Colin Seis’s farm in New South Wales was all but destroyed 25 years ago, in a devastating bushfire that spread across 2,000 acres of his land. It took with it most of his flock of sheep, his home and almost his life. The disaster left Colin with no money to buy the fertilisers which his family farm had depended upon and he was forced to rethink his approach to farming.
Over a few beers with a local farming mate, Colin decided to simply copy nature and plant cereal crops like oats and barley into perennial pasture rather than rotated fields, which had been the basis of all modern farming. Once the crops were harvested, he moved his sheep onto the land allowing them to graze and recycle the leftover crops and turn it once again into fertile pastureland.
This radical new farming technique was so successful it became a global agricultural movement known as pasture cropping and is heralded for its ability to build topsoil and sequester carbon. Colin now travels regularly to the US and Europe to pass on the techniques he has developed.