ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

Our land management practices aim to leave the land in a better state than when we found it, ensuring sustainability for future generations.

We manage our soil health and grass by rotationally grazing cattle in our paddocks. Rotational grazing is designed to obtain the best economic return per acre. Rockley properties are divided into paddocks where each one is intensively grazed for a short time before being allowed to rest and recover before being grazed again.

We maintain good ground cover to absorb as much rainfall as possible and keep the soil in a healthy condition, avoiding soil loss. At times we have half the paddocks spelled, which gives the highly palatable grasses time to rejuvenate. Cattle in turn perform better and produce more kilos of beef.

The benefits of rotational grazing include increased soil fertility, increased forage production, higher quality forage, less wasted forage, and improved drought management. These benefits make the land more profitable.

Our production of efficient, responsibly grazed, highly productive, measured cattle means they have less impact on the environment, also helping to improve sustainability.

We have been fortunate to receive funding to fence off land on either side of our main creek. This allows us to lock up our waterways and better manage our grass. We have comprehensive plans to further split up paddocks and add more watering points to further intensify our grazing practices.

We plan to receive more training and education on rotational grazing. This will include gaining more understanding of grass monitoring, feed budgeting and matching stocking rates to carrying capacity. This area is a priority in our business.

We produce fully traceable cattle, using the NLIS system, no HGP’s (hormone growth promotants), no use of antibiotics in cattle in particular programs, e.g Right to Roam. All our cattle are also tagged with a visual tag that matches their NLIS tag, to ensure traceability. We combine this with our Gallagher Weigh Scale and Reader, which makes weighing, data collection and data management easy.