Land Water and Wool Case Study: Brendan Lunney, Yass

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Brendon Lunney remembers reading as a schoolboy about how water was washing away Australia’s farmland. He grew up, studied arts and seemed bound for other things when, at the age of 27, he bought a farm.

Now, three decades later, the reality of his early school learning and the devastation wrought by water washing through eroding gullies have become all too apparent.

Measurements logged by scientists funded by the Land, Water and Wool program on his farm “Bogolara”, near Yass in south-eastern NSW, have shown that a 50mm rainfall event can wash away 60 tonnes of soil from one gully alone, taking with it valuable phosphorus and nitrogen. It ends up in the Murrumbidgee River. Repeated all over the Murray Darling Basin, it’s not difficult to see how this scenario is silting up the entire length of Australia’s vital inland arteries and costing farmers.