|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
|
|
Issue 19, July 2005
In This Issue
* Postgraduate Scholarships * Early-Career Researcher Workshop * "Pride in Saltland Management" photography competition * Trends in Australian Agriculture
* SIF3: An investment framework for managing dryland salinity in Australia. By Anna Ridley and David Pannell
* Geophysical-bioeconomic targeting of plant-based land use change for management of stream water yield and salinity. By Tom Nordblom, Iain Hume, Andrew Bathgate and Michael Reynolds.
* Research issues for future agriculture: an economist's perspective. By Ross Kingwell
* Overview of the Economic and Social Assessment Subprogram of the CRC
Welcome to the second issue of SEA News for 2005. SEA News continues to be a big hit with professionals interested in "sustainability and economics in agriculture" – one article in a recent issue had nearly 800 hits last month alone! We hope you find the three articles published in this issue interesting reading. In the first article, Anna Ridley and David Pannell describe how appropriate management and policy responses for managing dryland salinity in southern Australia vary over a range of bio-physical and socio-economic conditions, and differ according to the resources at risk. In the second article, Tom Nordblom et al. describe how an integrated framework accounting for the biophysical resource base and the opportunity costs of changing land use can be used to analyse land-use change for managing stream water yield and salinity. In the third article, Ross Kingwell investigates some research issues for the future of agriculture from an economist's perspective.
Please contact us on seanews@agric.wa.gov.au if you have any news or views, an article for publication or feedback on our newsletter. Cheers 'till the next issue.
Felicity Flugge and Robyn Hean
Postgraduate Scholarships
The School of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the
University of Western Australia has two postgraduate scholarships
available:-
1. 'Designing Weather Derivatives and Yield Index Contracts for Rural
Australia' (PhD) and
2. 'Implementation of a strategic framework for investment for Natural
Resource Management: evaluation and development' (MSc).
Further details: http://www.are.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/12817/Webpage__postgrad_opportunities.pdf.
***
Early-Career Researcher Workshop
A workshop for researchers in the area of environmental and resource economics in the early stages of their careers is being held on the 27th-28th of October at Charles Sturt University NSW. E-CReW aims to provide a forum for early career researchers to get feedback on their research in a supportive and non-threatening environment, interact with and receive advice from more experienced academics, and to meet other researchers at a similar stage in their research careers. Further details here (pdf).
***
"Pride in Saltland Management" photography competition
Sustainable Grazing on Saline Lands (SGSL), part of the Land, Water & Wool initiative, together with the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity (CRC Salinity), the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Meat & Livestock Australia, Landmark and State agriculture agencies are behind the ‘SGSL Pride in Saltland Management’ Photography Competition. The competition is a creative way of recognising positive salinity management initiatives being undertaken by farmers and researchers across the country. There is more than $30,000 of prizes up for grabs, including a major prize from Landmark of $5,000 to the overall winner.
There are five categories:
1. Farmers in Action (sponsored by Australia Wool Innovation Limited)
2. Science in Saltland (sponsored by CRC for Plant-based Management of
Dryland Salinity)
3. Productive Saltland Pastures (sponsored by Meat & Livestock Australia)
4. Before and After (sponsored by Murray-Darling Basin Commission)
5. Saltland Humour (sponsored by SGSL)
The significant prizes on offer are a major incentive for people from all walks of life to get involved, according to SGSL National Coordinator, Dr Warren Mason. "We want to encourage people to creatively share the way they feel about their successes in saltland management using the camera lens," he said. "SGSL and competition partners will ultimately end up with a collection of extraordinary images of people tackling Australia’s salinity problem that will be a powerful way of communicating their success and determination to a wider audience."
Entries for the SGSL ‘Pride in Saltland Management Photography Competition’ close on 19 August 2005. Entry forms and full competition Terms and Conditions are available from the Land, Water & Wool website www.landwaterwool.gov.au or from Landmark outlets nationally.
***
Trends in Australian Agriculture - Productivity Commission Report
Released on 5 July 2005, this report examines some of the key trends in Australia’s agriculture sector over the last 20 years or so. While continuing to grow in absolute terms, the size and importance of agriculture has declined relative to the rest of the economy. Within the sector, there have been marked changes in the number and size of Australian farms, the make-up of agricultural activities and the production and marketing strategies employed by farmers.
See the Productivity Commission website for the report: http://www.pc.gov.au/research/crp/agriculture/index.html
***
Pannell Discussions
Recent "Pannell Discussions" include environmental levies, parallels between salinity and climate change and the economics of preventing herbicide resistance.
Check them out at Dave's website: http://davidpannell.net
|
|
SIF3: An investment framework for managing dryland salinity in AustraliaAnna Ridley and Dave Pannell"SIF3 provides a pathway to more cost-effective and scientifically defensible investments in management of dryland salinity by providing guidance on the broad categories of policy measures that are appropriate in different circumstances" |
Appropriate management and policy responses for management of dryland salinity in southern Australia vary over a range of bio-physical and socio-economic conditions, and differ according to the resources at risk (protection of water resources, biodiversity, infrastructure, dispersed assets such as agricultural land, and salt-affected land). Extension and incentives to promote currently available salinity management options are only appropriate as the main policy response in a minority of cases. Penalties or permits to limit planting of perennials can be justified in certain areas of high-water-yielding catchments. For the majority of agricultural land that is at risk or is contributing to dryland salinity, the most logical policy response is investment in development of improved salinity management technologies.
The full paper is available here (147KB)
Link to summary version: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/pd/pd0062.htm
|
|
Geophysical-bioeconomic targeting of plant-based land use change for management of stream water yield and salinityTom Nordblom, Iain Hume, Andrew Bathgate and Michael Reynolds"Our framework links biology, which drives profitability at the whole farm level, with hydrology at sub-catchment and catchment scales" |
Land managers in upper catchments are asked to make changes in land use, such as by planting trees, to reduce salt loads in rivers to meet needs of downstream towns, farms and natural environments. End-of-valley targets for salt loads have sometimes been set without a quantitative model of cause and effect, without regard for impacts on stream flow water volumes and without consideration of economic efficiency or the distribution of costs and benefits among stakeholders. In this paper we show how these questions may be treated simultaneously in an integrated framework accounting for the biophysical resource base and the opportunity costs of changing land use.
Two page version (55KB)
Full paper (277KB)
|
|
Research issues for future agriculture: an economist's perspectiveRoss Kingwell"A challenge for R&D fund managers and research leaders is to discover low-cost, effective ways of encouraging beneficial interaction between economists and scientists, so that end-users of R&D will be advantaged" |
Some key trends and challenges affecting agriculture are noted briefly. Their ramifications for agricultural R&D are outlined and some R&D opportunities are described. How economists might assist scientists in various disciplines to undertake successful R&D is also explored. The analytical tools and the mindset of economists enables them to assist scientists to identify and prioritise R&D opportunities and to modify their R&D endeavour.
The full paper is available here (70KB)
2005 Queensland Landcare and Catchment Management Conference - The Outback Speaks. August 4th-7th 2005, Barcaldine QLD. www.desertuplands.org.au/2landcare.html
***
15th International Farm Management Association (IFMA) Congress. 15th-19th August 2005, Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. www.ifma15.org/
***
West Australian Natural Resource Management Conference - Sustainability Side by Side. Formerly the State Landcare Conference. Denmark, Western Australia, 3rd-6th October 2005. www.wanrmconf2005.org
***
The Fourth National Native Grasses Conference will be held at Burra in South Australia, 11-13 October 2005. It is being organised by the Stipa Native Grasses Association in conjunction with the Native Grass Resources Group, Mid North Grasslands Working Group (SA) and Central West Conservation Farmers Association (NSW). Click here for further details on submitting an abstract.
***
4th National Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in Agriculture Conference. 17th-20th October 2005, LaTrobe University, Beechworth, Victoria. Further information is available online at www.cdesign.com.au/ems2005.
***
E-CReW 2005 - Environmental and Resource Economics Early-Career Researcher Workshop. 27th-28th October 2005, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst NSW. Further details are available in the attached pdf: ECreW.pdf
***
International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) Conference. Gold Coast, QLD, 12th-18th August 2006. www.iaae-agecon.org/AusConf/index.html
SEA News is a newsletter on bioeconomic and social research on Sustainability and Economics in Agriculture. SEA News contains unpublished and working papers which focus on a wide range of sustainability and economic issues for agriculture. Issues covered include salinity, market-based instruments, adoption of innovations, greenhouse, ethics, policy and more. Through SEA News, we hope to introduce you to a large and diverse area of research which might otherwise escape your notice.
Overview of the Economic and Social Assessment Subprogram of the CRC
The objective of the Economic and Social Assessment subprogram of the CRC for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity is to evaluate economic performance of actual and potential CRC outputs and develop policy options recognising the socio-economic opportunities and constraints that lead to the adoption of new land use systems. Research involves computer modelling, surveys, experimental economics, and analysis of a range of economic, social and bio-physical data. More information about the projects of the subprogram can be found on the CRC website: http://www.crcsalinity.com.au/pages/subprograms.aspx?SUBPROGRAMID=13
A full list of articles featured in this and previous issues of SEA News as well as articles not featured can be found using either the topic index or author index.
Copyright note: Some articles in SEA News have subsequently been submitted for publication in journals or books. SEA News contains pre-publication versions of these articles. They have not been subject to peer review, and copyright rests with the authors. When an article is formally published, the version on the SEA News web site is not updated to the published version, as this would violate copyright. However, the citation shown on the web page is updated to allow readers to identify the published version. Readers are encouraged to make use of the material present on the web site, provided that its source is acknowledged. Readers who wish to make direct quotes from an article in SEA News should not attribute the quote to a more formal (e.g. journal) published version of the paper without checking the published version, since the quote may have been altered or even omitted from the published version.
 |
© Copyright CRC for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity 2005 |
|
|
|
|
|
