Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Enhancing Food Security in Australia by Supporting Transformative Change

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Food Security in Australia

  • 3618 Accesses

Abstract

A key challenge for Australian farmers is the production of a sustainable, stable and sufficient quantity and quality of food. This must be done against a backdrop of numerous unprecedented changes in climatic, environmental, economic and social conditions. We consider the role that research and development (R&D) can play in facilitating effective change management in the agricultural sector.

Reflecting on the historical development of agriculture on the continent over the past two centuries, we highlight some of the pivotal agricultural developments and their social, economic and environmental impacts, as well as the prevailing R&D context at the time. This shows how agricultural development in Australia has at times been abruptly altered by fundamental transformative activities.

As further transformative changes are likely to be increasingly required into the future, we consider how a better understanding of the decision-making processes used to manage change may enhance the effectiveness of the R&D delivered to today’s agricultural producers. We describe our attempts to systematically assess how decisions to fundamentally transform agricultural enterprises are made by stakeholders at different stages in the food production chain. We suggest that the greater costs, risks and complexity associated with transformative, as compared with incremental, change management may require the enhanced consciousness that is evident in triple-loop learning. We also identify a number of factors that may hinder or facilitate attempts to transform, and how R&D investments can better support agricultural producers maintain and increase their contribution to the nation’s current status as a net exporter of food.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics). (2008). Australian Commodity Statistics: Summary of Australian statistics for wheat. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.abareconomics.com

  • ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics). (2009). Australian Commodity Statistics: Summary of Australian statistics for wheat. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.abareconomics.com

  • ABC News. (2010). Rice shortage to force temporary industry restructure. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/05/2081913.htm

  • ABS. (2010). 7111.0—Principal Agricultural Commodities, Australia, Preliminary, 2009–10. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/7111.0

  • Alcamo, J., van Vuuren, D., Ringler, C., Cramer, W., Masui, T., Alder, J., et al. (2005). Changes in nature’s balance sheet: Model-based estimates of future worldwide ecosystem services. Ecology and Society, 10(2), 19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anon. (1901). Royal commission to inquire into the condition of the crown tenants, Western Divisions of New South Wales. Sydney: Government Printer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Attwood, S. J. (2010). The impacts of agricultural intensification on arthropod assemblages at global and local scales. PhD thesis, University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Attwood, S. J., Park, S. E., Maron, M., Collard, S. J., Robinson, D., Reardon-Smith, K. M., et al. (2009). Declining birds in Australian agricultural landscapes may benefit from aspects of the European agri-environment model. Biological Conservation, 142, 1981–1991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biggs, H. C., & Rogers, K. H. (2003). An adaptive system to link science, monitoring, and management in practice. In J. T. du Toit, K. H. Rogers, & H. C. Gibbs (Eds.), The Kruger experience: Ecology and management of savanna heterogeneity (pp. 59–80). Washington, DC: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowman, D. M. J. S. (1998). Tansley review no. 101: The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota. New Phytologist, 140, 395–410.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cocklin, C., Dibden, J., & Mautner, N. (2006). From market to multifunctionality? Land stewardship in Australia. The Geographical Journal, 172, 197–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collard, S. J., & Zammit, C. (2006). Effects of land-use intensification on soil carbon and ecosystem services in Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla) landscapes in the southeast Queensland, Australia. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 117, 185–194.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, D. (1975). An account of the English Colony in New South Wales: With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners etc. of the Native Inhabitants of That Country, original 1798/ed. By B.H. Fletcher. Sydney, A.H. &A.W Reed in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Condon, R. W. (2002). Out of the West: Historical perspectives on the Western Division of New South Wales. Lower Murray Darling and Western Management Catchment Management Committees (p. 444). Yowie Bay: Rangeland Management Action Plan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cleugh, H., Stafford Smith, H., Battaglia, M., Graham, P. (2011). Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia. CSIRO PUBLISHING, 168 pp. http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Climate-Change-Book.aspx

  • DAFF. (2011). Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Research and Innovation. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/innovation

  • Davey, L., Macpherson, M., & Clements, F. W. (1947). The hungry years: 1788–1792. Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, 3(11), 187–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Schutter, O. (2010). Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food. United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council. Sixteenth session, Agenda item 3: Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2011.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/SNAA-8EBLUA-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf

  • Devine-Wright, P., & Clayton, S. (2010). Introduction to the special issue: Place, identity and environmental behaviour. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30, 267–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodson, J. R., & Mooney, S. D. (2002). An assessment of historic human impact on south-eastern Australian environmental systems, using late Holocene rates of environmental change. Australian Journal of Botany, 50, 455–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, G. (2003). The story of deregulation in the dairy industry. The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 47, 75–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fairfax, R. J., & Fensham, R. J. (2000). The effect of exotic pasture development on floristic diversity in central Queensland, Australia. Biological Conservation, 94, 11–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • FAO. (2008). The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrer, K. T. H. (1980). A settlement amply supplied: Food technology in nineteenth century Australia. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fiedler, A. K., Landis, D. A., & Wratten, S. D. (2008). Maximizing ecosystem services from conservation biological control: The role of habitat management. Biological Control, 45, 254–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flood, R. L., & Romm, N. R. A. (1996). Contours of diversity management and triple loop learning. Kybernetes: The International Journal of Systems and Cybernetics, 25, 154–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ford, H. A., Barret, G. W., Saunders, D. A., & Recher, H. F. (2001). Why have birds in the woodlands of Southern Australia declined? Biological Conservation, 97, 71–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garnaut, R. (2011). Garnaut Climate Change Review—Update 2011. Update Paper four: Transforming rural land use. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.garnautreview.org.au

  • Gregory, P. J., Ingram, J. S. I., Andersson, R., Betts, R. A., Brovkin, V., Chase, T. N., et al. (2002). Environmental consequences of alternative practices for intensifying crop production. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 88, 279–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henzell, T. (2007). Australian agriculture: Its history and challenges (p. 320). Collingwood: CSIRO Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howden, S. M., Crimp, S. J., & Nelson, R. N. (2010). Australian agriculture in a climate of change. In I. Jubb, P. Holper, & W. Cai (Eds.), Managing climate change: Papers from the GREENHOUSE 2009 conference (pp. 101–111). Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koning, N. B. J., Van Ittersum, M. K., Bec, G. A., Van Boeke, M. A. J. S., Brandenburg, W. A., Van Den Broek, J. A., et al. (2008). Long-term global availability of food: Continued abundance or new scarcity? Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, 55, 229–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maron, M., & Fitzsimons, J. A. (2007). Agricultural intensification and loss of matrix habitat over 23 years in the West Wimmera, South-Eastern Australia. Biological Conservation, 135, 587–593.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, N. A. (2011). Assessing resource dependence on the rangelands. Society and Natural Resources, 24(10), 1105–1115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, N. A., Park, S. E., Adger, N., Brown, K., & Howden, S. M. (in press). Transformational capacity and the influence of place and identity. Environ. Res. Lett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, N. A., Fenton, D. M., et al. (2007). How resource-dependency can influence social resilience within a primary resource industry. Rural Sociology, 72, 359–390.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, N. A., Gordon, I. J., et al. (2010). The reluctance of resource-users to adopt seasonal climate forecasts that can enhance their resilience to climate variability. Climatic Change. doi:10.1007/s10584-010-9962-y.

  • McAlpine, C. A., Etter, A., Fearnside, P. M., Seabrook, L., & Laurance, W. F. (2009). Increasing world consumption of beef as a driver of regional and global change: A call for policy action based on evidence from Queensland (Australia), Colombia and Brazil. Global Environmental Change, 19, 21–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAlpine, C. A., Fensham, R. J., & Temple-Smith, D. E. (2002). Biodiversity conservation and vegetation clearing in Queensland: Principles and thresholds. Rangeland Journal, 24, 36–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAlpine, C. A., Syktus, J., Deo, R. C., Lawrence, P. J., McGowan, H. A., Watterson, I. G., et al. (2007). Modeling the impact of historical land cover change on Australia’s regional climate. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L22711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meinig, D. W. (1962). On the margins of the good earth. The South Australian wheat frontier 1869–1884 (p. 231). Chicago: The monograph series of the Association of American Geographers, Rand McNally.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meinke, H., Baethgen, W. E., Carberry, P. S., Donatelli, M., Hammer, G. L., Selvaraju, R., et al. (2001). Increasing profits and reducing risks in crop production using participatory systems simulation approaches. Agricultural Systems, 70, 493–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: Current state and trends. Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group (p. 948). Washington, DC: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, D. R., Adger, W. N., & Brown, K. (2007). Adaptation to environmental change: Contributions of a resilience framework. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 32, 395–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, R., Howden, S. M., & Stafford, S. M. (2008). Using adaptive governance to rethink the way science supports Australian drought policy. Environmental Science and Policy, 11, 588–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nossal, K., & Gooday, P. (2009). Raising productivity growth in Australian agriculture, Issues Insights, 9.7. Canberra: ABARE. doi:http://www.abare.gov.au/insights.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olsson, P., Folke, C., & Hughes, T. P. (2008). Navigating the transition to ecosystem-based management of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 9489–9494.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., et al. (2006). Shooting the rapids: Navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11, 18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Park, S. E., Marshall, N., Jakku, E., Dowd, A. M., Howden, S. M., & Mendham, E. (2011). Informing adaptation responses to climate change through theories of transformation. Global Environmental Change. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.10.003. Retrieved December 9, 2011.

  • Phillips, A., & Lowe, K. (2005). Prioritising integrated landscape change through rural land stewardship for ecosystem services. Australian Journal of Environmental Management, 12, 39–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Research, A. (2008). An economic analysis of GRDC’s investment climate research (2002–2007). Impact Assessment report Series. Canberra: GRDC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sala, O. E., Chapin, F. S., Armesto, J. J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., et al. (2000). Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science, 287, 1770–1774.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sarewitz, D., & Pielke, R. A., Jr. (2007). The neglected heart of science policy: Reconciling supply of and demand for science. Environmental Science and Policy, 10, 5–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidhuber, J., & Tubiello, F. N. (2007). Global food security under climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 19703–19708.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sheng, Y, Mullen, JD and Zhao, S (2011). A turning point in agricultural productivity: consideration of the causes, ABARES research report 11.4 for the Grains Research and Research and Development Corporation, Canberra, May. http://www.adl.brs.gov.au/data/warehouse/pe_abares99010542/RR11_4AgricProductivity_LowResREPORT.pdf.

  • Smithers, J., & Smit, B. (1997). Human adaptation to climatic variability and change. Global Environmental Change, 7, 129–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stafford Smith, M., Abel, N., Walker, B., & Chapin, F. S., III. (2009). Drylands: Coping with uncertainty, thresholds, and changes in states. In F. S. Chapin III, G. P. Kofinas, & C. Folke (Eds.), Principles of ecosystem stewardship (pp. 171–195). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stafford Smith, M., Horrocks, L., Harvey, A., & Hamilton, C. (2011). Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 369, 196–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, C. J., & Howden, S. M. (2010). Adapting agriculture to climate change: Preparing Australian agriculture forestry and fisheries for the future. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Age. (2010). Climate drives big wine deal. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from http://www.theage.com.au/business/climate-drives-big-wine-deal-20100816-1272s.html

  • van de Kerkhof, M., & Wieczorek, A. (2005). Learning and stakeholder participation in transition processes towards sustainability: Methodological considerations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 72, 733–747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, B., Barrett, S., Polasky, S., Galaz, V., Folke, C., Engström, G., et al. (2009). Looming global-scale failures and missing institutions. Science, 325, 1345–1346.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yi, S., Ning, W., Peng, L., Qian, W., FuSun, S., QiaoYing, Z., et al. (2008). Agricultural heritage in disintegration: Trends of agropastoral transhumance on the southeast Tibetan Plateau. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 15, 273–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Sarah Park, Steven Crimp & Mark Howden

  2. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Simon Attwood

  3. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Nadine Marshall

Authors
  1. Sarah Park
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Steven Crimp
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Simon Attwood
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nadine Marshall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mark Howden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah Park .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. 17 The Grange, East Malvern, 3145, Victoria, Australia

    Quentin Farmar-Bowers

  2. , School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, 2678, New South Wales, Australia

    Vaughan Higgins

  3. , School of Environmental Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Albury, 2640, New South Wales, Australia

    Joanne Millar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Park, S., Crimp, S., Attwood, S., Marshall, N., Howden, M. (2013). Enhancing Food Security in Australia by Supporting Transformative Change. In: Farmar-Bowers, Q., Higgins, V., Millar, J. (eds) Food Security in Australia. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4484-8_14

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation