Tim Houston will travel from the family farm on the border of NSW and Queensland across the globe to research how to sustainably transition land from grazing to cropping in order to achieve a positive triple bottom line outcome.
Tim has been awarded a Nuffield Scholarship, supported by CRDC and Cotton Australia, to study the topic. Using the scholarship, he plans to visit countries in South America as well as the US and Canada.
Tim is one of nineteen emerging leaders from Australian agriculture who have been awarded prestigious 2023 Nuffield Scholarships overnight. The scholars will travel in Australia and overseas to study innovative ideas, techniques and systems that will benefit their businesses and the broader agricultural industry.
Thanks to the generous investors, each 2023 scholar receives a $30,000 bursary to invest in travel and research. They will visit, learn from, and collaborate with some of the world’s leading agricultural businesses and research institutions.
Tim, alongside parents Rob and Sally, runs Sandholes Farming. They crop approximately 11,500 ha between Mungindi in Northern NSW and Inglestone in Southern Queensland. They rotate wheat, barley, chickpeas, sorghum and dryland cotton. They also run a Brangus breeder herd and are diversifying into Australian White Sheep.
Tim will use his Nuffield Scholarship to explore how farmers in other parts of the world are navigating the challenge of land use change and hopes to bring this information back to Australian landholders.
“There are areas in Australia that are suited to dryland farming, but are still underdeveloped. I will study how landholders that wish to develop their land, can do so in a way that provides positive social, economic and environmental outcomes – a triple bottom line,” Tim says.
“There is huge potential for landholders, regional communities and the Australian grains, pulse and cotton sectors to capitalise on the ability to sustainably develop agricultural land.”
Tim is also keen to explore how governments and landholders can better work together to support sustainable farming development. He feels collaboration between the two groups could be enhanced.
With the United Nations stating in 2009 that world food production would have to double by 2050 to keep pace with global population growth, Tim feels that Australian agriculture has an opportunity, and a responsibility to play its part in meeting future demand.
