Key Issues in Property Management Planning - Assignment Example

RUNNING HEAD: ASSESSMENT ON THE UNDERSTANDING OF KEY ISSUES IN THE TOPICS ASSIGNED Assessment on the Understanding of Key issues in the topics Assigned Name Institution Tutor Date Question One: Pick a single topic or idea in Property Management Planning and explain why you think it is the most important. Introduction The concept of Property Management or Farm Planning began in the 1950’s in Australia. Its primary role was to control erosion. It is a process that helps famers to analyze their farming operations from a biophysical, economic, ecological, social and even economic perspective, in order to ensure profitability and enhance sustainable production. Apart from the latter, it also helps in maintaining and enhancing market access by farmers and improving their production system efficiency; the red tape on famers is also reduced by making it easier for them to get easier access to the market. This particular task seeks to tackle the issue of PMP with special emphasis on Soil Health Management Plan which I perceive as the most important aspect under PMP. Soil Health Management Plan (SHMP). The soil is a very essential resource on the farm. Its management therefore needs exclusively to be a part in farm planning. The way one manages the soil will greatly determine the success or failure of any farming enterprise. A Soil Health Management Plan (SHMP) is therefore a very important component in ensuring long term profitability of the farm. This should be created by the farmers themselves and further, it should be tied to the farm enterprises business. A Soil Health Management Plan (SHMP) develops short as well as long term goals based on the management criterion. When the latter is synergized with the farm business, the overall results are always very encouraging. SHMP is therefore important for sustainable farming since a healthy soil will perform the function that is required thereof. Soil Health as an objective can thus result to good production. Research results have shown for example that improvement of soil structure in some pilot farms has led to some production benefits. It has been noted that most of the initiatives under project management usually incorporate soil management; as a result, Soil Health issues are able to achieve their goals. For example the Whole Farm Plan (WFP) should take into consideration the water flow across the landscape, establishment of shelter belts, management of any erosion hazards; these are factors that affect the soil health significantly and so the relationship can be seen. SHMP’s relationship with the Environmental Management System (EMS) can also be seen especially in compliance to standards under ISO 14001. This entails record keeping, monitoring and auditing by a third party and legal requirement for soil management. Conclusion The destruction of infrastructure, for example erosion and deposition, surface water quality degradation and even ground water contamination as a result of poor planning in property management should be discouraged. At the same time, a soil health management plan for farms should be encouraged. The latter will enhance property value and this can also be used to get environmental accreditation and a basis for auditing against Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Under many circumstances, the success or failure of disseminating these ideas to the farmers has largely been attributed to the emotional and intellectual distance between the developer\s and the recipient\s of this knowledge. There is therefore need to involve the farmers from the word ‘go’. Unless the farmer owns the plan it will not unfortunately result into enduring long term benefits to the farmer and the country at large. Question Two: Pick any sub soil constrain you have an interest in and outline what the constrain is, How it has developed, and how it can be managed. Introduction Sub soil constrains are the chemical and physical features that root utilization of subsoil resources that include water and nutrients. Some examples of sub soil constituents include: Salinity, solidity, acidity, and even nutrient toxicity. SSC’s as they are popularly known, occur naturally in most parts of the Australian grain belt, but more especially on the neutral and alkaline soils of South East Australia. From this it can therefore be established that these constrain are largely caused by natural as well as artificial causes. SSC’s can significantly reduce farms profitability by reducing the yield. With most of the land being arid this would mean that the food security in the entire country would highly be compromised. This assignment will try to answer to tackle the issue of these constrains with significant emphasis on salinity which has proved to be of great economic importance in our context. Dry Land Salinity The movement of salts to the ground surface as a result of the rising water tables in non irrigated land is called dry land salinity. The landscape in Australia contains large amounts of salts introduced into the land through the chemical weathering of rocks by rainfall. This phenomenon has had to take place over thousands of years. On the other hand, the clearing of indigenous vegetation for settlement or dry land Agriculture by man has made too much rain water to percolate into these landscapes ground water system. The leakage has caused water tables to rise and bring salty waters to the land surface. Development The ground and surface water systems in Australia are in the most poorly drained; as a result, this has led to the deposition of large quantities of salts on the land surface. Some of the natural causes that have attributed to this is due to the fact that the continent is very dry ( low rainfall compared to evaporation). As a result of low rainfall in Australia, coupled with low water is hereby used by plants where it falls and very small amounts go underground to the aquifers. Combined, these conditions mean that salts are not actively removed or flushed from the ground surface through leaching. The vegetation further inhibits leaching. As a result most streams and lakes in Australia are saline. Dry land Agriculture also has the capacity to increase the soils salinity using the same principles explained earlier. Management It operates on the scientific principle which states that: if the total leakage from a given catchment area to the ground water is less than the discharge rate, salinity should not occur. Three mechanisms have been employed to address this problem; these are: the biological means that including Agro forestry Salt land farming , Organic and even phase farming, and also the planting of perennial pastures just to mention but a few. The other two options include: Engineering options that incorporate the physical pumping of ground and surface water so as to maintain the right salt balance between the two phases and lastly there is the mechanism of letting the environment to adapt to the more saline conditions if the latter two strategies prove not to be feasible. In many instances the adoption of all of the three factors or options are likely to be needed at a given place. Conclusion The fundamental cause of our dry land salinity is the mismatch of the leakage below the ground water which is by fact higher than the capacity of the ground water system to accept this leakage. Using biological means of controlling this problem, significant modifications need to be done on our Agricultural practices. In the catchment areas of basins more trees need to be planted. Opportunity cropping also needs to be incorporated as a means of reducing leakage hence salinity. Question three: Briefly define land classification, explaining why it was developed? What determines a land class? And whether land class can change? Introduction This question is meant to answer several pertinent issues regarding land classification in the Australian continent. Some of the issues it seeks to answer include: the meaning? why it was developed?, what determines a land class?, and whether these land classes can change? Land Classification Land classification or land capability is the classification of a land based on certain observable features. There are two types of classification: Rural Land Capability Classification and Urban Land Capability. For the former, classification must give an ecological potential of the land as well as a description of the present vegetation or grazing activities, for the latter, classification is designed to account for the limitation of land with regard to urban development. Reason for Development Rural land capability was developed during the 1980’s and was used in mapping the land capability of New South Wales. The concept has since then been widely adopted by other states in Australia (Victoria, Tasmania….). The classification was originally developed to meet the needs of the farming operations of the time. What Determines Land Classification The Rural classification system is categorized into eight classes designated by Roman numerals, i-viii, Stable soils are designated and are designated with smaller roman numerals, while less stable soils are designated with larger roman numerals. These categorizations give the capability of the land either for Agricultural uses or for other practices including wild life conservation or even forestry. The eight classes are further divided into four divisions, with the first three, i, ii and iii lying in the category where the land is suitable for Agricultural production. The second division has got two classes, iv and v; here the land is suitable for grazing and occasional cultivation. The third with classes vi and vii; here the land is unsuitable for general rural production minimal cultivation can take place though under irrigation after several. Management practices have been put in place for example the construction of gabions and terraces in the last category, division viii, and no cultivation takes place as the land is very poor and prone to erosion In the urban classification there are generally three classes. In the first class: Low limitation is an area with little or no hindrance for development, the second with moderate hindrance and the last with high or severe limitations for development. Whether Land Class can Change Due to the complex nature of soil, new knowledge seems to come up every other day. This has necessitated for the revising and upgrading of our information on land. With the passing of time the landscape is also changing. As a result, microclimates that were absent before are now present thereby changing the ecology. There is therefore a possibility of the land class schemes changing over time. Conclusion Land Classification is environmental issue that is critical in assisting a country to develop its plans. The Agricultural sector for example benefits a lot from this body of knowledge. With the increase in population urbanization is bound to take shape at a more rapid pace. There is therefore need to improve in our knowledge of urban classification so that we can have well established and organized cities and towns. If the Agricultural sector is to further improve, new researches strategies have got to be adopted so as to protect the environment as also improve on food security. Read More