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