New rural industries for future climates - Ros Prinsley
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Transcript of New rural industries for future climates - Ros Prinsley
New Rural Industries for Future Climates
Dr Roslyn PrinsleyThink • Connect • Transform
Rising Sea Levels
Damage control?
What will the next generation grow in the Torres Strait?
Anticipation?
Floods in Bangladesh
Replace chickens with ducks
Outline
• New industries, climate change and resilience
• New industries for future climates • Can we get there?
Challenge
• Existing agricultural industries challenged by climate change under warmer and drier climates with more extreme events.
• Farmers need viable new industry options and systems with an increased range of climatic suitabilities.
• Need prediction but also need preparedness (Hayman)
Are we prepared?
• Traditional agricultural systems, maximising production• Focus on increasing productivity - decrease resilience. • Climatic shocks larger and more frequent. • Climatic shock – need flexibility
Our staples
• 50% of human energy is provided by only 3 cereal species – rice, wheat and maize
• About 22 crops feed the world.
……a dangerous vulnerability…….
Diverse systems are more resilient to extreme climatic events• Increase diversity - reduce risk• Range of crops at different stages of production
cycle at a point in time.• Crops with particular defences• Not all production affected.Risk distribution agronomy vs profit maximising agronomy (Swaminathan)
New industries have a vital role in transforming agriculture
Adapted from Howden 2009, Barlow 2010
• 20,000 plant species eaten in the world. • 100 to advanced agronomic level. • ‘’New” industries offer:
• increased profitability and sustainability• diversification and resilience• new products and jobs • carbon sequestration
Do we have options ready?
Crops for the Future
An international organisation spearheading the drive to bring underutilised crops into the mainstream
New Rural Industries Australia - the future of agriculture
• entrepreneurial Australians investing in new and emerging industries
• creating an environment for development and building of new, innovative, Australian rural industries through cooperation
New Industries for Future Climates
• Identifies regions and industries where climate change will alter the current mix of agricultural industries
• Determines plant traits required for future climates
• Suggests new industries that meet these criteria
Cullen, Thorburn, Meier, Howden and Barlow, 2010
Crop Water requirement for full production
Resilience to drought/ Low irrigation water
Salinity tolerance
New industries – resilient irrigated crops
Olives High High Moderate
Dates Very High High Very High
Jojoba High High Moderate
Pomegranates High High Moderate
Quandong, bush tomato, desert lime
Low-Moderate High High
Cacti Low High High
Capers Low High High
Traditional industries – high value irrigated crops
Wine grapes High Low Moderate
Citrus High Low Low
Pomefruit High Low Low
Irrigation water availability, quality and price key drivers of change in MDB
Cullen, Thorburn, Meier, Howden and Barlow 2010
Gross value of irrigation in olive and citrus orchards at different levels of irrigation availability
Cullen, Thorburn, Meier, Howden and Barlow 2010
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
Irrigation allocation
Gro
ss
va
lue
of
irri
ga
tio
n
($
/ML
irri
ga
tio
n a
pp
lied
)
Olive
Citrus
Olive$ more resilient to variable water supply than citrus
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
0 10 25 50
Yield loss (%)
So
il s
alin
ity
th
res
ho
ld (
EC
e d
S/m
)
Pomefruit & Citrus
Olive
Grape
Date palm
Soil salinity threshold (dS/m) for 0, 10, 25 and 50% yield loss in pomefruit, citrus, olives, grapes and date palm.
New crops with higher tolerance to salinity
CAM WUE
- higher than other crops
Fruit crop Yield tons/hectare Irrigationm3 water ha-1year-1
Water use efficiencyt fruit/ML water
C3 Crops
Peach 12 6280 1.9
Various Citrus 35-80 10,000-12,000 3.5-6.6
CAM Crops
Koubo 25 1200-1600 15.6-20.8
Vine cacti 35 1200-1600 21.9-29.2
Mizrahi, 2010
Quinoa cultivated in the Andes for 5,000 years• Subsistence agriculture in the Andean Highlands is exposed to
drought, frost, wind, hail, salinity and soil erosion
Jon Clements
Dryland agriculture
Quinoa• Salt tolerance grows
successfully where soil salt concentrationsare as high as that of seawater.
• Drought tolerance grows in sand where annual rainfall is only 200 mm. Deep root system, vesicles on young plants & low osmotic potential
• Frost tolerance can survive temperatures as low as –8°C for 2–4 h
• Yields 1.5-3 t/ha
• Nutritional values • Compared to rice - 20 x Calcium &15 x Iron. • Compared to wheat - 2 x Calcium & 4 x Iron. • Comparable levels of amino acids to wheat, and contains an amino
acid, lysine, which normally isn’t found in vegetable proteins.
Native Australian grasses“major dependence” by aboriginal tribes on milled grass grains for food
• Low water requirement for growth and survival• Low fertility requirement• New food, pasture and bioenergy options
Ian Chivers, Native Seeds Pty Ltd
Dryland agriculture
Can we get there?
National Expenditure on Rural Related R & D
• $1.66 billion(Core 2009) or $2.9billion spent annually on rural related R&D
• $13 million spent on new & emerging rural industries R & D (RIRDC, National R, D and E Strategy New and Emerging Industries 2010)
• ie 0.8% or less of the total rural R & D budget is spent on new and emerging rural industries
• Is the balance right between incrementalism and transformation? (Sounness)
Why not?• Temptation to look for quick fixes, short term
funding and trivialisation of innovative approaches
• “She’ll be right” (traditional Australian approach)
• Insurance value of diversity not easily detected most agricultural research (Jackson et al.)
• Resilience approach conflicts with current policy doctrines eg economic efficiency removes so-called redundancies – ie sources of resilience (Walker 2010)
Why not?
• new industries high risk and often fail • inadequate availability of information• general lack of awareness means:
• insufficient attention to creation of a favourable policy environment for new and emerging industries
• underinvestment in R & D• seems too hard – easier to accept the status quo and
incremental improvements in crops we are used to• we are not uncomfortable enough to drive change - yet
All Australian agricultural industries were once new industries
And remember - it’s only kinky the first time
Ian Godwin
We will be eating some food from new crops