Rural Solutions SA is South Australia’s leading provider of consultancies and business services in primary industries, natural resource management and regional community development. Our team of specialist people is strategically placed in urban and country areas of South Australia. Our strength is our independence, quality, competitive prices, and skills.

Rural Solutions SA is particularly strong in soil and water expertise.

Expertise available

• Special technical advice in soil and water management, dryland salinity and irrigation.

• Facilitation of farmer groups.

• Networking and planning for community development.

• Training and adult education.

• Project planning and management.

• Economic analysis including market research, benchmarking and business development.

• Strategic planning for natural resource management programs.

• Land and water policy development.

• Land and water condition monitoring.

• Regional coordination, facilitation and networking to enable farmers to access needs-based training.

We work as specialist individuals or in teams as required. Our skilled consultants provide technical, business training, and facilitation services. We support these services with quality diagnostic and interpretive facilities.

Our extensive industry and rural networks enable us to deliver client focussed programs. Many programs are reinforced by our independent information services.

Current services provided

Natural Heritage Trust support

On behalf of the Commonwealth and South Australian Government, Rural Solutions SA has been chosen to support the national objectives of the Natural Heritage Trust in its four key areas of the environment, sustainable production, people, and integration and institutional cooperation. Rural Solutions SA is delivering a number of projects including:

• Property Management Planning

• This module workshop program is aimed at improving farm profitability and international competitiveness, while encouraging sustainable natural resource management, protection of the environment and enhanced social economic opportunities for rural communities. Farmers who adopt such a planning approach are more self reliant, responsive to market demands, better prepared to cope with the risks of farming, and recognise the value of maintaining their resource base.

• Supporting communities in on-ground works

• Rural Solutions SA is providing coordination and facilitation support to communities to increase on-ground action to prevent or fix degradation of natural resources. Rural Solutions SA consultants are helping communities to develop the ability to plan and implement projects, access funds, employ people, determine and address regional priorities, and have increased confidence in the use of the Natural Heritage Trust funding process.

• Regional strategy support

• This project requires Rural Solutions SA to coordinate and integrate natural resource management within seven regions of South Australia. This Includes the development of strategies by regional communities and Landcare groups.

Land management program

Rural Solutions SA consultants combine technical skills in soil and land management together with extension experience to deliver a wide range of projects. Most of these are purchased by the South Australian government and include:

• support to Soil Conservation Boards,

• soil acidity amelioration,

• "Better Soils" – an extension program leading to improve soil management,

• training private contractors to deliver contour banking services.

FarmBis

The Farm Business Improvement Program (FarmBis) is part of a range of measures under the "Agriculture Advancing Australia" (AAA) package.

Rural Solutions SA is delivering the regional coordination, facilitation and networking components in South Australia.

Economic analysis

Rural Solutions SA expertise in the provision of economics analysis has been applied in many primary industries and the management of natural resources. For example, PIRSA Rural solutions has completed a benefit cost analysis of a ground water bore rehabilitation project in a major irrigation area of South Australia to determine the cost sharing arrangements between the community and government.

Rural Solutions SA is currently working with government agencies and community groups to develop appropriate benefit cost models and cost sharing frameworks to support community applications for funding through the Natural Heritage Trust process.

Rural Solutions SA has also been engaged to provide economic analysis for the monitoring and evaluation of projects that have been previously funded through the Natural Heritage Trust.

Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Plan

This project in the Upper South East of South Australia incorporates community consultation, scheme costing and implementation of drainage, agronomy, economic evaluation, revegetation, and biodiversity elements. The Commonwealth and State governments and landholders have provided funding. The complexity of this project requires highly developed project management skills, including contract management of the tendered drain construction work.

Rural Solutions SA has a team of consultants with highly developed expertise in diagnosis and management of dryland salinity.

Irrigated Crop Management Service

The Irrigated Crop Management Service assists in sustainable development and growth of irrigation enterprises in South Australia and the Murray Darling Basin. The service undertakes research and development and provides consultancy services to irrigators, government agencies and industry bodies, as well as taking part in education and training programs. The Irrigated Crop Management Service uses a site-specific approach to allow for the variability of factors such as topsoil and rootzone depths, operating efficiency of irrigation systems, and crop water requirements. It provides services in soil surveying, system evaluation and irrigation scheduling on a fee for service basis.

Doing it Right

A well-developed program "Six Steps to Improved Irrigation" has been developed to meet the challenge of improving irrigation practices. The program is a structured educational process for irrigators involving a sequence of steps. Each step must be completed before the next step is started. The steps are irrigation awareness, recording and comparing practices, workshops and field days with groups of irrigators to identify and explain critical issues, evaluation and improvement strategies for individual irrigators, monitoring performance, and data analysis to optimise operations.

Customised consultancies

Specified technical and business management consultancy services are tailored to meet our customer’s requirements. Our consultants manage projects on a team or individual basis and in partnership with other providers as required by clients.

Contact: Ed Strzelecki