On our farms we solve complex environmental challenges through innovative and practical solutions, working with nature, not against it.
We scale and share better farming practices across all our farms, ensuring that our farms remain sustainable businesses for generations to come.
Since 2010, we have produced internal sustainability reports for all our countries. Here we monitor and record our water quality, vegetation cover, biodiversity, accidents and near misses, animal health and welfare, and soil quality (organic matter content, nutrient stocks, depth and structure).
We record our inputs (fertilisers, pesticides, veterinary medicines, etc.), how efficiently we use these inputs and our harvest yields.
We quantify these indicators so that we can produce traceable, wholesome food. But more profoundly, we do it to create evidence-based feedback between how we farm, and how our farms thrive.
Our main approach is to work with nature, not against it. We believe it is the only way to be long-term farmers.
We want to make sure our farming practices are sustainable, and that we use our resources in an efficient way.
We continuously work with advisers, researchers, customers and other stakeholders to find innovative solutions
to optimise our agricultural production.
Click on any of the photos below to read more.
Being sustainable farmers requires that we protect the natural resources that are essential for producing food both now, and in the future. Good soils, together with our human resources, are our most important assets.
As long-term landowners, our goal is to improve the quality of our soil every year. We do this by leaving sufficient crop residues on the ground, using cover crops, maintaining healthy crop rotations, and adding compost and livestock manures where available and cost effective.
We try to mimic nature by touching our soils as little as possible. We use conservation tillage methods and minimise ploughing. Where we can, we seed our crops directly in the stubble of the previous crop.
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A living farm landscape is crucial to every aspect of agriculture, including sol and water quality, crop and animal health.
While we are efficient farmers, we are also long-term stewards of vast tracts of land.
We support ecosystem functionality and promote biodiversity on-farm by protecting all species and
enhance habitat quality by improving landscape composition and configuration.
We have a goal to convert 10% of each farm's area to natural habitats and 1% to water habitats by 2020. We are on-track to achieve this.
Click on any of the photos below to read more.
We promote 'non-chemical' methods of pest management on our farms. But where this is not possible, we use pesticides to protect our crops from weeds, pests and diseases.
To support this, we have our policy for the appropriate use of pesticides on our farms. This is essential to meet our sustainable farming goals and to protect the environment and greater areas surrounding our farms.
The policy includes a detailed overview of Ingleby prohibited active ingredients that cannot be used on our farms. You can download the latest overview here.
In Ingleby we like to engage our local communities. We do this in different ways worldwide.
One of the most successful ways is to invite our neighbours, business partners, friends and families as well as local schools to come visit our farms on Open Doors Days. We get many visitors on these days who have never been on large-scale, sustainable farms and we receive a lot of positive feedback.
We facilitate education and action groups on responsible waste management and recycling. Here we work with the local villages to keep the neighbouring areas clean from garbage.
We support the local schools where possible. We assist in making school playgrounds, plant trees in school yards and help rebuild old school buildings. We provide school children with school bags and stationery. We hand-out bird posters with local bird species and facilitate school discussion on birds. In some places, we even supply an internet connection, as this is an important tool in modern education.
We especially like to interact with the young generations. They are the future decision makers and potentially next generation farmers. Therefore, we also try to engage the children in biodiversity and the environment.
On our farms, we establish habitats through natural revegetation and we plant trees. We aim for native trees and species that can feed bees and insects.
In Tasmania, we provide tree planting jobs to disabled young people – with and through their supervisors – to the mutual benefit of our tree planting programme as well as the young people who get experience in a meaningful job.
