[MUSIC PLAYING] A range of government programs around the world support farmers to undertake environmental projects on farms, whether they be to reduce the negative effects of agriculture on the environment or to enhance the positive effects of agricultural on the environment. The environmental issues addressed in these government programs vary quite a lot from country to country depending on their histories, their cultures, different climates, farming systems and so on. According to the OECD, the common priority areas for agri-environmental programmes, efforts to improve water quality, soil protection and soil quality, water quantity and water availability, air quality, and biodiversity. So I'm going to talk a little bit more deeply about a few of those starting with water quality. There are a variety of different agricultural practices that are promoted in these schemes to try and improve water quality. These include reduced agrichemical use, establishment of vegetation buffers to stop the movement of water into streams, the growth of trees to lower water tables-- that's a common example in Australia for management or reduction of salinity-- reduced tillage to reduce soil erosion, improved management of irrigation water, capture of tailwater from irrigation farms to stop it from running into streams. Then there are a variety of projects focused on reduction of soil erosion. So agricultural practices that get promoted for this include reduced tillage. Tillage reduction has become a major success story of environmental improvements in agriculture around the world. Particularly in developed countries there's been an enormous growth in the number of farmers who greatly reduced the amount of plowing they do when they plant their crops. Then there's retention of crop residues. Crop residues can be kept on the surface of the soil or plowed into the soil, and it makes them more stable and less likely to erode. Reduction in grazing pressure to increase soil cover-- if there's lots of livestock grazing on the soil, it tends to loosen the surface, and it will tend to run off, erode away. Repairing existing erosion gullies and controlling run off so that it's less likely to cause water erosion. Next I'm going to talk a little bit about vegetation and the provision of habitat for biodiversity. This has been a really common theme within Australian agri-environmental programs. So the practices promoted include establishment of native vegetation either in blocks or in belts with crops and pastures grown in between the belts, fencing of native vegetation to prevent grazing by livestock so that the native vegetation can get established and grow and be healthy and provide good habitat, protecting breeding areas and wild food sources for wild animals and birds and so on, increasing the variety of crop species or the different crop varieties of the same species, and reducing use of toxic chemicals in those cases where they're known to be damaging to wildlife. So many farmers around the world are engaged in these types of environmental projects. For example, in Australia we've recently completed a program called Caring for our Country, and one of its targets was to assist at least 3o% of farmers to increase their uptake of sustainable farm and land management practices that deliver improved ecosystem services. So this indicates that there was an intention to really engage with a large proportion of the population of farmers who are out there. Of course, a number of major challenges remain particularly around biodiversity and water quality and particularly in rapidly developing countries like China. So in China in particular there's been very rapid growth in agriculture. This graph shows the increasing grain production over time as agriculture has developed in China over the last couple of decades, the last several decades. And this is a similar graph showing livestock numbers also rapidly increasing and livestock excreta being a significant cause of nutrients that can end up in waterways. And so there are in China quite a few water bodies that are really seriously affected by eutrophication and algal blooms. So it's a problem they're going to have to address in a really serious way. So in summary agri-environmental programs pursue quite a range of different environmental benefits and environmental outcomes. And the local priorities vary from country to country. There's quite a wide variety of different farming practices that are promoted in these programs. They vary depending on the different environmental issue and depending on the country. And we've identified that a significant number of challenges remain. [MUSIC PLAYING]
