Evidence-based agriculture: who decides which evidence to trust?

We’re all biased – now we need to admit it

June 14, 2017 by Rebecca Nesbit

This week is Cereals – a huge arable farming event. Sadly I’m watching from the sidelines of Twitter, but at least things have quickly got interesting.

Our President tells #Cereals17 that we will continue to make the strongest case for regulation based on robust scientific evidence. pic.twitter.com/1F2HrFY34d

— NationalFarmersUnion (@NFUtweets) June 14, 2017

I couldn’t agree more, but the issue is that scientific evidence is complex and not clear cut. Most groups asking for decisions to be made on science have a clear idea about how the evidence should be interpreted. Everyone wants regulation to be based on ‘robust scientific evidence as interpreted by me’.

Take the neonic pesticide debate. The NFU has expressed concern over the ban, including some very sensible points about the need for more evidence. Yet Friends of the Earth point to many scientific studies in their call to uphold the ban.

The different starting points when interpreting scientific evidence are even clear at scientific institutions. Scientists at Rothamsted Research question the ban by arguing for ‘independent, unbiased research’. Even the language used reveals their position – by saying ‘alleged harmful impact on bees’ they are not defining the evidence of harm as being anything more than an allegation.

Their collaborators at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology take an approach which is far more focussed on bees rather than farmers (they did a really interesting study on this).

When the scientific evidence is sketchy (as it so often is) we bring our biases into how we interpret it. Just because someone is calling for people to use scientific evidence, it doesn’t mean that we should trust their assessment of it.

The Game and Wildlife Conservancy Trust, an organisation which strongly advocates scientific evidence, this week welcomed the appointment of Michael Gove as environment secretary at Defra. Given that history of interpretation of evidence included supporting the badger cull, I was not alone in having the opposite opinion. read on……….

For those of you on LinkedIn you can read the comments in Sustainable agriculture group:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1691777/1691777-6281495634340118533?midToken=AQHsQEl3FINM1w&trk=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion~subject&trkEmail=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion~subject-null-9q8in~j47tfrse~da-null-communities~group~discussion&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aemail_b2_anet_digest_of_digests%3BuZHU6kjzRoihVeMOn2FU8A%3D%3D

Comment: Please look behind the science:

Well conducted research?

Done and funded by independent bodies?

Researchers have good reputations?

Previous work done?

Repeatable results?

Open mind essential!

Forget your bias for a moment!!!!

Better collaboration, communication the key to Australia’s agricultural science future

t posted Tuesday at 10:32

Jeremy Burdon says the Decadal Plan is “the scientists’ plan” for the next 10 years.

(ABC Rural: Anna Vidot)

Australia’s agricultural science sector needs to get better at collaboration and communication, if it is going to help farmers meet the big challenges of the next decade and beyond.

That message is at the heart of the Australian Academy of Science’s strategic plan for the next decade of agricultural science, unveiled at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday.

Dr Jeremy Burdon, chairman of the academy’s agriculture, fisheries and food committee said Australian universities, governments and industry-specific research organisations had often worked in competition with each other, rather than together.

“Australian science is undoubtedly world class, we lead the world in many areas, but we tend to dilute our effort because we split it between many states and the Commonwealth, a very large number of universities,” he said.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-06-20/academy-science-releases-10-year-plan-for-agriculture-research/8632068

Nature Index 2017 China

SUPPLEMENT

See all supplements

Nature Index 2017 China

Vol. 545 No. 7655_supp ppS37-76

• IN THIS SUPPLEMENT

  • Nature Index 2017 China
  • Nature Index 2017 China tables
  • Institutional profiles (Advertisement features)
  • Visit natureindex.com
• China continues to increase its global share of research papers, but publication numbers are just one indicator that a country’s science is thriving. Nature Index 2017 China looks beyond the country’s impressive performance in key metrics and examines how it holds up in other factors that contribute to a functioning research ecosystem, such as collaboration, willingness to make data and research open, science communication and sound science policy.

  Free full access

  Cover Art: Mark Leong

http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/nature-index-2017-china/index.html

Call for New Zealand nominations for agribusiness awards

Tuesday, 20 June 2017, 10:09 am
Press Release: Rabobank

Call for New Zealand nominations for 2017 agribusiness leadership awards

Nominations are being sought for the 2017 Rabobank Leadership Awards, recognising outstanding leadership among both accomplished and up-and-coming leaders in New Zealand and Australia’s food, beverage and agribusiness industries.

The two peer-nominated annual awards – the Rabobank Leadership Award and the Rabobank Emerging Leader Award – are among the industry’s most highly-regarded accolades, acknowledging the critical contribution of good leadership to the success of the food and agribusiness sector.

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1706/S00568/call-for-new-zealand-nominations-for-agribusiness-awards.htm&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTA2MjE5MDA3NzMwNDI3NDA5MDcyHTdlYjljMmI0YWM0MDFiNGE6Y29tLmF1OmVuOkFV&usg=AFQjCNFeo3kmgURlsW7jtbe4PQuWDnmeaQ

 

 

Agriculture – Can we get over the polarizing discussions of the past?

Can we get over the polarizing discussions of the past?

“Will agriculture become more ecological or more efficient?” – Can we get over the polarizing discussions of the past, and just ask in how far and why more ecological is more efficient? “Will it define its markets globally or locally?” – Why not discussing the interplay between both, and the often observable occurrence of nested markets, and – most importantly – of the diverse marketing strategies of many farmers? Can we get over simplification? “Where must the state intervene?” – Good question! How can we for example foster the societal benefits of healthy food and a healthy diet? “Will we need to raise the price of food in the first world to increase its value?” – Again, why not differentiating a bit more and connecting the question more directly with the previous one about societal benefit and – just an example 😉 – SDGs.

https://www.worldfoodconvention.com/

Karlheinz Knickel

Visit the Sustainable Agriculture discussion:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1691777/1691777-6281055698373746689?midToken=AQHsQEl3FINM1w&trk=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion~subject&trkEmail=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion~subject-null-9q8in~j43imoyh~42-null-communities~group~discussion&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aemail_b2_anet_digest_of_digests%3BMN%2FGHftlQmyHUqgH5ZoklQ%3D%3D

Writing the WA wheatbelt, a place of radical environmental change May 18, 2017 6.16am AEST

A message ploughed in the land calls on the federal government to help drought-affected farmers near the wheatbelt town of Kondinin in 2001. Liza Kappelle/AAP

Author

1. Tony Hughes-D’Aeth

   Associate Professor, English and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia

Disclosure statement

Tony Hughes-D’Aeth received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant to research the literary history of the wheatbelt.

Partners

University of Western Australia provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

What can creative literature tell us about radical environmental change? Most people accept that literature can be closely connected to places. Whether it is Dickens’s London or Hardy’s Wessex, we also accept that imaginative works deliver something about the nature of place that does not necessarily come to us by any other means

Precision Farming – One View!

In the past decade we in agriculture have become obsessed with precision. When you pause to think about it here we are putting our best minds and significant resources into trying to be perfect in every aspect of our operational lives while we work hand in hand with an entity that is perfectly imprecise. IS THE TERM “PRECISION FARMING” AN OXYMORON?

Nature has a precision rhythm all her own. Natures definition of precision is survival of the species. That means that nothing is precise at least measured by human understanding and in human terms.

What has precision farming done for farmers? Higher earnings perhaps – but does that mean higher profit? Higher stress level for sure. Stress levels on the farm mirror stress levels in the medical profession. More efficient I suppose you could say. Many more acres farmed per man. Is that a good thing? What has precision farming done for rural communities? Made them smaller. Some have become so small they died and some are dying but have not started to smell yet. It has created jobs but what is the point of a job created if it didn’t need to exist in the first place. Something like government paper pushers. Get rid of 1/2 the redundant regs and you dont need the paper pusher.

What if we stepped back and mirrored natures definition of precision? I have followed natures lead few times now with some enhancements that nature doesn’t have access to and I am convinced that we need to adjust our definition of precision if we are going to ensure the survival of the average every day farmer, improve soil health, air and water quality all at the same time. Maybe we dont need to farm so many acres per man to make a living and maybe we dont need to pay for all this precise technology.

What is the connection between economic survival and the environment you might ask? For one thing our human equipment that is required to deliver our definition of precision is expensive. You need a lot of acres to justify the expense. It is not just the capital cost but the cost of upgrading, service, downtime and at times sketchy training and support – often not deliberate but a result of the marriage of two or more products that do not play nice together. The question becomes – who is responsible and the ensuing dialogue often reminds me of the 3 Stooges “Who’s on First.” When the clock is ticking and the calendar marching you have to know the stress level is ratcheting up there like a surgeon who has just nicked an artery.

The environment suffers because of precision. How? To keep operations simple we start to eliminate equipment and along with that plant species. There is a big shift to planters for corn and soybeans eliminating drills which takes the profit out of small grain cereals. We take out the species that best protects soil from the elements and grow row crops. Crops grown in rows are very hard on the soil. Planters need more tillage to function efficiently. The soil is exposed to wind, rain and sunlight for longer periods of time. We try all sorts of methods to protect the soil when the simple solution is simply stop growing crops in rows! We only grow crops in rows because we designed our equipment around the width of horses and oxen. Apart from the Amish when is the last time you have seen a farmer using a horse as his means of power?

Maybe I am wrong… Thing is I don’t believe I am and if you want to try and prove me wrong please take your best shot. At the very least think about it and put precision to the test.

Those little yellow specs in the picture. That is corn. Last year we matched the yield of a conventional planter with 9,000 fewer plants per acre.

Best regards and better living.

Jim

---

Written by

+ Follow

Jim Boak

Sales Support Salford Group Inc.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-your-definition-precision-jim-boak

Mycologist Develops Fungi Bricks That Grow Stronger Than Concrete

 

By Eden Marie Truth Theory

This mycologists figured out how to make bricks made from growing fungi that are super-strong and water-, mold- and fire resistant.

To most people, mushrooms are a food source. To mycologist (mushroom scientist) Philip Ross,  fungi are much, much more. In fact, Ross is most passionate about mushrooms’ ability to be used for building materials and it is this is what he primarily focuses his attention on. Recently, the mycologists figured out how to make bricks from growing fungi that are super-strong and water-, mold- and fire resistant.

Inhabitat reports that the 100% organic and compostable material is made from dried mycelium and then is grown and formed into just about any shape. It has a remarkable consistency that makes it stronger – pound for pound – than concrete. He recently patented his own version of the mycotecture procedure.

During an interview with Glasstire, Ross explained:

“It has the potential to be a substitute for many petroleum-based plastics. It’s left the art world and seems to have entered a Science Fiction novel or something like that. With this stuff it’s possible to go into regional production of biomaterials. For instance, here in San Francisco, we could start producing lots of local materials using this fungus and could create a pilot project of sorts

https://truththeory-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/truththeory.com/2017/05/19/mycologist-develops-fungi-bricks-grow-stronger-concrete/amp/

2017 QLD – National Symposium on Beneficial Use of Recycled Organics in Degraded and Marginal Landscapes

                                                                      

Back To Portal Close

 Book Event

2017 QLD – National Symposium on Beneficial Use of Recycled Organics in Degraded and Marginal Landscapes

National Symposium – Beneficial Use of Recycled Organics in  Degraded and Marginal Landscapes

LIMITED SPACES LEFT

Please submit your abstracts to Dr Maryam Esfandbod via m.esfandbod@griffith.edu.au with the subject line “NSRO”

15/06/2017 08:30 – 15/06/2017 16:30

Venue: Eco Centre, Nathan Campus, Griffith University

https://soilscienceaustralia.memnet.com.au/MemberSelfService/EventBooking.aspx?selectedEventId=72

Australia kickstarts green future with printed solar panel sites

Printed solar panels are rewriting the future of Australia’s energy

Printed solar panels have been developed by Professor Paul Dastoor from The University of Newcastle

 

TAYLOR DENNY

The Australian

10:52AM May 24, 2017

 

Paul Dastoor looks at the buildings, houses and cities around him and sees lost opportunities.

He imagines a future where the majority of roofs are covered in printed solar panels less than one millimetre thick.

“Our vision is that we want to see every building, every structure’s power generated [by] solar cells.”

The University of Newcastle professor has made this vision a reality, creating the first printed solar site in Australia

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/australia-kickstarts-green-future-with-printed-solar-panel-sites/news-story/1c6d24ad91d45eb0c67b253852e3172a