Reversing land degradation and making it productive once more

[Gil Hardwick]

Australia in general and Western Australia in particular has only very marginal land capable of being set aside for farming and food production. Global Warming aside, the sheer pressure of population and the need for basic food security places a great deal of stress on this type of environment.

But Australia is by no means unique. Many places in the world suffer from a shortage of arable land in very marginal landscapes. The reason for this group, then, is centrally concerned with securing food and basic resource security through sound and sustainable land management practice.

Discussion might well include the best means of securing land tenure for farming and agriculture against competing interests such as residential and industrial development, for example, and in particular in the freehold entitlement of experienced farmers as against undifferentiated state control.

How do we secure viable farming communities, and underwrite them against gross market fluctuations on the one hand, and seasonal variability on the other?

How do we ensure that food and resource production goes directly to supporting education and civil governance first, and is not frittered away on conflict and political pork-barreling to suit some career aspiration or other?

Finally, how do we ensure that there is a sufficient return on the investment in farming infrastructure for re-investing back into the land itself, to allow sections to lie fallow and recover, for soil conditioning and rejuvenation, livestock husbandry and plant seed breeding, and here again in good land management practice?

I would argue that aside from education, this is the single most rewarding of human activity on this planet. It is certainly the single most important.

Gil