A life in Landcare

ANNE Davie OAM has been a recognised name on Phillip Island since the 1950s alongside her husband Bob and their family property Bimbadeen.

Since the 1980s Bimbadeen has planted over 40,000 trees and ground-cover, protected remnant vegetation, created a wildlife corridor, fenced waterways and dams and addressed salinity issues.

Today, more than 200 Angus cattle graze the paddocks alongside 2000 Isa Brown hens, two alpacas, two sheep and 500,000 bees.

Working alongside Landcare for 60 years, Anne recently spoke with Sally O’Neill for Gippslandscapes Podcast Episode 55 by West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority.

“It’s a real privilege to be able to care for country on Bunurong country,” Anne said.

“If we were looking at it in 1956, when we came, there wouldn’t have been very many trees at all.

“When we took over the farm, the people before us were told to knock over the tea tree, the melaleuca it wouldn’t do any good.

“Of course, what happened, 15-20 years later, we saw the erosive salinity taking over.

“Fortunately, at that time in 1987 when Phillip Island Landcare started, we were the first, I think, to join and were able to get some of the trees to get started.

“Landcare has been giving us great support and continues to this day.

“Of course, things have changed since 1956 when Bob and I started with 80 acres, and we milked 80 cows. At that time, there were 45 dairy farms on Phillip Island.

“It was quite a rural community, but it was amazing because of family. Most families had four children. Admittedly they didn’t go for holidays. The one treat was to go into Cowes once a week, do the shopping and catch up with everyone. It was a hard life but a good life and a great community of farmers who were always there for the hard times.”

Casting back to the 50s, Bob and Anne seemed quite forward thinking.

“We were different. I was probably very different myself, probably the first farmer’s wife that worked as well on the farm as having a profession.

“I would have to help milk the cows at night, make sure the children were in bed and then I’d go and practice around people’s places around the district because I couldn’t do it in the daytime. When the children went to school, I was able to do it in the daytime.

“It was interesting because nobody really knew what a physiotherapist was and if a farmer had a bad back and I had to ask him to lower his trousers, I always had his wife in the room with me just to make sure.”

Land practices were also different back then too.

“A lot of people put a lot of cattle or a lot of sheep on the farms, and they certainly didn’t rotate the paddocks as much.

“When the wonderful Heather Mitchell and Joan Kirner thought about Landcare which is quite remarkable… people thought ‘we couldn’t take up our paddocks with a trees because it would mean we’d have less grass’, so it took a few years to convince people before they saw the benefit of the shade, the shelter, the birdlife coming back, and actually the catalyst for that too was the government then decided they’d put money towards the fencing.

“I particularly believe that Landcare enabled women to come around the kitchen table and talk about the future of the farms. They were the motherhoods of the farm, and they suddenly became involved with the decision making and realising that the management was going to ensure that the land they were looking after had a future.”

Employing alternative and restorative agricultural practices became the norm at Bimbadeen.

“Bob was able to get some bio-solids from Westernport Water, and we were able to trial those and that became very effective. We saw a strong result, and they actually funded our carbon testing, our soil testing, which held us in good stead… We’re very involved now with carbon farming, because we see a future that it can be another income for farmers.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean people want to sell their carbon but by keeping the restoring carbon, you improve production…

“The thing is you’ve got to test the carbon every year, and that’s where it’s expensive for a lot of farmers and I think that if the government is serious about wanting farmers to draw in more carbon through their soil practices, there’ll have to be some looking at the reduction in price of carbon testing.”

Bob and Anne have definitely started to reap the rewards of their forward-thinking land management practices not just for the animal’s sake and the land but also for their enjoyment as they look across the spectacular fields.

For the full interview visit gippslandscapes-podcast.zencast.website/episodes/anne-davie-oam-a-life-in-landcare.