Welcome to the future of farming and the UWA Future Farm 2050 project. My name is Graeme Martin. I'm a professor at the University of Western Australia or UWA as we like to refer to it. My colleagues and I decided to set up this course because we want people like you to focus on the biggest problem facing humanity. This problem is nicely illustrated by this image showing light emissions from the Earth at night. You can see the areas of population density and of course electricity consumption. This very elegant image tells us a little bit about the nature of our problem that is human population. Let's look at the growth of the last couple of thousand years. As you can see, human population was growing steadily until the last few hundred years, then it suddenly accelerated. In the 1960s, mathematicians looked at this curve and then extended it into the future. This is actually a highly unlikely scenario and modern demographers, the experts in prediction of population growth, had presented us with more logical alternatives. One possibility is that the human population levels off at 20 billion people. Another shows a population leveling off at 12 billion people. And in fact, all the best current data suggests that this is the most likely outcome and I must say that is a great relief. In the end however, it doesn't really matter which of these predictions are correct. In all scenarios, we will have about 10 billion humans on the planet by 2050. This means that over the next 35 years, the planet will gain an extra 3.5 billion people. That's 50% more than we have right now. And of course, all these people have to be fed and clothed. Much of their food and clothing comes from agriculture. Agriculture has always been the biggest industry in the world and it has grown as human population has grown. This is a great success story for humanity because it underpins modern society. People that work in enterprises that are not farming can only do so because farmers exist and do a great job. However, the expansion and intensification of agriculture has caused a lot of problems for the resources that are essential for agriculture itself, namely the ecosystem. Modern industrialized agriculture has been quite destructive. So we have several serious challenges facing us and these challenges are global, confronting my country as well as yours. Here is a list. Obviously human population growth is the primary issue. The second challenge is increasing urbanization basically because most of our large cities were begun on the best agricultural land. Climate change is with us. By 2050 there will be some climate change no matter what we do about to cut emissions these days. There is an increasing demand for animal protein as well because people in developing countries are becoming more wealthy. We also had this strange phenomenon of biofuel production that in many cases is based on using human food for the production of fuels. As I mentioned, agriculture can be quite destructive leading to landscape degradation, soil erosion, perhaps the most important issue confronting us. It is now clear that business as usual is not enough to cope with the challenges of 2050. We need new thinking. At the University of Western Australia, our response has been to develop the project we call UWA Future Farm 2050. The vision of this project is to imagine the ideal farming system for our part of the world for 2050. The mission of the project is to transform a commercial farm to fit that vision starting now rather than waiting until 2045 and panicking. By the way, our project has a Facebook page and I'd love you to go to that page and like us. Obviously, in UWA Future Farm 2050, the core business is agriculture and the production of food. However, as you will see during this course, the project is much broader than agriculture. It takes into account the broader issues of agricultural ecosystems and it also embraces people a vital part of any agricultural system. The Future Farm project is based on a farm in the wheat built area of Western Australia. Here is an aerial photograph. The farm known as Richfield is outlined by this blue line. The area is 1,600 hectares, about average for this part of the world and the annual rainfall is 425 millimeters. Most of the rain falls in winter and early spring. On the left, you can see a nature reserve, the shading shows you what this landscape looks like before Australia was colonized a couple of hundred years ago and the natural ecosystem was then converted into agricultural ecosystem. As you can see, there are some areas of natural vegetation on the farm but you'd have to agree it is very little. This is absolutely typical of the agricultural landscape in our country. The UWA Future Farm project has four enterprises. The first we call ecological cropping. This is basically the production of cereals, canola and legumes. The second enterprise we call CGE livestock. I'll explain CGE later on, but this enterprise is based around the production of meat and wool by sheep. The third enterprise aims to maintain and restore ecosystem and biodiversity. The fourth enterprise is about people. For agriculture to be successful, we need contented farmers living in vibrant communities, or else they will leave the land and no longer provide us with food. This project and its four enterprises form the foundation of this course. Over the next six weeks, you will meet the people who work in each of these areas and learn about the way they have imagined their part in UWA Future Farm 2050. Right now however, I will give you a little more background for each of the next five weeks of you course. As you can see next week, you'll look at two essential resources: water and soil. In week three, you will learn about ecological cropping. In week four, you'll discover CGE livestock. In week five, we will talk about ecosystem conservation and restoration. Finally, in week 6, you'll learn about infrastructure and people. Agriculture is absolutely reliant on soil and water. Doctor Matthias Leopold will introduce soils; how they are made, how they are structured, their biology and what we must do to conserve them. To be frank, our history of soil management is very poor. We need to be better at managing soil moisture and soil structure if we are to maintain or improve productivity. We must have absolutely zero tolerance for erosion. It takes hundreds of thousands of years to create soils so when they are lost, they are lost forever. Finally, we need to focus on the organic matter content of their soils. Organic matter is important for soil biodiversity and we are now learning that soil biodiversity controls fertility. A very interesting reflection of our practices of the last 200 years in Australia is the carbon content of our soils. It is about 1% and is only a third of the level we find in nearby native bush. We must find ways to reverse that trend. Also next week, Dr. Matt Hipsey will teach you about the management of water in the context of dry land farming as we do on our farm and in the context of irrigation agriculture. He will also help you to understand the issues surrounding water storage. In week three, we will discuss ecological cropping where in fact we have a mantra which is Make every raindrop count. This is because we depend completely on rain for crop and pasture production, we have no irrigation. Moreover with climate change, we'll be confronted with a dryer and hotter climate as we head towards the year 2050. In this part of the course, you will learn about herbicides and modern agriculture from Professor Stephen Powles and you'll also meet a very efficient local farmer. They will describe nodule cropping and its advantages for soil fertility and soil conservation. Part of the success story of modern cropping is advances in plant genetics, a topic that will be discussed by Professor Wallace Cowling. We need to keep developing our agricultural plants so that being given even more productive and be equipped to handle climate change. In week four, we turn to livestock industries. Now let me explain CGE. Consumers have traditionally assessed the quality of animal products in terms of flavor and safety but now they're asking about the origin of those products. This means that there are new market forces and we can describe these forces with three words: clean, green and ethical, hence CGE. Clean means less reliance on drugs and hormones, green means ecosystem care and ethical means animal welfare. These three concepts are the future of all of our animal industries. We can give these concepts a broader international perspective. Recently, we asked ourselves whether livestock can help to feed the world without destroying the planet. We addressed this question in the context of diverse social economic and geographical environments as well as the need to respond to the challenges of food security for 2050. The outcomes of our deliberations were published in Nature. We identified six major issues that need to be considered. The first is the nutrition health and welfare of the animals. Basically, animals are most efficient when they are well-fed, healthy and not stressed. The second issue is the choice of genotypes. It is absolutely critical that we choose genotypes types that are suited to the environment and that we avoid the temptation to introduce exotic genotypes into environments in which they will not thrive. The third issue is human nutrition. We have a situation in which perhaps a billion people have too little food and another billion are eating too much. We need to strive for all people to have a balanced diet. The fourth issue is the relevance of livestock to local culture. It is simply not sensible to advocate that livestock production should be abandoned because of problems such as methane emissions or landscape degradation when those livestock have been part of local culture for thousands and thousands of years. The fifth issue is the feeding of human food to livestock. Ruminant animals can digest grass that we cannot eat and produce meat and milk that we can eat. We should be taking advantage of this biological superpower rather than growing human food and feeding it to them. Finally, we cannot ignore the environmental footprint of livestock industries. For ruminants, the usual focus is their emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 to 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide. This final issue brings us back to the third enterprise in the UWA Future Farm project namely ecosystem and biodiversity, the topic for week five. In Australia, farmers are responsible for up to 60% of the landscape of the continent. This means that by default, they are responsible for the unique ecosystem and biodiversity that Australia is known for. Sadly we are losing our biodiversity rapidly. We need to change the conversations and rather than criticize farmers for this situation, help them to become part of the solution. For example in the Future Farm project, we are taking parts of the farm that are not productive for crops and pastures and restoring the native ecosystem. In this image, you can see the native grass trees in the background. Here in the soil prepared in front of us, we planted 12000 trees and we're looking at the impact of all this plantation on plant and animal diversity and on farm profit. There's been a lot of discussion about the idea of carbon farming in which farmers are paid for storing carbon that's been taken out of the atmosphere by areas such as this. In the future, this might become a new commercial enterprise as farmers are rewarded for this work. So if you're looking at the aerial photograph of the farm again, you can see how we are planning to use the landscape. Certain parts of the farm with the best soils and the best terrain are ideal for the production of wheat and canola. In the center of the farm, the landscape is more difficult for crops so it will be used primarily for sheep production. The green colored builds are areas where we aim to restore the native ecosystem. And this might become also carbon storage enterprises in the future. In the meantime however, it links the areas of bush on the farm to the large nature reserve providing corridors for animals. We are not doing this alone. In week five, you'll meet Doctor Anne Smith of the non-government organisation Greening Australia. She will tell you about Greening Australia; what they do, why they do it and their approach to managing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Finally in week six, we turn to the fourth enterprise, people. This movie shows the new house built for the farm manager. It was designed in the University's Faculty of architecture by Professor Patrick Beale. You will meet Professor Beale and he will outline his approach to rural buildings on farms and in towns and villages. As we fly over the house, I want you to notice the large rainwater tank on the right hand side, and then the two arrays of solar panels in the back. The small building behind the darker colored solar panel holds the batteries. The whole idea here was for the farm manager's house to be completely self-sufficient for water and electricity. To make this work, Professor Beale designed the house to be very energy efficient. It is a beautiful, modern and comfortable house in contrast to most farmhouses. However, it demonstrates what can be done if we aim to ensure that farmers and their families live comfortably and happily while they produce food for the world. Another major part of the people enterprise is to engage children in city schools with the world of farming and food production. In the modern world, city children have become divorced from the sources of their food, part of what we call the city-country divide. Our aim is to bring these children onto the farm so they can experience the way farmers live and work. In addition as part of their school curriculum, the children can be involved in some of our ecosystem restoration projects. You will also meet Doctor Susan Bailey. She will tell you about the exciting new field of ecosocial work. Basically, for thousands of years, farmers have worked away producing food for people like you and me and they have been very proud of their work. They've been proud of also being the foundation of civilization. Nowadays however, they're confronted with climate change, ecosystem damage, conservation and biodiversity and animal welfare. They suddenly find themselves being criticized instead of praised. This causes a lot of stress because they are poorly equipped to handle these challenges. And so ecosocial work introduces processes that allow them to understand the issues and regain control. So that is the UWA Future Farm 2050 project. However, before ending here, it is important to point out that this project is not limited to one farm in Western Australia. It is part of a network of Future Farms in several countries around the world. As you see on this map, we have partners in India, New Zealand and Uruguay as well as England, Canada, the USA and China. And network of Future Farms is continually expanding. Why is this important? First, if we are to meet the global challenge of 2050, it is essential that we consider the full range of environments in which we farm to produce food. The Future Farm network includes a wide variety of geographical and climatic zones and socio-economic systems. When the members of the network meet, it is really obvious that the questions we ask are global questions. For every environment the questions are basically the same. On the other hand, the solutions are local. It's important to understand this concept so I'm going to repeat it. The questions are global but the solutions are local. So that's the end of my introduction of the UWA Future Farm 2050 project. I've covered four enterprises: ecological cropping, clean, green, and ethical livestock, ecosystems and biodiversity, and people, happy farmers living in vibrant communities. We see all four enterprises as essential for feeding the world without destroying the planet. As you progress through this course, you'll be meeting people who work on each of these enterprises. They come from a variety of disciplines from agriculture to architecture that will tell you how they tackle the problems in this project and how they think as they explore alternatives for meeting the challenge of 2050.
