This part of our tour was set up by the Soil Conservation Services of New South Wales. Our first days were spent looking at their problems of salinity, rising groundwater, and the adverse results of excessive land clearing. The rising groundwater problem they have is rather scary considering that Australia is the second driest continent on earth.

We toured an education center at the Wagga Wagga Research Station. I was impressed with the amount of conservation oriented education that is being taught in both the primary and secondary education systems.

After leaving Wagga Wagga we headed north toward Condoblin, and began to see more diversity of agriculture. The primary crops are small grains, faba beans, and livestock. Kangaroos are a real problem, especially when it is dry and grass is short. From there we traveled north to Nyngan. This is range country, and it was very dry. We toured a 57,000 acre cattle station. Water is a precious commodity. We were shown water ponding projects for irrigation to increase forage supplies.

Next we headed east to Gunnedah for a two day stay. The area is called the Liverpool Plains Area. It is flat and has very heavy clay soils. It reminded us of the Red River Valley of Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota. Crops grown include wheat, barley, sunflowers, faba beans, chick peas, soybeans, corn sorghum, and cotton. They receive 28 to 30 inches of annual rainfall. Approximately 30% of the cropland is in a no-till system.

From Gunnedah we traveled east to Tamworth, and spent the afternoon with Warrick Felton, the inventor of the Detect-Spray. He is a very interesting person. The next day we visited a potato farmer at Dorrigo. The growing season here is long enough to double crop potatoes. Farms are quite small. They mostly raise truck crops including potatoes harvested by hand.

From there we went to Coffs Harbour, a coastal town in northeastern New South Wales. The next day we toured a banana plantation. In this area bananas are grown on steep slopes to avoid the danger of frost in the winter. The slopes range from 25 to 40% -- very steep! Our tour through the steep land had us all on the edge of our seats.

This concluded the farm tour part of our trip.