Research Project
Researchers: James Radford (Principal investigator, Principal or Chief Investigator) , Vanessa Adams (Principal investigator, Principal or Chief Investigator)
Full description Primary producers face increasing pressure from financial stakeholders, supply chains and consumers to demonstrate they farm sustainably to gain and maintain market access. A challenge is to identify management actions that can maintain or improve nature-positive outcomes without compromising farm production or profitability. Simultaneously, there are emerging opportunities for producers to diversify their income through nature markets. In collaboration with the CSIRO-led Ecological Knowledge Systems project, we will use stateand-transition models as a framework to integrate existing knowledge, expert elicitation and empirical data collection to test and validate the effectiveness of key interventions (reduced fertiliser application, strategic grazing) for improving biodiversity on ~10-15 farms in each of three geographic regions (Tasmanian Midlands, Western Victorian Volcanic Plains, Naracoorte Coastal Plain). The project will generate a stronger foundation for the sector to transition to a higher biodiversity future, inform opportunities to reduce input costs while maintaining productivity, and enable producers to leverage emerging nature markets, sustainability reporting and natural capital accounting.
