Case study: Nuffield scholar, Nigel Corish, Goondiwindi
Goondiwindi’s Nigel Corish is one of 400 farmers who have been awarded a Nuffield Australia Farming Scholarship, giving him the opportunity to learn from leading agricultural practices overseas.
Since completing his two-year scholarship, Nigel implemented a range of new farm practices, including:
- regenerative agriculture
- minimal mechanical soil disturbance and greater crop diversity for improved soil health
- precision agriculture to improve fertiliser use
- addition of farm organic matter
- irrigation efficiency
- climate forecasting.
This resulted in:
- increased cotton yields every year while halving the amount of water used since 2007 (based on ML per bale)
- yields from 450 hectares of irrigated cotton reaching 17 bales per hectare
- a 0.5% increase in soil carbon.
Nigel is now an agricultural mentor, and was awarded the 2013 Young Australian Farmer of the Year and 2012 Australian Cotton Grower of the Year.
This case study is part of a series of case studies that have been developed as part of the Queensland Communities in Transition project. It was prepared by The Ecoefficiency Group as part of the Clean Growth Choices Consortium with funding from Queensland Department of Environment and Science.