Mike Cains of the award winning Pecora Dairy, a sheep's cheesemaking farm on the upper western edge of the Kiama LGA at Knights Hill, won a prestigious Nuffield Agricultural Scholarship in 2021. COVID meant that he has only recently been able to undertake his overseas study tour. Here he shares his thoughts on what he saw:

On the longest day of the year the sunset seems to go forever in the Netherlands. I find myself on a sparkling crystal-clear June evening, cruising through the Venetian-like canals of Giethoorn. I was travelling in a group, a tour organised as part of my Nuffield Agricultural Scholarship.

Giethoorn is magical, with its other-worldly roadless village, thatched roofs and dozens of wooden pedestrian bridges that we had to duck under. We were on a motorised pontoon with a BBQ, large wooden table and crates of Heineken. It’s all that 6 Aussies, 2 Irishmen a 2 south Americans, a long way from home, could possibly have wanted. As we drifted through the neighbourhood, meandering past cafes, bistros and front yards Kenneth Grahames Wind in the Willows sprung to mind “there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.

Some of the other Scholarship winners

We had just spent the afternoon touring Pieter Winters 300 hectare farm whose operation is as impressive as his hospitality. I thought I was going to see a potato grower who processes his own raw product into branded frozen fries, but when we get there he doesn’t talk about growing potatoes – he talks about no waste philosophy, about circular farming, about being an electricity generator.

You see, to get a bag of perfect potato chips there is a lot of waste – waste that Pieter can’t abide. So, to address this problem all potato waste is now either fed back to chooks or to his on-farm bio-gas plant. 50% of the manure from the 115,000 broiler chickens, on the farm is used for fertiliser and the other half feeds the bio-gas installation.

So along with the 7200 solar panels on the roofs of his barns and the energy captured by the bio-digester Pieter's farm creates green energy for 5,500 households – but he still a potato farmer apparently.

Different mode of transport and farming in Kansas

When Brian invites me for a quick whirl around his Kansas farm, I didn’t expect to be taken to the helicopter. On our way we walk through the biggest farm shed I have ever seen, one of many on this farm near Scott City Kansas. In the pristine layout of the shed, I see 10 John Deere rigs worth about half a mill each and wall to wall caged plastic 1000 litre tanks filled with chemicals like glyphosate (Round Up).

These are scientific farmers, there are screens with google earth images, integrated with drone shots – machines are GPS equipped for precision farming, transmitting parameters like yield, soil moisture and location in real time. Through the window of the chopper there are endless miles of perfectly spaced corn, wheat, soy and sunflowers.

I come away feeling in equal parts impressed by the scale and the tech but also uneasy with the sheer volume of chemicals that is used on these GM crops.

The US leg included sessions at the powerful Department of Agriculture 

Phil, on the other hand, is an organic crop farmer in Ontario Canada, and is the Director of Soil and Crop Improvement Association. He is growing much the same crops as Brian from Kansas.

I am standing beside a huge pivot irrigation system that is standing idle while Phil's dad on yet another huge John Deere tractor is tilling between emerging rows of corn to keep the weeds under control. This also requires precision farming to not damage the plants, and as he goes up and down the rows behind him there are billowing plumes of topsoil.

I bend down to inspect and crumble a clump of grey lifeless dry soil through my fingers. This is the opposite of regenerative I thought - it made me sad. If this is how organic pasta or Weet Bix starts out then I am not sure I want it.

A sheep farmer in his element

It’s obvious to me now that farming is full of trade-offs. There are no absolutes and no easy answers. If you want to feed the world you can optimise for either yield, efficiency, no chemical, soil health or water usage – but you can’t have it all.

Finding the right balance still remains the challenge for modern farming.