Water Saving Initiatives

Australia leads the way in sustainably producing some of the world's best beef.
Grain fed cattle use these strategies -
* Reusing water in cattle work facilities
* covering dams to reduce evaporation
* restricting water for feed purposes
So
Is water a renewable of non renewable source?
If rainwater is collected and used before it evaporates - then it is considered RENEWABLE
If ground water is pumped or surface water is taken from a lake. faster than it can be replaced by natural water cycle it can be considered NON RENEWABLE
There are 3 main areas to be considered measuring water usage in the cattle industry.
1. The Paddock - 
Creating designate water points (toughs to drink from).
Maintaining healthy soils and pastures to minimise run off.
Most water comes from dams and river systems.
2. The Feedlot -
Reusing water to wash cattle
3. In Processing -
To ensure food safety is used for hygiene operations'
More reusing and recycling water.                                      MARK & ANDREA HANNEMAN       Farmer stories / Mark & Andrea Hannemann

Our story...

We are fourth generation farmers on a property that has never been connected to mains water.

We crop wheat, barley, peas, chickpeas, vetch and canola. We also run 900 Merino ewes & 900 cross bred lambs which are a very important part of our enterprise.

We have always been environmentally conscious which led us to implement a 15 year Landcare plan on our property. To date this has meant the erection of 30km of fencing to protect riparian vegetation and 100km of direct tree seeding to enhance these areas. We have also constructed nature corridors from one end of the property to the other to protect native fauna and vegetation.

To secure our farm’s water supply we have established a sheeted catchment water harvesting system. The plastic lined dam has the capacity to store 1.4 million litres of water from its plastic sheeted catchment, which is 100% efficient in capturing every rain event. The dam also has a floating evaporative cover installed which minimises evaporation by 100%. In an average 400mm year rainfall, the system has the capacity to capture 1.6 million litres of high quality water.

The water is gravity fed from the dam throughout the property on a pipe system, supplying water for the paddock troughs, which are only turned on as stock movements require. It also supplies water for the annual spraying program and water for domestic farm needs, making the farm self-sufficient in its water requirements.