ag (0617) - SFP: water management

water quality is an issue, things to look out for are sediment runoff, excessive nutrients eg. from animal waste or fertilizers, salinity problems and pesticide runoff.

water quantity is an issue especially during times of drougt. irrigation has to be carefully planned, since if done irresponsibly, a majority of the water can be lost through evaporation.

government legislations are put into place to help manage the use of water. water licenses are required to extract water from catchments, but it's allocations that matter. allocations dictate how much water a farmer can use during a year based on their license. sometimes they might not be allocated any at all, but have to pay license fees anyway

ag (0616) - SFP: land capability system

the land capability system is a method of classification for land for agricultural use.

it ranges from class I to class VIII,
with class I to III suitable for cultivation
IV to VI suitable for grazing
and VII and VIII not suitable at all.

check table on sheet for details on each class.

the land is classified based on factors such as climate, soil, fertility, slope and drainage

knowledge of the land capability helps in making decisions about the practices done on the land, for example methods of cultivation (minimum till etc)