Bruce awarded life membership

BRUCE Standfield was awarded a life membership of The Fish Creek Landcare Group at the group’s recent annual general meeting.

Bruce, a dairy farmer for many years in the Hoddle Range, has played a significant role, not only at a local Landcare level but also at a regional level.

One of the early members of the Fish Creek Landcare group, Bruce contributed to the running of the group holding many positions, most recently as treasurer. Together with his wife Marianne, the couple worked to revegetate many parts of their dairy property. Through this work, Bruce and Marianne fenced off and protected waterways on their property, contributing to improve water quality in the Fish Creek catchment.

Bruce was the inaugural president of the South Gippsland Landcare network and led the region through a transitioning time in the Landcare journey.

As environmental credentials of farming have become increasingly important, Bruce’s concept of a ‘checklist’ for dairy farmers – in order to help them understand the best land management practices available – was born.

The idea took off and was backed by Dairy Australia who funded the work. What resulted was a self assessment tool which allowed dairy farmers to tick off their own practices in the areas of effluent management, soils, fertiliser use, irrigation, revegetation, chemical use, waterway management and farm wastes.

Nearly 20 years on this tool ‘DairySAT’ has been updated and is an important part of the Australian dairy sector.

‘Bruce’s vision for a practical checklist for farmers has grown to become an important part of the national dairy industry, said Gillian Hayman, NRM Technical Specialist with Dairy Australia in Gippsland.

“The Australian dairy industry gained Unilever’s sustainability tick of approval last year – the first dairy sector in the world to do so. DairySAT was an important contributor to this,’ Ms Hayman added.

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