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Summary of full report
Proceedings of the Conference and Workshop, 15th-17th June 2004 Joondalup Resort, Perth Western Australia
Compiled by Pauline Gazey
January 2007
RIRDC Publication No 06/028 RIRDC Project No DAW-109A
Executive Summary
Background
This volume contains papers
or slides from talks presented at the Future Broadacre Agricultural Landscapes
Conference held at Joondalup in June 2004. It also contains the summary
of the Workshop held the day after the Conference.
Agriculture is at a cross roads, facing many significant challenges, such as increasing energy costs, declining rural populations, increasing community expectations over food quality and production processes, new technologies to improve production and efficiency, resource degradation and climate change. Unless we embark on a strategic journey and develop informed responses, we will be at the mercy of whatever directions the various forces take us.
The Future Broadacre Agricultural Landscapes (FBAL) Conference and Workshop was convened by a partnership of: Department of Agriculture Western Australia, Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative, CRC for Plant Based Management of Dryland Salinity, The University of WA, Murdoch University, Curtin University of Technology, Department of Conservation and Land Management and CSIRO. The CEOs or their equivalents were involved in both the planning and the event, along with their senior managers. This reflects the need for, and importance of, good strategic planning of R&D for the grainbelt. To achieve this we carefully developed an appropriate framework, and attracted the necessary diversity and quality of speakers, participants and stakeholder support. FBAL explored the question: How can research help enhance the future economic prosperity, vitality of communities and environmental quality of broadacre agricultural landscapes in the southwest of WA? The two-day Conference considered a range of significant global and national trends plus the perspectives of a number of different voices from the grainbelt region. These inputs were used to inform discussion during the Workshop held on day three.
Approximately 70 people from across the farming, research and development (R&D), business, local government, state government, community and NGO sectors attended the Conference, with approximately one-half participating in the Workshop.
The conference
During the first half of
the Conference, invited speakers explored the most significant national
and international trends and their likely impacts on the WA grainbelt.
They took standpoints of economics, society, politics, environment and
technology, and explored the various emerging trends.
Equal time was allocated to talks and discussion, allowing participants plenty of time to air their views.
A number of the trends transcend country borders, such as climate change, declining terms of trade, globalisation, agricultural protection and energy costs. Others, such as rural depopulation (and associated ‘coastalisation’), increasing farm sizes, increasing awareness and concern for the environment, land degradation and loss of biodiversity, while reflecting global trends, have a more regional basis. Other likely key issues for the future that were discussed included increasing use of information technologies, biotechnologies, and payments for ‘clean and green’ products. While the grainbelt is currently economically viable, its natural and social capital was seen as dwindling.
Speakers agreed on the continued importance of R&D to underpin the improvements necessary to maintain agriculture’s productivity and ensure continued adaptability and flexibility. However, there was general agreement that this should not be to the exclusion of environmental issues, since, even from just a pragmatic point of view, social and political pressures could easily mount to raise environmental standards, and play a major role in the future shape of agriculture.
With the southwest’s position as a global biodiversity hotspot under massive stresses, there was general agreement that biodiversity conservation needs to be built into the future direction of the grainbelt. Rural depopulation and declining communities inevitably drew wide attention, with some happy to accept it, whilst others advocated building regional diversity in industries and value adding as part of strategies to revitalise regions. Building regionally focused strategic partnerships involving the city and the country, and industry, community and government, was proposed as a means of fostering and focusing the broadly based changes needed.
In the second half of the Conference, a range of ‘local voices’ discussed their perspectives on the grainbelt from standpoints of: governance, community, indigenous people and youth, business, and large and small farms. They discussed what they saw as good and bad elements of the grainbelt, where they would like to see it going, and the role of R&D.
Some of the fairly consistent themes from the ‘local voices’ included: impacts of ‘fly in fly out farming’ on local communities, ‘walk in walk out’ research and the increasing divide between the city and bush; lack of adequate resources for regional bodies; and failure to adequately address social and environmental costs. Participants heard about regions that have pro-actively improved their positions, such as Birchip and Augusta-Margaret River. As with discussions during the first half, most called for: better integration of conservation, farming, and community; R&D processes based on true partnerships with strong leadership; and planning for greater regional diversity and value adding. Some other key research messages included: create farming systems that harmonise with landscape function; develop bush foods industry; reduce dependence on oil and investigate biofuels; create more differentiated food with activity further down the value chain; look at ways of making conservation pay; focus on getting the right mix of R&D.
Not surprisingly, two scenario planning exercises presented at the end of the conference largely reflected similar future issues to what had already been aired. These included energy availability, environmental impacts, biodiversity, climate change and variability and the need to raise input use efficiency including rainfall. However, they demonstrated there are realistic opportunities, which probably require different agriculture, but industry and regional strategies need to address these future issues.
It is impossible to capture the richness of the discussion following each presentation, and informally between sessions and over meals. However the event successfully created a ‘think tank’ on the future of the grainbelt. Through keeping the number of participants low, but inviting well informed representatives from a range of perspectives, industries, and organisations, a great diversity of thought was aired. This led to ‘movement’ in many people’s opinions as they developed an appreciation of other perspectives, to which they had previously rarely been exposed. The talks and discussions became input into the Workshop that followed the Conference.
The workshop
The day three Workshop was
facilitated by Craig Salt using the Strategic ConversationsTM approach
developed by Dr Tony Golsby Smith from Second Road Thinking Systems. Four
core questions were addressed in relation to R&D in the grainbelt region
of WA during the Workshop:
The Workshop brought
together the essence of discussions over the previous two days on how the
grainbelt is positioned and elements and aspirations of a more desirable
grainbelt.
Above all, people agreed on the need to improve the balance between social, environmental and economic health. For R&D to be valuable to the future it needs to be: innovative, holistic, integrated, balanced, flexible, collaborative, have a long term horizon, foster on-going learning and attract high leverage. Governments would have clear directions aligned with their constituents, residents would have viable futures, farmers would have prosperity, and the public would enjoy good economic, social and natural capital.
After bringing the threads of conversations over the three days together, the Workshop agreed that some large transitions are needed. Participants agreed on the need to integrate environmental and social drivers better into R&D investment decisions. They also saw that funds providers, researchers and users needed to be less fragmented and brought closer together into a more effective userfocused business model, which is more inclusive of the broad range of stakeholders. This would be aided by a more informed process for R&D investment decision making, and better linkages and coordination between the strategies of the various groups and interests in the region.
From the outset, the Future Broadacre Agricultural Landscapes Conference and Workshop set a high bar. It was premised by the fact that a lot of existing research has short time horizons, with poor continuity and connectivity with other research, and little consideration of its place in the ‘system’ and the user need. It also often fails to balance its contribution to a healthy economy with the needs for a healthy society and environment.
Outputs and outcomes
Many participants believed
that the diversity of perspectives and discussions had alone been very
valuable, and bringing together and focusing many influential and informed
minds on research for the grainbelt’s future had a powerful mobilising
effect.
Following the Workshop, a TalkBookTM was produced as a record of the conversations on day three and distributed to all participants. A one-page BlueSheetTM was then prepared by Craig Salt as an argument for addressing the question raised at the beginning of the Conference and Workshop.
Members of the FBAL Steering and Reference Groups decided that lessons and insights gained from FBAL should be incorporated into other current strategic processes (particularly planning of the Agricultural Research Institute and the prospective Wheatbelt Futures Cooperative Research Centre bid).
FBAL was a worthwhile venture for a broad range of stakeholders for a variety of reasons. The following major benefits have been identified:
For all stakeholders in the grainbelt region:
For R&D leaders and
administrators:
For researchers and special
interest groups:
For conference and workshop
sponsors:
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