This book is about two different systems of dryland farming. One consists of sowing cereals on land that has been ploughed deeply and applying nitrogen and phosphate fertiliser to provide fertility for the crop. Livestock are fed grain and hay and are grazed either in a desultory fashion on poor quality vegetation or not at all. This system is now thought to be responsible for high costs to farmers, high prices for consumers and considerable erosion of farm and rangeland in dryland zones where unreliable rain falls only in the winter time and summers are hot and often windy. The other system is an integrated one in which the land is used for cereal and livestock production in rotation. This system uses naturally regenerating annual legumes to provide nitrogen for cereal crops and pasture for livestock that are grazed all year round. This system requires only shallow cultivation for the cereal crop and none for the regenerating pasture. It is a remarkably low cost system and over time has proved to be capable of sustaining a balance between productivity and environmental stability in difficult dryland conditions.

This book is also about the farmers of South Australia who discovered how to exploit annual legume pasture (medicago and trifolium spp., commonly known as medic and sub-clover) to solve their dryland farming problems of decreasing production and increasing erosion.