ANOR Newsletter – December 2005
Establishment of Healthy Soils Australia
A new National Australian organisation reflecting the views of ANOR has been
established in Australia to enable farmers and community members to take more
direct action to restore their soil health.
During the last ANOR meeting in Akita, Japan, a proposal was put forward from
Gerry Gillespie of Australia to investigate the return of organic waste products to theircountry of origin. This focus on the need to protect our soils to ensure trade and longterm markets is at the very heart of the new Australian organisation.
The new group, Healthy Soils Australia (HSA), came out of meetings of Zero Waste
Australia, it is a national initiative to promote the health, productivity andsustainability of Australia's agricultural soils by assisting landholders to access andimplement innovative soil management and remediation solutions. This is achievedby pooling national skills and science to address soil health problems faced byindividual farmers, companies and community groups.
The persistence and expansion of major environmental issues such as acid soils,
dryland salinity, clearing of native vegetation and water quality evidences the need fora new and coordinated approach to addressing land management. Current programs
lack the coordination between rural and urban communities and between science,industry and government needed to effectively address the issues. By linking science,industry and urban and rural dwellers the HSA initiative provides the vision andintegration essential for the improvement of production and environmental outcomes.
The HSA activities will address the sustainability of rural communities andenvironments but urban communities are also involved. Urban communities are themain market for the agricultural products and they are also a source of organic wastes
needed to improve soils. Industry is similarly a major source of materials for
remediating of soils, as well as a user of natural resources from the land. HSA has
established an Innovation Fund to support R&D, commercialisation and delivery of
new technologies and techniques for soil and land management.
HSA is an action-oriented program established primarily by industry to deliver
outcomes beneficial for the whole community. Membership of HSA is open to allindividuals and companies that seek to contribute to business and environmentaloutcomes of land use according to sound ecological, business and social principles.
HSA is seeking associates and business partners to join this initiative.
Interest from farmers to date has been very positive and a number of trails andprojects are in the pipeline for establishment this year.
More information can be obtained from the Healthy Soils Australia website at:
http://www.healthysoils.com.au

Managing the Carbon Cycle Forum
A soil carbon forum organised by Dr Christine Jones, was held on 14th and 15thof September in Armidale New South Wales, Australia. It brought together someof Australia's most innovative farmers, scientists and administrators to discuss
the issue of carbon sequestration and its relationship to agricultural soils.
Papers were presented by two Board Members of the Healthy Soils Australia group,
Dr. Brian Tunstall and Gerry Gillespie.
Dr Jones, has extensive networks among the scientific and farming communities
which enabled a diverse range of talents to be brought together to discuss thisimportant subject.
Held over two days, the forum concluded with a forum discussion which enabled allparticipants to refine their thinking, enabling the forum discussion to be taken to thebroader Australian public.
Assisted by Healthy Soils Australia and Zero Waste Australia in association with
Compost Australia and Dr Christine Jones, further forums are planned for other statesof Australia, with a larger conference planned for Canberra in 2006.
More information on conference papers and the work of Dr Christine Jones can beobtained at www.amazingcarbon.com

City to Soil enters it third year.
Readers of the ANOR Newsletter may recall hearing about the City to Soil project at
our last ANOR meeting. The on-farm research associated with this project will enterits third year in 2006.
The project addressed the issue of provision of Infrastructure and Services by Local
Government which are traditionally viewed in terms of costs. This is the case withboth waste management programs and recycling programs.
However, there is considerable economic and social benefit associated with kerbside
recycling (Independent Assessment of Kerbside Recycling Nolan ITU 2001), which
provides value back to the community in terms of jobs, resources and environmental
value.

This is also true for the reuse of organic material. Except that when a product isprocessed into quality compost and used in agriculture, its value can growexponentially.
This project demonstrated that if the service and process already being provided,maintain product quality at all stages and utilize the end product in a different way, it
is possible to generate much more value to the broader community than the original
cost of collection.
The price of landfill in the region where this trial was conducted, Queanbeyan, is now$77 per tonne. The price of disposal of mixed waste to landfill for Sydney varies fromaround $100 per tonne up to $150 per tonne.
Yet a commercial processor can manufacture quality compost to Australian Standard
AS4454 and carry the product at least 200 klms in any direction for a cost of $50 per
tonne, including profit.
This means that the product can be delivered to the farm gate for considerably lesscost to the community than disposal to landfill.
The City to Soil project is a model, which can be modified and remodelled to suit anyregional, rural or urban centre. It was designed to:• Reduce contamination in kerbside collections• Maintain high quality compost outputs• Demonstrate agricultural financial benefits• Return a small part of those financial benefits to the community for theirsource-separation efforts
The project used existing off-the-shelf equipment in a low-tech approach to collection,processing and delivery.
In order to connect the household as the source of the green waste, to its highest andbest use in agriculture, a credits system had to be devised.
A credit system was devised which asked householders placed their green yard waste
bins on the footpath for the normal fortnightly collection. The operators opened thebin to check its contents for contamination such as glass, metal or plastic. If nocontamination was seen, the bins were emptied into the collection truck and thecontents checked again. If again no contamination was seen, a small bar code fitted
beneath the rear handles of each bin was scanned into a hand held scanner.
When collections for the day were complete, all recorded numbers were transferred tocomputer and two numbers selected at random as winners, for each fortnightly
collection. The two households selected won a hamper of fruit and vegetables, again
reinforcing the connection to food and the soil. In a larger system these rewards canbe converted to community credits or ultimately, carbon credits.
The principal innovative aspect of this project was that it identified the range offinancial benefits that came from applying quality organic material to agriculture. Itthen returns part of that value to the suburban household for source separation of theproduct in the first place.
Copies of the report are available in both English and with Japanese subtitles from
Gerry Gillespie in Australia.
A final report will be available in the new year, from fellow ANOR member, Dr. SaraBeavis.

A New Year for ANOR.
All the very best for a happy, peaceful and successful new year to all of our fellow
ANOR members from those of us in Australia and New Zealand.
I hope we can manage to all meet again very soon.
Gerry Gillespie, Australia