| Controlled
Traffic Farming – farming systems for the Australian Environment.
D F Yule and R S Cannon
CTF Australia
Agricultural systems for
the Australian Environment must be strategic (address expected influences
over next 10 years with annual review), spatial (plant, row, paddock, farm,
catchment, district, region. Although everything varies spatially,
we try to enforce uniform solutions), systems of systems (integrated cropping
systems, machinery systems, transport systems, etc.), and sustainable.
In practice system behaviour
is simple, systems respond to dominant processes and interactions.
Farming systems are unique to farm and farmer combinations, are impossible
to model but easy to manage.
Sustainability involves five
elements - resource management (natural, financial, human, energy.
Firstly, develop optimum natural resources (control degradation) and then
manage them effectively and efficiently), maximum production (quantity,
quality and high value), economics (control costs, maximise returns, optimise
marketing), minimum environmental impacts (off-farm, catchment and regional
scales), social (personal, family, local community and wider community
scales). All elements must be positive.
At the regional scale, diversification
maintains communities and infrastructure. The question is not viability
of industry but viability of districts. Ultimately, solutions involve
change in all these components. There are many solutions and these
components are at least part of the “MUST HAVE” checklist.
Case Study – CTF and the
Australian grains industry. These concepts were identified when we
developed Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) in Central Queensland from 1993.
This was a new paradigm for both scientists and growers – a partnership
committed to holistic research as the way forward. CTF incorporates
the elements described above. CTF has now been adopted on 100 000ha
of grain cropping in Central Queensland and an estimated 500 000ha across
Australia. Current experimentation on sugar farms is widening the
use.
The capacity building provided
by new paradigms used in the CTF process will find new solutions that conservative
industries and their conservative advisers cannot see. Australian
agriculture can move forward to achieve its potentials and a sustainable
future based on these paradigms. The challenge is to think holistically
across all these dimensions.
The viability of phase
rotations for salinity control
Phil Ward and Senthold Asseng
CSIRO Plant Industry
Summary: Soil salinity is
one of the most serious issues currently facing agriculture and the environment
in Australia. It is due to an imbalance between groundwater recharge and
discharge, caused by large-scale clearing of native perennial vegetation.
The incorporation of perennial pastures such as lucerne into current farming
systems has been proposed as a possible means to try to redress the imbalance.
Lucerne and other perennials have been shown to create a zone of dry soil
below the normal cropping root zone, which acts as a buffer against further
drainage. In this paper, a long-term record (81 years) of modelled annual
drainage amounts from a current farming system was used to calculate the
potential impact of incorporation of a perennial phase on average long-term
drainage in two contrasting environments in Western Australia. The environments
chosen were based on Merredin (average May-October rainfall 214mm) and
Moora (average May-October rainfall 369mm), and correspond to the wetter
and drier ends of the WA wheat-growing spectrum. Calculations suggest that
at Merredin, if a perennial phase created a buffer of 100 mm (as has been
measured), long-term drainage would be reduced by 82% in a rotation of
3 years perennial, 5 years crop. The same rotation at Moora reduced drainage
by 32%.
Conclusions: Assuming that
the buffer created during the perennial phase was completely filled before
drainage re-commenced, a perennial phase was more likely to have a significant
impact, in terms of percentage reduction in drainage, in the drier environment.
The drier environments of WA are also where the threat of lost production
due to dryland salinity appears to be greatest. Reductions in drainage
of more than 80% in the drier environment were possible with realistic
assumptions of lucerne’s performance, and with reasonable lengths of phase
rotations. From these calculations, a phase rotation involving a suitable
perennial, if practised across an entire region, could prevent further
groundwater table rise. Input from groundwater hydrologists is necessary
to confirm likely acceptable recharge targets. Policy incentives may be
necessary to encourage land managers to adopt perennial phase rotations
at a suitable scale.
Valuing
natural environments to achieve ecologically sustainable development –
The Australian Museum’s FATE Program
Peter Ampt, Michael Archer,
Barbara Bohdanovicz, Dan Faith, Alan Jones and George Wilson
Australian Museum
The FATE (Future of Australia’s
Threatened Ecosystems) program offers potential for significant change
to Australian agriculture. Its central idea is that the development of
commercial activities based on the use of wildlife can create a more sustainable
pattern of land-use than our past and present reliance on introduced species.
If this is correct, FATE should result in improved social, economic and
ecological sustainability.
The program will involve
working with participating landholders and their local communities to identify
potential wildlife enterprises. A marketing and enterprise plan will be
devised for selected enterprises. These enterprises will then be adaptively
managed by participating landholders over a period of 5-8 years. During
this time marketing chains will be developed and the economic, social and
environmental effects of the new enterprises will be monitored.
A key enterprise in appropriate
areas will be the harvest of wild kangaroos since the populations of several
species have increased significantly from past and present land-use. FATE
is researching the existing and potential demand for kangaroo products
and the economics of the existing industry and will actively encourage
a marketing chain which can provide an income stream for landholders.
The scientific research component
of FATE has two broad aims. The first is to test whether the partial or
complete replacement of domestic stock by enterprises based on wildlife
will enhance ecological sustainability. This will involve investigating
both structural (species richness and species composition of flora and
fauna) and functional (through Landscape Function Analysis) aspects of
ecosystems. The second aim is to optimise the net benefits to humans through
complementarity analysis. This involves mapping species distributions on
a regional scale so that unique (high complementarity) areas can be identified
and protected.
Communication strategies
will also be employed, utilising the strengths of the Australian Museum
to encourage broad community participation and the communication of the
progress and outcomes of the program.
The program has already attracted
the support of a wide range of people and organisations including individual
landholders, farmer groups, scientists, relevant government agencies and
private companies.
Tilbuster
Grazing Commons: Theory plus action-learning is providing new understanding
of synergies for social and ecological resilience.
David Brunckhorst and Phil
Coop
Institute of Rural Futures,
University of New England
Summary: The loss of ecological
function across landscapes is a global priority, not only because of the
direct impacts on biodiversity and the processes it sustains but also the
social consequences arising in communities whose very existence is dependent
on this natural capital. Conventional attempts to address these inter-related
issues have generally failed and are hampered by narrowly focused agencies,
entrenched property rights, other institutional impediments, and inappropriate
scales. The enduring Common Property Resource (CPR) management institutions
are not “Tragedies”, but rather “Triumphs”, demonstrating collective resource
management Commons contribute ecological and social resilience despite
an external context of high risk and uncertainty. The sustaining vigor
of successful common property regimes has provided the interface through
which the demands placed on the natural environment by CPR institutions
are better matched to multi-scale natural processes that! supply ecological
goods and services. We need to revisit these institutional forms and determine,
through application, if these social organizational arrangements are socially
and ecologically robust, to deliver sustainable landscape futures. We outline
the “on-ground” development of a modern grazing commons model. With support
from L&WA and NHT, a group of graziers in Australia are developing
a contemporary CPR from private parcels of land in an attempt to address
the degradational spiral that continues to challenge them, and their rural
counterparts worldwide. Holistic resource management including rotational
grazing, environmental rehabilitation and conservation and, water reallocation
and creek restoration is undertaken across 4 adjoining properties on the
New England Tablelands.
On-farm
testing: getting benefits for the environment
Marg Evans¹, Chris Sounness¹,
Brooke Thompson¹, Tony Fay¹, Peter Taylor²
Department of Natural Resources
and Environment, Victoria¹ and Wimmera Farming Systems²
To highlight the opportunities
for grain farmers to play an increasing role in developing information
and validating management techniques which have outcomes that are environmentally
as well as agronomically, economically and socially sound.
Conclusions: On-farm
testing with farmer owned equipment and large plots is a good way to gain
farmer ownership. Agronomic treatments chosen by the farmers themselves
ensure enthusiastic participation. This is an ideal environment in
which to address local issues, engage farmers in assessment of management
strategies and provides an excellent vehicle for delivering targeted messages.
TOPCROP in Victoria has been
coordinating on-farm testing with farmer groups to address agronomic issues
at a state level (a "state focus"). Scientific credibility
is maintained by using nearest neighbour site layouts and across state
analyses as well as within site analyses.
Despite the agronomic aims
there have been spin-offs for the environment. For example - better targeting
nitrogen applied to malt barley, so reducing nitrogen accession to water
tables etc, streams etc; appropriate varietal choice giving better water
use efficiency, so reducing water flow through to water tables.
More importantly, on-farm
testing has the potential to be a useful tool for delivering natural resource
management messages and for encouraging farmers to assess and adopt/adapt
environmentally friendly management techniques.
Don’t
throw the baby out with the bathwater: complete new farming systems for
low rainfall agriculture
Murray Unkovich
Victorian Institute for Dryland
Agriculture
Summary: Farming systems
based on perennials will not be the norm in future Australian landscapes.
A strategic approach to finding more profitable and environmentally savvy
farming systems based on annual species could exploit "biological solutions"
to the problems of variable climate and soils. One window of opportunity
is self-regenerating crop systems where an annual crop regenerates from
its own shed seed. Immediate thoughts about disease carryover and crops
becoming weeds should not overshadow the real opportunities. The system
might be one where you sow a grain legume and harvest it in a good season,
take the return when it is there. But if it is a very poor year the crop
could self-sow the following year. Another opportunity is to add the break
crop effects of say brassicas and legumes together. People have tried say,
peas and canola before ('peola'), where you get some benefit with the field
pea climbing up the canola and the seeds can be easily separated after
harvest. However, a much simpler system that incorporated just the rotational
benefits might be easier, eg use varieties such that the minor player doesn't
complicate things by setting seed, and thus making harvesting easier. There
are many difficulties in setting up such systems but we believe that it
is worth having a look at the rotational benefits of crop mixtures to see
if we can displace environmentally costly fallows and increase water use.
Our current annual farming systems are rather naive when it comes to the
opportunities afforded by biology.
Conclusions: Farming systems
based on perennials will not be the norm in future Australian landscapes.
Completely new farming systems based on annuals are more likely to be adopted
and make a smaller footprint. However, to achieve the massive change required
we will need some novel thinking about how we can better exploit
biology.
Locust
Control in Australia: A case study in third party environmental management
Paul Story
Australian Plague Locust
Commission
Summary: The Australian Plague
Locust Commission (APLC) has the responsibility for controlling 3 species
of native locust, across 2 million square kilometres of Eastern Australia.
The application of insecticides to fragile arid and semi-arid ecosystems
by a third party, is a task that brings with it both real and perceived
environmental issues. The APLC is proactive in addressing these concerns
through a combination of targeted environmental and operational research,
the development of an ISO 14001 aligned environmental management system
(EMS), and links to environmental and research institutions. An ever
increasing due diligence component within Australian environmental legislation,
has meant that mere legislative compliance is no longer sufficient for
industry to ensure it meets its environmental obligations. The development
of external research links and the formulation of an EMS for locust control,
have enabled the APLC to liaise with stakeholders, identify environmental
issues and trends, quantify objective environmental targets and strategies
and facilitated the APLC being capable of continuously improving its environmental
performance while maintaining stakeholder satisfaction.
Conclusions: Continual improvement
in the APLC’s environmental performance is dependent upon the management-driven
review of:
-
appropriate planning to continuously
redefine the changing scope of the APLC’s research and operations, its
major environmental impacts and engaging staff in developing environmental
objectives based on the APLC’s Environmental Policy;
-
implementing procedures for
the achievement of identified environmental targets;
-
ensuring the organisation engages
in checking and corrective action with respect to identified environmental
objectives, targets and protocols;
-
ensuring the APLC is accountable
for its environmental performance by reporting on the organisation’s environmental
performance to all stakeholders.
Optimising
biodiversity and production on intensive farms
Isa Yunusa, Geoff Brown,
Raelene Kwong, Tony Slater and Geoff Ronnfeldt
Rutherglen Research Institute,
Department of Natural Resources and Environment
High values for land in intensive
agriculture systems makes it uneconomic to set aside significant portions
of land for biodiversity conservation, thereby limiting opportunities for
enhancing biodiversity. In addition to land foregone to production,
the other main impediment to establishing shelter-belts in industries such
as horticulture is that they harbour arthropod and avian pests that are
detrimental to fruits and vegetables. For very practical reasons,
ecologically sustainable systems must be economically sustainable to succeed.
A new project centred on
the Victorian Riverina funded by the Victorian Government is designed to
overcome this constraint using shelter-belts of native species. Shelter-belts
require relatively less land than plantation blocks, and can be designed
to take advantage of areas that have low productivity due to soil and other
environmental constraints. The overall objective of this project
is to optimise production and biodiversity through appropriate design and
configuration of shelter-belts that:
- Incorporate plant species
that provide food sources for birds and insects deflecting them from crops
- Establish transition zones
of native and/or exotic species to provide marketable produce as a source
of income diversification
- Develop integrated pest
management systems by planting species known to attract predators/parasites
of target arthropod pests
Shelter-belts will provide
biodiversity outcomes by extending natural habitats thereby increasing
overall faunal diversity, since larger areas of native vegetation support
greater numbers of species. They also provide corridors to large
areas of contiguous habitats. Both of these should improve the viability
of threatened or endangered species.
Future
management of grasslands
David Kemp, D L Michalk
Faculty of Rural Management,
University of Sydney
Livestock grazing is the
largest single use of the Australian landscape. Over half the livestock
production comes from the more productive and intensively used higher rainfall
regions across Southern Australia (> 500 mm). Grasslands in these areas
have gone through many transitions since Europeans arrived. Not all these
changes have been positive and producers are very concerned with the need
to develop sustainable (economic, biophysical & social) solutions.
The central issue in many
cases is that the botanical composition of these pastures and grasslands
has deteriorated. Many areas are dominated by exotic annual and weed species,
which then results in lower productivity, acid soil development, rising
water tables and increasing salinity. Research is only starting to understand
the relationships between biodiversity and grazing systems.
Faced with declining terms
of trade it is no longer possible for farmers to simply replace the existing
vegetation with sown pastures, except in the higher rainfall, more fertile
parts of the landscape. The future management of many areas will need to
be based upon a more ecological approach working with the mix of native
and exotic species that are already present to encourage a higher proportion
of palatable perennial species and in managing them over the longer-term.
In more cases, native plant species will be part of the solution and this
will have environmental benefits. Better management of livestock is the
key to achieving many of the environmental goals now being set.
Attitudes to solving environmental
problems will be influenced by the production systems that producers employ.
Two broad pathways are likely to become more evident as producers respond
to the continuing decline in terms-of-trade. Producers who are focused
primarily upon improving the efficiencies of production will continue to
seek lower cost solutions, higher rates of forage utilisation and marketing
efficiencies i.e. a ‘quantity’ focus. Others will concentrate more on the
‘quality’ of production and in delivering products that satisfy consumers
for whom price is not the primary consideration e.g. those more interested
in niche markets, sustainable solutions, nature conservation, organic farming
etc. This second group will aim to obtain higher prices for ‘tailored’
products. The proportions in these categories will probably change and
over-time more production could fit within the second category, particularly
for those focused on higher value markets e.g. in Europe. A third group
may remain who simply cut back on inputs, over-utilise resources and eventually
sell out or go bankrupt.
The environmental impacts
of these different strategies will vary. Both of the more proactive groups
will probably pay more attention to managing the water balance to minimise
rising water tables, salinity and acid soil development. The optimum strategy
for partitioning water between e.g. runoff, lateral and deep drainage is
still to be resolved. Those focused upon consumer concerns will pay more
attention to the native species within their grasslands and are likely
to have a higher proportion of native species across their properties than
those focused upon simply seeking production efficiencies. Though they
will probably have areas of native species, concentrated into ‘remnant
/ revegetated’ areas, and may be willing to consider supporting neighbourhood
reserves. Seeking production efficiencies may be compatible for many sustainability
goals except for nature conservation, though possibilities exist, depending
upon the levels of species loss and gains that society is willing to tolerate.
A key aspect of many grazing systems will be the wider use of rotational
grazing systems where producers can more effectively monitor the available
forage, control the selectivity of animals and maintain herbage masses
appropriate for sustainability goals.
Management solutions will
be needed to cater for these differing groups. Developing markets for ecosystem
services will be seen as a viable ‘product’ that in turn could compensate
for more conservative stocking rates. Better management of grasslands will
require a more proactive approach to management than currently exists and
incentives that foster a longer-term view.
Rechargeable
potatoes - cadmium-contaminated trace nutrient fertilisers
Greg Rippon, R Angel, P Patel,
M McLaughlin
Environment Australia and
National Cadmium Coordinator (c/- CSRIO, Land and Water)
A recent headline in the
Sydney Morning Herald read “Toxic waste sent back to China”. The
article dealt with the return to China of zinc sulphate contaminated with
high levels of cadmium. This was not an isolated occurrence, however.
Environment Australia has data for three cases since early 2001 in which
imports of this material were tested and found to be highly contaminated
with cadmium, even though the accompanying certificates of analysis indicated
no such contamination.
This paper discusses the
likely industrial source of the zinc sulphate, the potential effects of
cadmium on the environment, what is known about the scale of the problem
and the policy implications of such imported trace nutrients which are
controlled under the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports)
Act 1989 when contaminated with heavy metals like cadmium.
Raised bed controlled
traffic cropping - environmental, economic & social outcomes
Chris Bluett1,
Bruce Wightman2, Renick Peries2 Tim Johnston2
Natural Resources and Environment
1Ballarat
2
Geelong
In 2002, almost 25,000 hectares
of South-West Victorian grain crops are growing on raised beds, mostly
on paddocks prone to waterlogging. With a range of refinements currently
being tested, the technique can be environmentally sound. It also
improves farm profitability and increases rural employment opportunities
Productivity Improvements
-
Raised beds increase high rainfall
crop production by eliminating the waterlogging constraint
-
Yields are more reliable, canola
yields over 3t/ha and cereal yields over 6t/ha are common
-
Bed installation is inexpensive
relative to crop productivity and profitability
-
Lucerne may grow on raised beds
in districts where it was previously not viable
Soil Improvements
-
Raised beds come with controlled
traffic, wheels do not travel on the cropped area
-
Prevention of compaction and
waterlogging contributes to soil structure improvements
-
At one site near Geelong, soil
bulk density improved over three years from 1.7 to 1.1g cm-3
-
Soil friability and plant available
water content also improved, helping crops survive harsh environmental
conditions
Environmental aspects
-
Good planning and preparation
are essential for environmentally sound raised bed cropping
-
Management of run off water
is very important
-
The beds must be correctly installed,
and fertiliser applied only to the bed tops
-
End drains, buffer dams and
grassed waterways must be engineered with precision
Social aspects
-
In pastoral districts, raised
bed crops improve farm viability and help families stay on farms
-
100 - 150 jobs have been directly
created in SW Victoria by raised bed cropping adoption
-
Examples are machinery operators,
welders and mechanics, and truck drivers
-
An estimated 35 - 40 extra jobs
per year are required at present rate of increase
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