IN WHAT he says is the biggest challenge of his career and potentially the most important project in the nation's history, the former governor-general Michael Jeffery is launching a national campaign to restore Australia's degraded landscape.

The campaign is based largely on the philosophies of the Hunter Valley farmer Peter Andrews whose three appearances on Australian Story on the ABC have produced a legion of advocates for his natural sequence farming techniques.

Major-General Jeffery is taking the first steps this weekend to convince 120,000 farmers to change their practices.

He has brought together 80 farmers and rural practitioners at Batemans Bay, including Mr Andrews, to lay the groundwork for Outcomes Australia - Restoring Our Landscape. General Jeffery hopes that within a decade a third of Australia's farmers - and eventually all - will have stopped using artificial fertilisers, dramatically boosted vegetation species, substantially reduced or ceased irrigation and adopted a more holistic, natural approach to farm management.

He also wants water to be recognised as the nation's most valuable asset, and managed by Federal Parliament.