New Publication: Reframing the conversation on agricultural innovation in Australia
A new CSIRO paper explores opportunities for building on Australia’s success in agricultural innovation to meet the challenges of the 21st century
The goals and expectations of Australia’s agricultural sector are expanding. In addition to maintaining the sector’s international competitiveness, it must now also consider climate change, biodiversity loss, food-related human health, and the vitality of rural communities
Addressing these complex issues is not the sole responsibility of the agricultural sector. Nor are they challenges that are confined to Australia; rather they are global concerns that require a co-ordinated effort and potentially an economy-wide shift.
However, there is growing recognition across Australian industry, government and communities that a forward-looking discussion on Australian agricultural innovation crucial for developing effective responses and identifying new opportunities.
A newly published paper led by researchers from CSIRO’s Valuing Sustainability Future Science Platform (VS FSP) aims to serve as a starting point for this important conversation.
“There is a whole clutch of social and environmental issues we are facing which are related to agriculture,” says Dr Andy Hall, a science and technology policy analyst with the Navigating Transitions and Sustainability Science Scaffolding project team, and lead author on the paper.
“We’re not expecting agriculture to solve all the complex problems that are facing our economy, but we do need to think about how agriculture can play its role and be part of the solution. That’s going to require a community of people who are willing to discuss innovation in a different way.”
A strong foundation to build on
Australia’s agricultural innovation system has many strengths, and has evolved over the last century to support the changing needs of the sector.
Since 1989, much of the country’s agricultural innovation has been driven by Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs). Funded through industry contributions, typically via commodity levies, and with co-investment from Federal Government, RDCs signal farmers’ demand for agricultural technology to the research organisations and companies that develop and supply it.
Australia’s 15 RDCs have been instrumental in boosting productivity, maintaining internationally competitiveness, and supporting the on-going development of agricultural science and research capabilities. Dr Hall believes it’s worth highlighting the success of this uniquely Australian model.
“RDCs give farmers large and small access to the technology they need to prosper and succeed,” he says. “It’s an excellent way of marrying industry and public funds to create benefits for Australia and it’s arguably one of the most successful levy-based research systems in the world.”
As the goals of the Australian agricultural sector change, there is broad agreement that the innovation system may require adaptation or refinement to meet expanding goals, enhance efficiency and maintain relevance. Nevertheless, the strong foundation of work undertaken by RDCs provides a solid platform from which to explore fresh opportunities.
Reframing and refreshing innovation narratives
Many of the agricultural innovation strategies implemented across the world in the 20th century were designed to increase food production and spur economic growth – particular in the decades following World War II.
While those arrangements were often successful, they resulted in an overly simplistic narrative around innovation: that investment in R&D would lead to new technologies, which in turn would solve the major challenge of the time: increased productivity.
In reality, innovation systems have always been far more complex than this narrative suggests. They involve multiple stakeholders, diverse forms of knowledge and expertise, varied sources of investment, a range of policy instruments, and numerous methods of evaluation.
As the challenges facing agriculture have become fundamentally different and more multi-faceted, this simple narrative focused on meeting economic goals via market-driven solutions has grown less relevant.
While technology remains an important part of the innovation agenda, addressing environmental and social concerns will require a more holistic approach that encompasses governance, regulation and policy frameworks, and mechanisms for cross-sector collaboration.
“We need to find a way to refresh the old R&D-centric innovation narrative,” says Dr Hall. “That means bringing together an interested community of people to start talking about a more diverse repertoire of ways to organise and support innovation. We’ve started to do that, and hopefully this paper will provide some shared understanding of the issues, but we would still like to broaden the group of stakeholders and see new people getting involved.”
“We know there’s a lot of innovation taking place in Australia that flies under the radar,” Dr Hall continues. “We know there are people within agriculture who are working to deal with the linked agendas of sustainability, social inclusion and economic growth – so we are very keen to hear more about that and see what there is for us to learn from and build on.”
Future work
The need to disrupt and reform approaches to innovation in Australian agriculture is becoming increasingly urgent, because the challenges facing the sector are not in the future – they are already here.
“Climate change is already hitting us hard,” says Dr Hall. “That’s very obvious; every time you speak with farmers and industry representatives, they’ll tell you how it’s affecting them. The other side of the climate change coin is emissions reduction. Then you start to consider biodiversity loss; the lack of jobs for young people in rural communities; access to food; opportunities for First Nations people to engage in economic opportunities associated with agriculture. None of these have been included in the metrics for how we’ve thought about agriculture in the past, but they need to be.”
As work continues towards a refreshed agricultural innovation policy, tailored to Australia’s unique context, CSIRO’s VS FSP has a key role to play as facilitators of the conversations and debates that will be required to create meaningful change.
Author – Ruth Dawkins