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pages are about sharing ideas
and techniques, basically to
make efficiencies. I’ve been a
pretty big advocate that farming
input costs are catching up so
quickly that we have to change
the way we do things to become
more efficient. It gets people
thinking about their operation.”
Soil First Tasmania’s long-term
goal is to keep challenging
people to have healthy soil.
“At the end of the day we
want to share knowledge
across the broad spectrum of
agricultural industries to
benefit and assist all growers
and ultimately drive the quest
to improve soil health,”
Darren said.
“This goes as far as providing
a healthy environment all the
way through the food chain,
starting with the soils providing
for the plant and in turn we can
use less chemicals, less water
and hopefully grow a healthier,
more nutritious plant.”
where we know we can
comfortably get cropping
done without the huge input
costs and that’s what we’re
challenging. We’re using green
manure crops and different
techniques with controlled
traffic farming and precision
agriculture to try and avoid the
high input costs to grow crops.”
Joining Darren in establishing
Soil First Tasmania is Dave
Roberts-Thompson from
Table Cape Tulip Farm, flower
grower Jeremy Robinson and
Serve-Ag Technical Agronomist
Julie Finnigan.
“We’re just trying to put it
out there that it’s going to be
grower-based; sharing ideas and
techniques to improve our soils.
We want people from all farming
aspects to get on board, share
their stories via the webpage,
Twitter and Facebook,”
Darren said.
While it is early days for Soil
First Tasmania, the social media
pages have provided growers
with a platform to start the soil
health conversation.
“It (social media) helps in
getting their ideas and seeing
what other people are doing.
That’s what I found hard years
ago, that we just couldn’t get
any information about growing
these great crops and we were
seeing some great soils and
great carbon lock-up,”
Darren said.
“We were receiving all this
positivity, but we just couldn’t
find any information. These
THE BENEFITS OF HEALTHY SOIL IN THE POTATO AND VEGETABLE
INDUSTRY ARE BEING HIGHLIGHTED THROUGH WORKSHOPS
AND MORE RECENTLY, SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS. POTATOES
AUSTRALIA SPOKE WITH MG FARM’S DARREN LONG, WHO
RECENTLY ESTABLISHED SOIL FIRST TASMANIA – AN INITIATIVE
THAT USES TWITTER AND FACEBOOK TO CONNECT WITH
GROWERS AND CHALLENGE THEIR THINKING.
Putting soil first in Tasmania
Sheffield potato grower
Darren Long is no longer
alone in his quest to improve
soil health in potato and
vegetable crops.
Darren has been trialling
various on-farm practices for
more than 10 years, and
when he started out he felt
somewhat isolated.
“I’d been doing a bit of work
down here with biofumigation
and it all started from that
– from the point of view of
controlling diseases for potato
production. The flip side to
that is, we’re actually improving
our soil health and structure,
as well as the water-holding
and nutrient-holding capacity,”
he said.
“At the time, biofumigation
in Australia was in its infancy.
There was no-one else doing it
and I thought, ‘Is that because
the benefits are not there?’ But
I quickly realised there were
many benefits. We have now
ended up with a few people
who were interested in what
we were doing and are
applying the principles across
their farming operations.”
Soil health is a much-talked
about topic in the horticulture
industry and a very broad
spectrum subject, according
to Darren.
“What is soil health? Not a
lot of people can tell you what
healthy soil is. Is it healthy soil
if it looks good? It is healthy soil
that will grow good crops, or is it
healthy soil that’s full of disease
and you can’t grow crops?
“In our potato operation, it’s
about providing an environment
For more information,
please visit the Soil First
Tasmania Facebook
page at
soilfirsttasmania or Twitter
page at
SoilFirstTas.
This communication
has been funded by
Horticulture Innovation
Australia Limited using
the Fresh Potato Levy and
funds from the Australian
Government.
Project Number: PT15007
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Soil health