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The secret is in the soil!
 Intensive farming exhausts the soil, depleting the natural minerals and trace elements essential for nutirent-rich food. THE SOILS of Australia - like those of all nations on earth - are low in levels of organic material; 80 percent of Australian soils have less than one percent organic matter. This reality is reflected in many other countries like China, the United Kingdom and most European Union nations. Australia loses an estimated $700 million worth of agricultural soils to degradation every year in one of our primary production areas, the Murray Darling basin.
It is this degradation of our farmland which is the single greatest threat to sustainability. Farming is a mineral extractive industry, which progressively removes from the soil not only the organic fraction, but also minerals and trace elements. The process of degradation of our soils costs us millions of dollars per year as a nation. Ironically, at the same time one of the factors in this degradation, chemical fertilizer is constantly rising in cost, both to the farmer and to the broader community. Australia's national fertilizer bill at the farm gate every year is in excess of $4 billion.
For the organic farmer, the soil and its natural fertility are paramount. Various non-artificial methods, such as mixed farming systems that integrate a range of crops with rearing liverstock and crop rotation, are used to keep the soil in good health and replace essential nutrients.
Appropriate varieties, beneficial predatory insects and companion planting help build resistance to pests and diseases. Naturally strong crops grown in fertile soil will take up a richer nutrient supply.
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