The Dairy Self Assessment Tool (DairySAT) is the Australian dairy industry pre-farm gate environmental self assessment tool. It covers 10 key topic areas: Soils, Fertilisers, Effluent Management, Irrigation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Native Vegetation and Waterways, Energy and Water in the Dairy, Pests and Weeds, Chemicals, Farm Waste.

DairySAT is designed to enable farmers:

• understand the environmental issues facing their farm;
• benchmark where their environmental practices sit compared to industry-wide practices;
• identify the most critical environmental issues on their farm;
• know the legal and dairy company requirements in relation to the environment; and
• understand those issues where they need more information, and be provided with key contacts for the issues.

DairySAT is available in hard copy or on line. Follow the link below. DairySAT is a key component of all Australian dairy industry natural resource management (NRM) and climate change programs delivered by milk companies, regional Natural Resource Management bodies, state agencies, Landcare groups, State Farming Organisations and Regional Dairy Programs.

Three examples of industry programs incorporating DairySAT are:

Bega Environmental Management System (Bega Cheese)
The Bega Environmental Management System (BEMS) is used by dairy farmers to identify issues affecting their sustainability, develop a corrective action plan, monitor the effectiveness of the corrective activities and to review management in light of new threats, technology or information. It utilises DairySAT as a starting point with extra modules for Animal Welfare and OHS. Bega Cheese intends to roll out the BEMS program to all their suppliers across South East Australia over the next 3 years. Funding to support the roll out has been obtained from the Australian Government Caring for Our Country program.

Farmer Targets for Change: New South Wales
Farmer Targets for Change (FTC) assists farmers to identify and quantify their natural resource impacts, understand the links between natural resources and farming practices and develop sustainable farm practice goals and priorities. Many of the identified on-farm priorities are known and have been implemented to various degrees but most farms have not been in a position to do anything because of market uncertainty, financial limitations and lack of knowledge. The FTC process has provided the impetus to get involved. The FTC process involves computer based farm planning/mapping, on-farm site assessments with the DairySAT tool, visit and compilation of on-farm data.

Murray Goulburn Farm Environment Program: see the attached file below.