About SPA

The Saltland Pastures Association was a Western Australian farmer-driven group that promoted the use and benefits of saltland pastures. The association was formed in 1997 to keep the momentum following the success of the 1996 PUR$L Conference and wound up as a legal entity in October 2010 due to the organisation achieving its objectives and because of lack of financial and human resources.

At its peak SPA had more than 160 members and, through a quarterly newsletter, reached an audience of more than 400. It was a state-wide not-for-profit community group representing diverse stakeholders. The membership consisted mainly of farmers (86%) with the majority (71%) from the Avon River Basin. The members and newsletter recipients were primarily landholders, but also inlcluded research and extension professionals, natural resources management (NRM) groups and interested community members.

SPA had strong links and partnerships with other industry groups and R & D organisations with an interest in productive saltland management.

The Objectives of the Association were to:

• promote the benefits and use of saltland pastures
• publicise success achieved by farmers in establishing and profiting from saltland pastures
• lobby governments, public and private funding bodies to provide funds for research into establishment and utilisation of saltland pastures
• support the development of economic and agronomic packages for establishment and utilisation of saltland pastures
• provide, or assist in providing, training in the establishment and management of saltland pastures

Programs, Achievements and Outputs:

The principal objective of SPA was to facilitate the revegetation of one million hectares of salt affected agricultural land in Western Australia over 10 years (2005 - 2015). This project, called 1MPULS> (1 Million Hectares of Productive Use of Land with Salinity) was developed with the view that there is at least one million hectares of land currently suitable for saltland pasutre systems.

As part of 1MPULS> SPA developed a project, called the Saltland Revegetation initiative (SRI), to encourage farmers to adopt saltland pastures. SPA recognises that there are several barriers which prevent farmers adopting saltland pastures, with high establishment costs/failures and limited on-ground support the major contributing factors. The SRI had two components to addres this:

1. Growers Support Network - Extension and Advice
One-on-one paddock level advice is very important when considering something as potentially complex as saltland pasture establishment or any pasture. In WA there is a lack of expertise in saltland pastures in regional areas. SPA developed a Grower Support Network to provide farmers with essential on-ground planning and support, by employing ten part-time officers to provide advice and assistance with saltland pasture establishment to farmers. This initiative was supported from 2006 - 2009 by the Australian Government Naitonal Landcare Program.

2. SRI Incentive Payments - Validating and Packaging
Incentives for landholders to change their production systems can have a significant impact, not only on adoption rates but also on the profitability of the system once implemented. SPA believed that even relatively small incentives would be likely to have a significant impact on adoption rates. Consequently, SPA implemented an incentive payment scheme with regional NRM groups (including Wheatbelt NRM Inc.) and local farmer groups from 2006 - 2010 through funding assistance from the Australian Government National Landcare Program. The outcomes from this saw over 4,400ha of saltland pastures planted using over 2.1 million fodder shrubs suitable for saline land with participation from 351 farmers along with 42 local farmer group demonstration sites.

This, in conjunction with on0ground support fromthe Grower Support Network, menat that implementation of saltland pasutres was undertaken in a way that validated research in local/specific areas, improved farmer confidence and improved establishment success.

3. Training and Decision Support Tools
The SPA, in partnership with many other organisations, developed a range of Decision Support Tools and resources to assist in increasing adoption.

Productive Saltland Pasture Workshops - these workshops were developed to provide participants (targeting local grower groups and industry advisors) with the skills, and demonstrate that they can apply the learning and tools, to adapt an untreated saline site to a productive saltland pasture as a part of a whole farming system. Following on from the foundation salinity material completed online prior to the workshop (part of the EverTrainTM course),  participants were offered information and decision support tools in an interactive manner to give them confidence in providing advice to/with farmers, on:
    1. Selecting and preparing sites
    2. Establishment
    3. Managing saltland pastures in the region the workshop was held.
We have documented a process on how these workshops can be delivered so that future deliveres do not have to start from scratch.

Glove Box Guides - The Saltland Pastures Association and its partners have produced the Glove Box Guide to Productive Saltland Pastures to provide a handy, up to date saltland perennial system guide to landholders, land managers and natural resource management advisors. Users of the Glove Box Guide will find it brings together the latest saltland pastures information into one concise publication specific for their region. It also highlights the need for implementation of salinity management options and facilitates the uptake of saltland pastures management options by helping users begin answering the questions - which plants?; how do I establish them?; and where? The guide also outlines how to manage saltland pastures for productivity once they are established and provides useful, spcific information in the four major catchment/agricultural areas of WA - Avon River basin, Northern Agricultural Region, Blackwood  Basin and South Coast.

Saltbag - The Salt Bag provides tools to quickly measure water and soil salinity in the field, which can assist in making more effective land management decisions. The Salt Bag provides a preliminary test to indicate if surface water or groundwater is safe to use for irrigation or livestock or if a particular plant will grow in dryland conditions. Identifying salinity at an early stage is essential in maintaing long term production.

Saltland Genie Website - Saltland Genie is an interactive website that provides farmers and their advisorswith advice and recommendations to boost the productivity of their saline land. The site is managed and updated by the Future Farm Industries Cooperative Research Centre through its Saltland Knowledge Exchange project. It is essential that new results from on-going work as well as new research from future projects be incorporated into this resource - www.saltlandgenie.org.au. For further information contact Dr Nick Edwards, Project Leader, Saltland Knowledge Exchange: phone (08) 8762 9184, email nick.edwards@sa.gov.au.

The outgoing SPA committee believe that salinity and investment in saline pasture systems must be a high priority for NRM organisations and the state government, with a focus on on-ground implementation, extension and research. The potential for increased production and profitability of saline areas - and therefore whole farms - is immense.

Key sponsors of SPA included:
          Wheatbelt NRM