Honeybees are in trouble - a stressful lifestyle and an unhealthy diet are being compounded by mite attacks - but we needn’t panic about pollination. Australia has many native bee (and other pollinator…
Vaccination has a lot more uses than you may know.
Stephen Mitchell
Approximately 140 vaccines are registered for use in livestock and companion animals in Australia. Many more animals are vaccinated each year than humans. Vaccines are used in farm animals: to protect…
Incidents of major agricultural run-off, like the recent Queensland floods, certainly affect Great Barrier Reef water quality, but systems are in place to reduce their effect.
AAP Image/Twitter, ISS, Chris Hadfield
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is both a national marine park and a World Heritage Area. But next to the reef, a catchment of 400,000km2 is almost completely developed for agriculture, predominantly beef…
Australia broke its “hottest day” record this week, and heat waves are becoming more common in Australia. Heat waves are projected to increase in duration and intensity with global warming and climate…
Christmas is a time of plenty - but to ensure we keep eating well in the future, it’s time to rethink the way we buy and produce food.
Barbeque image from www.shutterstock.com
As we gather to share a meal with friends and family this festive season, it is the ideal time to reflect on our relationship with food, including our dependence on those who grow it for us. Australians…
Foresters and farmers have an 8000-year history of dealing with climate variation and providing food and provisions - they may have climate change solutions.
Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Peter Holmgren, Centre for International Forestry Research
The UNFCCC COP-18 in Doha worked overtime to finally agree not to disagree. The Secretariat was quick to make a release that declares success and highlights four results: Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol…
As any barramundi fisher will tell you, northern Australia’s water isn’t going to waste.
Justin Friend
With increasing pressure on Australia’s water resources, many have looked to northern Australia to provide water for agriculture, urban development and other human needs. Much of northern Australia is…
Australia’s food chain has among the lowest rates of antibiotic resistance, but new threats call for stronger monitoring.
Eli Duke
Australia has some of the world’s most conservative restrictions on using antimicrobial drugs in livestock. Possibly as a consequence, we have some of the lowest rates in the world of antibiotic resistance…
Everyone seems nervous to talk about changing our diets.
Sumlin/Flickr
Reducing your carbon footprint by eating less red meat rarely gets attention. This strategy has been recommended by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, epidemiologists writing in The Lancet and…
It may not be a silver bullet, but biochar has a lot to offer farmers (and the atmosphere).
sillypucci/Flickr
Evelyn Krull, a research scientist at the CSIRO, asked in these pages whether biochar could save the planet. Eighteen months have passed and although research efforts continue, still no meaningful quantities…
Overuse of nitrogen fertiliser can have nasty environmental consequences.
eutrophication&hypoxia/Flickr
Planet Earth has boundaries for its biophysical subsystems. By 2009, we had already exceeded three of the boundaries – climate change, biodiversity loss, and the nitrogen cycle. Climate change is a top-of-mind…
Flooding risk is often used as an argument against greater environmental flows for the Murray-Darling, but graziers would benefit greatly from floods.
Richard Kingsford
The history of our development of the Murray-Darling Basin is one of constraining and constricting its rivers’ flows. Many of the basin’s floods are now captured in dams for later constrained release to…
Phasing out live exports may be the only way to save Australia’s northern cattle industry.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Temporary bans on live cattle and sheep export have undermined confidence in the industry, driving property prices down and diminishing banks’ willingness to lend for long-term improvement. If the industry…
Killing starfish one by one is no long-term solution.
Paul Cizek
A recent report on coral loss from the Great Barrier Reef has pointed the finger at cyclones and Crown of Thorns starfish. The real culprit is human activity, and until we reduce port activity and pollution…
Brigalow trees are vital for soil health and erosion control. They’re only just recovering from 19th century clearing. Why does the Queensland Government have it in for them?
Arthur Chapman
The Queensland State Government has recently proposed changes to the Vegetation Management Act 1999. Under the planned reforms, landowners will be able to clear and thin out vegetation using self-assessable…
A river at Cubbie Station, southwest Queensland, in 2004.
AAP/Supplied
Until the recent bid from a Chinese-Japanese consortium Shandong RuYi for megafarm Cubbie Station, it appeared the property would limp along under locally-based administration. But then the opportunity…
Sensible Australian farmers don’t object when foreign investors want to buy their problematic assets.
AAP Image/Cubbie Group
Controversy surrounding the recent sale of Cubbie Station in Queensland near the New South Wales border to (mainly) Chinese interests is not unexpected. Fears about foreign ownership in Australia are long-standing…
Some of the biggest water-energy-food integration challenges are on better soils close to major population centres; in this case, Adelaide.
Andrew Campbell
Rural research is vital. It is about 10% of our national innovation system. Annual investment exceeds $1 billion, according to the Rural Research and Development Council. The rural sector and farm-dependent…
Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University