Ms Lipy Adhikari1, Mr. Peter de Voil1, Dr. Fernanda Dreccer2, Dr Daniel Rodriguez1
1University Of Queensland, Gatton, Australia, 2Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), St. Lucia, Australia
Biography:
Lipy Adhikari is a PhD scholar at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on co-design modelling exercises aimed at empowering farming communities through informed decisions. Prior to joining her PhD program, Lipy worked for 8 years at an international organization in Nepal, concentrating on topics such as mountain agriculture and value-chain development. Lipy’s contributions extend across various mediums including peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, popular articles, and vlogs. Her recent work includes the development of a framework for assessing farm diversification options in broadacre agriculture, published in Agriculture Systems.
Abstract:
In Northern Queensland (NQ), agriculture is dominated by large rangeland cattle-stations, vulnerable to increasing climate extremes and market volatility. Diversification is needed to manage risks, increase farmers’ profits, and deliver sustainability outcomes. However, farm managers lack relevant/actionable information on benefits/trade-offs of alternative options. Large-scale farmers often intensify/specialize to bring economies of scale. This can bring economic risks during global market or policy shifts in addition to ecological imbalances.
We aim to identify/quantify diversification scenarios for large-scale farmers in NQ and discuss benefits/trade-offs in a setting where farm managers are capital rich yet information poor.
A diversification framework, specific for large-scale farms, developed sets of co-designed production scenarios in a participatory modelling exercise using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) model. Two contrasting case-study farms were selected: a dryland cropping (DC) and a dryland rangeland (DR). Farmers’ interviews guided APSIM for producing quantitative information on proposed production systems. Benefits/trade-offs were quantified across profits, risks, environmental outputs, and skills.
For the DC farm, irrigating legumes and winter crops, in addition to the existing dryland cotton-maize rotation, increased gross margins by ~$1500ha-1year-1 and reduced downside risk by ~25%. Under irrigation, replacing summer-maize with double-cropped winter-maize in rotation with cotton tripled ground cover and reduced soil erosion losses by ~6 tha-1year-1. For the DR farm, the proposed dryland cotton-mungbean system increased downside risk by >60% than the existing forage system; while it reduced erosion by ~3 tha-1year-1.
We conclude that diversification doesn’t necessarily produce favourable outcomes. Participatory modelling exercises can help mitigate potential failures.