Smartcane BMP economic and environmental case study

The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries with support from Lifecycles is currently working with a number of sugarcane growers in the Wet Tropics to evaluate the economic and environmental impact of the Smartcane BMP program, via an SRA-funded research project. The project will be conducted as a series of case studies depicting farms before and after BMP adoption. The first of these case studies, featuring the Salmec growing enterprise in the Far North, is available online. In the case study, growers Mark Savina and Mick Andrejic explain how a series of changes over five years have had a positive impact on the business’s bottom line.

The transition to BMP, which began in 2008, has resulted in:

• Annual improvement in farm operating return of $150/ha ($124,500/yr total)

• 124kg less pesticide active ingredients and 1 tonne less nitrogen lost to waterways annually

• Annual fossil fuel use reduced by 15 per cent (or 25 tonnes of fuel over the cane life cycle)

• Greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 19 per cent annually (equivalent to taking 47 cars off the road each year)

Read the full case study here.