Zero Waste Australia

Throughout the past 20 years, National Farmers organisations have run a series of Quality Assurance programs, one of these which became known as Paddock to Plate was focused on ensuring the consumer that the food on their plate was of a consistent and high quality.

Under a reverse program to return organic material to agriculture, Zero Waste Australia has initiated the Plate to Paddock program, a series of research projects which will ensure that only the highest quality, source-separated organic waste is made into compost and biologically active products of high value for use on our farms.

It has long been argued in the recycling industry that the principal driver, which must be secured before a material is collected and processed, is a viable long-term market.

“With last year’s dramatic increase in fertiliser costs in excess of 200%, combined with the low levels of organic material in Australian agricultural soils, this driver has arrived.” said Zero Waste Australia Executive Director, Kim Russell.

“We need to start to look at all organic waste outputs, both liquid and solid as a perfect nutrient input into Australian agriculture,” he added. “We certainly need to be sure in this process that any products the farmers receives from the urban centres are as high quality as the products that the farmer provides for the city, but it can and must be done,” he said.

From a broad community perspective, it has been demonstrated that it is cheaper and far more beneficial to collect high-quality organic fluid and solid waste and return it to agriculture than to treat it as a waste and put it into landfill.

“We have established a number of research projects and are partners in others that are demonstrating that if we maintain quality assurance in our Plate to Paddock program, we can relieve a lot of the cost of agricultural inputs for farmers, increase yields and food quality and help protect farmers’ soils and incomes by sequestering carbon through clever Australian agricultural processes,” he concluded.

Paddock to Plate guarantees quality food from the farm.

Plate to Paddock guarantees quality food for the farm.