts about the benefits of using food and garden waste. 

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“These field days are to show that there is a viable and realistic option for broad acre agriculture,” Me Maynard said. 

“The amounts of compost will be ever expanding as recycling becomes more of a mainstream thing.”

“The basis behind it is to make proper use of the green bin waste, now that the green bins are appearing around all the local councils, and show the benefits of recycling the food and garden waste back into food growing, because there hasn’t been realistically a lot of that. 

Agroecologist David Hardwick was present at both farms to give a broader view on nutrients in soil and compost and its use as a beneficial soil builder. 

“In the past there’s been a bit of scepticism, and quite justifiably, from regular farmers about compost-style products because in the past it’s promised lots of things could be useful and they haven’t, but now it’s changing,” Mr Maynard said. 

“[Compost] is not a new product that’s going to replace everything that people have done in the past, it’s more of a catalyst you might use if you’re a regular farmer.

Mr Maynard described the soil fertilising process where bugs in the soil make the fertiliser available to plants and said using compost is a way to ignite soil health, and it’s not something that needs to be undertaken each year. 

“You might use regular industrial fertilisers for most years, but one year in every five you might choose to use something like a compost because of the biology it puts back into your soil.”

The program is being rolled out across five local government areas, and includes live demonstrations of the operation in action in the paddock and a session with the soil scientist to help people make better decisions what they apply. 

Mr Maynard said they will be repeating the field days in a year’s time. 

“So if people missed out this time they will get a chance again next spring,” he said.