Australian agriculture faces many challenges and to ensure it has a sustainable future, some lateral thinking may be required, US entomologist Rick Roush told the GRDC supported 13th Australian Society of Agronomy Conference in Perth.

He said an overview of conference papers reflected many of these challenges, including chemical resistance, invasive pests, disease, salinity, higher energy and fertiliser costs, climate change, soil acidity and water access.

Professor Roush said social equity and the environment were other issues facing agriculture, as was a declining political and public appreciation for agriculture.

He said that in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions some environmentally conscious consumers, sometimes referred to as “foodies”, were deciding what food to eat depending on how many “food miles” it had travelled.

Professor Roush said Australian agriculture needed to consider novel production to improve its terms of trade and, as an example, suggested harvesting kangaroos particularly for the Asian, rather than European markets.

“We need to stand back and look at where we are going,” he said.

“You really need to think about things you have not thought about before. Imagination can be more important than knowledge.”

Professor Roush said Australian growers applied six million tonnes of fertiliser on their paddocks each year at a cost of $2 billion, and while it increased yields, so too did genetics.

“Yield is a function of environmental conditions, such as soil nutrition and genetics. Both crop environment and genetics are important, but improving genetics is cheaper than fixing the environment,” he said.

“Nitrogen fixing in non-legumes is the holy grail for genetic improvement, getting plants to make their own nitrogen on demand and reducing run-off.”

He said scientists had talked about selecting crops based on their resistance to frost and drought for 20 years, but new genetic methods were now being seen as an answer.

Professor Roush said crop pests and disease were a big concern and a bigger concern still, was that Australia only made up two per cent of the world herbicide market.

“Can you imagine and plan for a cropping system where there are no efficient herbicides for weeds?

“The world is not going to rescue Australia for two per cent of the herbicide market.”

Professor Roush provided an example where in Hawaii a virus was destroying the papaya crop in the 1990s and it was only development of a disease resistant transgenic crop that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry.

“Can Australia afford to wait any longer for genetically modified organisms?” he asked.

GRDC Western Panel member and Kojonup grower Neil Young, who attended the agronomy conference, acknowledged the challenges outlined by Professor Roush.

Mr Young said the GRDC invested more than $20 million a year in WA and of that, $12 million was allocated to agronomic research.

“GRDC invests in many areas Professor Roush talked about, such as genetic and molecular research to make crops more drought, disease and pest resistant,” he said.

He said GRDC supported research also showed how to minimise the impact of frost and how perennials such as lucerne could be used with cereal crops to hold back rising water tables.

“The importance the GRDC places on agronomic research is reflected in our support of numerous research projects outlined at the conference and by the fact we were also one of the conference’s major sponsors,” Mr Young said.