Peter Ampt

The challenges to urban agriculture in the Sydney basin and lower Blue Mountains region of Australia

The western edge of the Sydney basin in Australia has been one of the major sources of fruit and vegetables for the Sydney markets. A rapid expansion of urban development in this region has caused a significant reduction in the number of small farms and market gardens. Urban and peri-urban agriculture in the region also provides an important buffer between urban development and the neighbouring Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The decline in urban agriculture can be attributed to various causes including urban expansion and economies of scale. This paper presents an overview of a four-year project that explored options for supporting these vulnerable farming communities both in terms of the regulatory factors and economic and environmental sustainability. The role of agri-industries as landscape buffers to the neighbouring World Heritage Area was investigated in relation to resilience, communities of practice, and ecosystem services. The study developed tools, in conjunction with targeted representative landholders, that can assist in enhancing the economic and environmental resilience of these agri-industries. These tools included an integrated bio-system approach to waste using organic waste conversion, and the use of landscape function analysis to monitor across farms to help address erosion, loss of nutrients and inefficient water management.

Building connections between kangaroos, commerce and conservation in the rangelands

The role of landholders in kangaroo harvesting is an issue that has been revisited often over time as circumstances continue to change within the kangaroo industry, within rural communities and wit...

Sharing Skippy: how can landholders be involved in kangaroo production in Australia?

For 2 decades, calls for Australian rangeland landholders to expand their reliance on the abundant species of native kangaroos and decrease their reliance on introduced stock have been made. These calls have received recent impetus from the challenge of climate change. Arguments for landholder involvement in kangaroo production include reduced greenhouse gas emissions, better management of total grazing pressure, reduced land degradation, improved vegetation and biodiversity outcomes, and greater valuation of kangaroos by landholders. However, there is little understanding of how landholders could be involved in kangaroo harvest and production, and there is a widespread misconception that this would include domestication, fencing, mustering and trucking. This paper reviews the options for landholder involvement in managing and harvesting wild kangaroos, and assesses the possible benefits and feasibility of such options. We conclude that collaboration among landholders, as well as between landholders and harvesters, forms the basis of any preferred option, and set out a proposed operating model based on the formation of a kangaroo management, processing and marketing co-operative.

Kangaroos in the rangelands: opportunities for landholder collaboration

For 3 years, the Future of Australia’s Threatened Ecosystems (FATE) Program has been working towards achieving multiple benefits for rangelands by applying conservation through sustainable use (CSU) approaches to the kangaroo industry. A critical component of this work is landholder involvement in kangaroo management that results in commercial gain. We are developing strategies for landholders to add value to the harvest at the same time as achieving better control over the impact that kangaroos can have on their land. This paper outlines FATE’s experiences with two related initiatives exploring landholder involvement in kangaroo harvest in the rangelands. First, a trial in the Barrier Ranges of north-western New South Wales demonstrates the potential benefits of collaboration for landholders in reducing their exposure to kangaroo harvest variability and the associated business risks. Second, an analysis of the various enterprise models which landholders could employ to enter the kangaroo industry identifies opportunities for landholders and kangaroo harvesters to collaborate for mutual benefit. Several challenges exist in bringing these potential benefits to fruition. The paper includes: (1) analysis of harvest data across collaborating properties; (2) progress towards allocation of harvest tags on a group rather than an individual property basis; (3) results of discussions between key stakeholders; and (4) a description of models for landholder involvement and analysis of the extent to which they can achieve multiple benefits.

The adoption of short-rotation energy cropping as a new land use option in the New South Wales Central West.

Abstract Energy cropping based around woody native plants has attracted attention as a future land use option for rural Australia, with mallee eucalypts a particular focus. Potential benefits could include income for landholders, climate change mitigation and adaptation, enhanced energy security and revegetation of degraded or vulnerable land. However, the success or otherwise of this prospective industry ultimately depends on its adoption by rural landholders. Due to the unique position of woody energy cropping at the intersection of the agriculture, plantation forestry and energy sectors, its adoption is influenced by issues arising within each of these sectors, as well as by those emerging within this overlap zone. This paper explores landholder adoption issues relating to the production of blue mallee (Eucalyptuspolybractea) for bioenergy around Condobolin in the NSW Central West. Critical factors identified for landholder adoption at Condobolin include the size and consistency of returns from energy cropping, impacts on land use flexibility and past experiences with climate variability, regulatory change and government support mechanisms.

Exploring Agroecological Sustainability: Unearthing Innovators and Documenting a Community of Practice in Southeast Australia

ABSTRACT In this article we describe a movement to regenerate and sustainably use native grasslands using innovative grazing and cropping strategies. We find that this movement has the essential characteristics of a “community of practice” (COP) and is a strong example of a bottom-up transition toward a sustainable agroecological farming system. This COP was identified and described using participatory rural appraisals followed by biophysical and sociocultural studies with active COP members. Using these multiple mixed-method approaches helped characterize the COP’s many layers, revealing how and why it is driven and fashioned by innovators who collaborate via joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire. Holistic Management, Grazing for Profit, and Stipa Native Grasses Association were the key enabling programs/associations for the COP, which, like other agroecological movements, exists on the margins of conventional agri-innovation systems and endures with little public acknowledgment or support. It is a potent grass-roots example of adaptive farm management that generates optimism in the farming families involved, and challenges existing research and extension paradigms regarding both innovation and practice change.