SOME of the smallest creatures make the biggest impact when it comes to quality of soil and dung beetle farmer John Feehan has dedicated his life to spreading these creatures throughout Australia’s agricultural pastures.
His foray into the world of dung beetles began in 1965 when he was part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) team tasked with bringing bovine dung beetles into Australia.
Back then, research found that certain dung beetle types were able to bury cow dung faster than the life cycle of the Australian bush fly.
Bringing dung beetles to Australia proved a game changer for graziers, with soil benefiting as well as everyday folk who were no longer bothered by thousands of bush flies when dining outdoors.
Mr Feehan has been spreading the word, and the beetle, across the country, delivering the insect and talking up their two decades.
His passion to share dung beetle benefits led to the nickname of the‘farmer’s friend’.
“I spent 30 years at CSIRO handling, breeding, relocating and harvesting beetles, and when funding stopped in the early 90s, I decided to continue the work on my own,” he said.
Mr Feehan continued working to bring dung beetles to paddocks all over Australia.
He has redistributed more than 4,500 colonies consisting of 18 different species to date.
His indepth knowledge means he sends the species best suited to a particular region and pasture for maximum effect.The way the beetles are transported may surprise you.        They are boxed up and sent through Australia post.
Disseminating the insects is an all family affair with his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter boxing up and posting them from their Gold Coast home.
“My daughter and her family dispatch about 100,000 beetles at a time from Queensland,” he said.
“We send them express post and farmers have to collect them from the post office as the temperature in the back of a post van or inside a post box would be too hot for the insects.”
He said the packages contained everything graziers needed to make their pastures more efficient, and that the knock on effect meant less costly fertiliser use.
“We are bringing phosphate fertilisers in from overseas and yet we have tonnes by the millions of natural product already on the farms and in the paddocks,” he said.
“The only trouble is that it sits on top of the ground and goes to waste.
“Whenever you see cow dung, know that you are seeing waste, as we need every gram of that material underground where it can be put to good use.
“When dung sits on top of the ground about 80 percent of the nitrogen goes into the atmosphere.”
He said when the beetles buried dung that figure was reversed, and 80 percent of nitrogen went underground and into grass roots.
“I like pointing out to farmers that tractor engineers can’t make a machine he can drive around his paddock and put dung underground as easily and efficiently as dung beetles do,” he said.
“When dung sits on top of the ground, internal parasites complete their life cycle, they develop into larvae, crawl out onto the grass and lay eggs.
“Animals then eat grass with those eggs on it so the life cycle is complete.
“Farmers have to use costly amounts of drenches to combat the internal parasite issue.”
He said on average 6,000 beetles comprising six different species were sent to a farm and within three years their paddocks would be all but devoid of cow pats.
He said there were many reasons dung needed to be removed from paddocks.
“There is another insect that breeds in unburied cow dung and that is the buffalo fly in Northern Australia,” he said.
“Each one of those flies suck blood around 30 times a day.
“While the level of irritation isn’t as bad as a mosquito it will certainly make you flinch if you have four or five thousand bush flies on an animal.
“Farmers have to use some pretty nasty chemicals to get rid of it and if it is allowed to continue the cattle will fail to put on 30 to 40 kilograms of weight per season.                           ”Mr Feehan buys and sells dung beetles through his business SOILCAM and is a recognised authority on the insect within Australia.
“What we are doing now is spreading and distributing the species we already have on farms, across the country,” he said.
“I know where all the species are and I know how to harvest them.
“A farmer can buy up to six species of dung beetles, about 6000 beetles, for $2,000.
“You could buy two tonnes of phosphate fertiliser for that amount of money and the farmer will get about a thousand times greater benefit out of the dung beetle than that fertilizer.
“If you look after them carefully they will be there on your farm for your grandchildren and great grandchildren.”
He said every ball of dung taken underground by a beetle contained an egg and the beetles bred prolifically.
“There are a few predators, foxes will eat them, ibis and cane toads too, but the beetles have evolved alongside nature’s natural predators so while they eat some they don’t eat many,” he said.
He said graziers needed to take care with the drenches they used when treating crops for pests while dung beetles were present.
“If they want to spray for weeds or red legged earth mite they can go ahead because when they spray something the residue falls on top of the dung and the insecticide or herbicide falls on the ground and onto the blades of grass.
“The dung beetles don’t suck moisture from grass or the soil so that is one of their big advantages.”
It’s easy to see how this farmer’s friend got his nickname, and just as easy to understand why graziers are not the only ones grateful for the work he does.
Lovers of outdoor dining across Australia should be thanking John Feehan too.