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Carbon Forum 7th August 2008 - Marcus Oldham College

Dr Simon Livingstone

Principal Marcus Oldham College    
Carbon Forum - breaking for morning tea
Buckland Wing Extension, Marcus Oldham College

Prof Peter Grace

Queensland University of Technology

Dr Simon Livingstone (Marcus Oldham College),

Mr Richard Anderson (Harwood Andrews Lawyers),

Mr Bruce Wilson (Chairman College Council),

Prof. Tim Reeves (Forum Symposiums)

In a carbon, energy and water-constrained world, the competition for water and carbon management on farms will greatly intensify in the coming decade. Utilising available water to produce food and fibre will be in increasing competition with biofuel production, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem services. This forum will concentrate on the facts about changes in Australia’s climate and focus on the facts regarding carbon cycling on farms and in agricultural systems. In addition, there will be presentations on possible carbon emission and mitigation scenarios on farm, as well as consideration of the potential economic, environmental and social impacts for farmers and rural communities.

Presenters:

Professor Peter Grace

Download Audio 36min 52sec (.MP3   6.33MB)
Download Presentation (.PDF   3.05MB)

Professor Grace is the Professor of Global Change at Queensland University of Technology. He is an agro-ecologist and natural resource management specialist, with over 15 years international experience in carbon cycling, greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural risk management in the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. Through a range of agencies, he has been heavily involved in international global climate change issues. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station of Michigan State University in the United States.

Dr Mark Howden

Download Audio 38min 43sec (.MP3   6.65MB)
Download Presentation (.PDF   1.58MB)

Dr Mark Howden is a Senior Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, Australia. He is also the leader of the ‘Adaptive Primary Industries and Enterprises’ theme in the new CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, and has recently been involved with the new Agricultural Sustainability Initiative in CSIRO and the PM’s report on adaptation to climate change. Dr Howden’s work has focussed on the impacts of climate on Australian ecosystems and urban systems dealing, with amongst other things, the dynamics of grazed and cropped ecosystems, development of innovative and sustainable farming systems, biodiversity, energy systems and water use. He has also developed the national and international greenhouse gas inventories for the agricultural sector and assessed sustainable methods of reducing greenhouse emissions from agriculture.

Mr Andrew Campbell

Download Audio 22min 35sec (.MP3   3.88MB)
Andrew Campbell was the former Executive Director of Land & Water Australia (March 2000 - December 2006). He has a farming, forestry and extension background and was previously a senior executive in the Australian Government, responsible for the Bushcare program. He was instrumental in the development of Landcare in Australia through his role as Australia’s first National Landcare Facilitator from 1989 - 92 and as Manager of the Potter Farmland Plan initiative from 1984 - 89. Andrew is still involved with his family farm in western Victoria, of which more than 100 hectares has been revegetated in various forms of farm forestry and habitat plantings.

Dr Jeff Baldock

Download Audio 37min 30sec (.MP3   6.44MB)
Download Presentation (.PDF   1.23MB)

Dr Jeff Baldock leads the Soil Process and Function stream within the Managing Australia’s Soil and Landscape Assets theme. He has been involved in research related to the chemistry and dynamics of organic matter (specifically carbon and nitrogen) in agricultural, forest and marine ecosystems. Dr. Baldock has studied the chemistry and functions of organic matter across a range of natural environments including agricultural soils, forest soils and litters, and marine, lacustrine and riverine sediments.
Dr Baldock also has significant research experience in quantifying the cycling of nitrogen and the derivation of water and nitrogen balances in dryland agricultural systems. He has contributed to increasing the understanding of interactions between soil organic matter and soil mineral surfaces and the effects that this may have on the stabilisation of soil carbon against mineralisation. He has also made significant contributions to defining the role of organic matter and its fractions in the stabilisation of soil structure.

DR Cary Fowler Luncheon

Dr Cary Fowler

Global Crop Diversity Trust Download Slides (.PDF   2.45MB)
Download Audio approx 30 min (.MP3   6.93MB)

Prior to joining the Global Crop Diversity Trust as its Executive Director, Dr Cary Fowler was Professor and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He was also a Senior Advisor to the Director General of Bioversity International. In this latter role, he represented the Future Harvest Centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in negotiations on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.
Dr Fowler’s career in the conservation and use of crop diversity spans 30 years. He was Program Director for the National Sharecroppers Fund / Rural Advancement Fund, a US-based NGO engaged in plant genetic resources education and advocacy. In 1985 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’) in a ceremony in the Swedish Parliament.

In the 1990s, Dr Fowler headed the International Conference and Programme on Plant Genetic Resources at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which produced the UN’s first ever global assessment of the state of the world’s plant genetic resources. He drafted and supervised negotiations of FAO’s Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources, adopted by 150 countries in 1996.

Dr Fowler is the author of several books on the subject of plant genetic resources and more than 75 articles on the topic in agriculture, law, and development journals.

Global Warming - Is it Really a Threat? (Mr Des Moore)

5th November 2008, Marcus Oldham College
Mr Des Moore
Former Treasury Deputy Secretary and the
Director of the Institute for Private Enterprise

Download Notes (.PDF  572KB)
Download Audio approx 55 min (.MP3  9.50MB)

Can Agriculture Feed the World in the 21st Century?

Professor Philip Pardey Luncheon

‘A Review and Rethinking of the Productivity Potential of Agriculture’

Presented by: The Marcus Oldham Centre for the Study of Rural Australia

Sizeable and sustained productivity growth has been key to the economic success of agriculture in Australia and elsewhere in the world, especially during the latter half of the 20th century. The 21st century has begun with new uncertainties about the prospects of carrying forward the past rates of productivity gains into the future.

The promise of new biological and related technologies gives rise to optimism, offset by pessimism arising from recent price spikes and concerns over the quantity and quality of the natural inputs into agriculture. These concerns have been exacerbated by increasing competition for land and water and the additional constraints imposed by climate and high input costs.

This presentation draws on new data to review and re-evaluate the state of play regarding productivity developments in agriculture and the research investment trends that have helped bring them about. It will also outline the new approaches and investments required to boost agricultural productivity, profitability, and sustainability for the coming decades.

Prof Philip Pardey

Download Audio approx 67 min (.MP3  7.9 MB)

an Australian native, is Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota where he also directs the University’s International Science and Technology Practice and Policy (InSTePP) Center.

Previously he was a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C. where he led the Institute’s Science and Technology Policy Program, and prior to 1994 at the International Service for National Agricultural Research in The Hague, Netherlands. He is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, Australia, and obtained a doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Minnesota. He is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

Philip has considerable international experience, leading regional projects in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, and country projects in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Kenya, Niger, and the United States. He is author of more than 215 books, articles, and papers.

For related information visit www.harvestchoice.org

Australian Farms in 2015

"Food, fibre, energy and carbon: how should Australian farms adapt by 2015?"
Farming in Australia faces unprecedented change in the coming five to ten years as the impacts of a drying climate, water constraints, rising energy and input costs and carbon emission trading are factored into the management of local businesses, both rural and non-rural. Whilst each of these will add to the challenges influencing farm productivity, profitability and sustainability it can be argued that they are significantly outweighed by the opportunities for agriculture in a world where food security is firmly back on the ‘radar screen’ of decision-makers.

Australia is uniquely placed ‘on the doorstep’ of Asia, where the demand for food is growing more rapidly than in any other region of the world. However, market demographics are rapidly changing and as Australian farmers seek to seize emerging opportunities, so too do our agricultural competitors in South America and elsewhere. Overall, there will be mounting competition for the use of land, water, and other farm inputs to meet the potentially conflicting demands for food, fibre, energy, carbon sequestration, and environmental stewardship.

How will, and how should, Australian agriculture adapt to meet these challenges and opportunities? What will farms look like in 2015 as a result? Will family farms still predominate, or will corporate interests take over? Could we see energy production, and carbon sequestration on farmland outstripping food production? What skills do Australian farm managers need to survive and thrive in this era of change?

Presenters:

Mick Keogh

Executive Director, Australian Farm Institute

Download Presentation (.PDF  928KB)  

Previously, General Manager Policy, NSW Farmers’ Association, Mick worked for ten years as an agricultural management consultant, for both private and public sector clients. He was a research offi cer at the University of NSW and obtained a BSc and MSc in agriculture at the University of NSW. He grew up on, and continues to be involved in, a mixed-farming enterprise based in southern NSW.

Mike Guerin

Managing Director, Elders

Mike Guerin, the former director of ANZ’s Pacifi c banking business, is a commerce graduate from Otago University NZ, and grew up on a subeconomic farm his father, a shearer and later ag-pilot, owned in New Zealand’s South Island. Twenty years of banking, many of them running the ANZ rural network up against Elders, gave Guerin an appreciation for the solid Elders business.

Ian McClelland OAM

Birchip Cropping Group
Download Presentation (.PDF  932KB)

Ian McClelland is the inaugural chairman of the Birchip Cropping Group (BCG), which was established in 1993. The BCG has, during that period, become one of Australia’s leading farmer owned and controlled groups, dedicated to the mission of improving the prosperity of rural and farming communities in North Western Victoria. Ian runs an 8600 ha farm in partnership with his brother, Warrick, growing wheat, barley, canola, lentils, and the grazing of sheep and cattle. His interests lie in education, research and practical on-farm applications. He is a Council Member of Marcus Oldham College. He is an honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of Land and Food Resources – Crop production, Melbourne University. In 1998 Ian was the winner of the Hugh McKay Innovators award for excellence in Agriculture and Resources. He was awarded in 2004, the Seed of Light award by the Grains and Development Corporation in recognition of outstanding research and communication in the southern grains region. In 2006 he was one of the recipients of the Centenary Medal awarded by the University of Melbourne, Land and Food Resources. In 2008 Ian was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division (OAM).

Lucinda Corrigan

Bowna NSW
Download Presentation (.PDF  774KB)

An Angus cattle producer from Bowna near Albury in southern NSW, Lucinda and Bryan Corrigan run a progressive beef genetics operation from their base in the Murray Valley of NSW, and work with a large client base across Southern Australia. In addition to being a Director of Meat and Livestock Australia, Lucinda is a Director of the MLA Donor Company, an MLA subsidiary that invests in the supply chain. Lucinda is Deputy Chairman of the Cooperative Research Centre for Future Farm Industries. She is widely networked in research and development and farming systems across Southern Australia and vitally interested in the parallel development of business, human and environmental capital, in Australian rural landscapes. In 2007 Lucinda was awarded the Helen Newton Turner Medal for her contribution to Animal Breeding and Genetics.

Nic Kentish

Mount Gambier SA
Download Presentation (.PDF  445KB)

Nic Kentish was born in 1964 and raised on his family’s farm near Mount Gambier in South Australia. After leaving school, he set about pursuing a career that often led him “somewhere east of the sunrise”. A passion for livestock has been his driving force from jackerooing days on NSW, Qld and WA stations to overseeing a cattle development project in Vanuatu to head-stockman aboard livestock ships delivering sheep, cattle and goats to Middle-Eastern ports.

Now settled back on “Greenbanks” with his wife, Alexi and three children, Nic grows beef, lamb and mixed vegetables organically. With their family and dedicated staff they have developed a unique farm environment around sustainability, harmony, ownership and succession. Combining his passions for livestock and people, Nic trains Low Stress Stockhandling Schools with zest, humour and feeling and a genuine endeavour to see animals and humans together realize their true potential. Since animals are simply good at being animals, Nic takes up the human challenge to share what’s possible if people can change. Nic has studied and practised cell grazing systems, transition to toxic chemical-free farming, animal behaviour and stockmanship, family business meeting facilitation and catchment water management. These skills, combined with his positive attitude, generate new levels of achievements in his community.