Written by Andrea Barnard Monday, 03 May 2010 11:42
WITH increasing population placing food high on the global agenda, WA researchers are at the forefront of sustainable, profitable, high-yield agriculture.
Professor Graeme Martin of The University of Western Australia (UWA), Animal Production Systems Program Leader for the UWA Institute of Agriculture, says UWA’s Future Farm 2050 project will be used for field testing and implementation of agricultural research to address these issues.
“We are trying to imagine an ideal farm for 2050, satisfying the need to have high production of food, the need to be environmentally responsible, all the time being profitable because otherwise farmers won’t do it”.
Prof Martin says the farm will comprise four enterprises, each addressing the issues of food production, environmental management, profit and sustainability.
“Our theme for animal production here comes under the banner ‘Clean, Green and Ethical’.
“Clean is about being chemical-free and hormone-free. Green relates to sustainability and ethical is about animal welfare. We see the future of all animal industries in countries like Australia as being clean, green and ethical. In fact, cropping industries also need to be clean, green and ethical.
“The second thing is modern systems for cropping for production of food, maybe also some alternative crops. We can’t afford for our farm to become a patchwork quilt of little trials, it has to be profitable so we need scale.
“So we’ll be looking carefully at potential alternatives and trying them on a long term basis. No-till-cropping is our umbrella for that enterprise and that involves soil management, fertility management and all the cleverest things we can imagine to make best use of water.”
Prof Martin says a high level ecosystem restoration team, led by Professor Richard Hobbs, will be brought in to measure and study the ecosystem on the farm.
“The plan will be to rehabilitate native bush land as much as we can in those areas that are not prime for agriculture and this means working out the original ecosystem that would have been there.
“There are pockets of native bush left behind on granite outcrops but primarily it’s completely cleared, and yet despite that it’s only about 65 percent arable. So, on 35 percent of the land, we can’t grow crops.”
According to Prof Martin, the profitability of UWA Future Farm 2050 is a primary criterion and farm income must be able to pay the salary of a farm manager, as well as maintenance costs and upgrading and development, as would be expected by everyday farmers.
“We also want to be good neighbours. Our local town is Pingelly and a little further away is Brookton, two communities we want to be a part of.
“We want to be good community citizens. We are trying as hard as we can to put all the development costs and the business investment through the local townships rather than bringing everything in from Perth.”
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