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November 26, 2008
Long term strategies for adapting
to climate change will result from a collaborative project
between researchers at the
Institute of Agriculture (IOA), The University of Western
Australia (UWA) and Lanzhou
University (LU) in west China.
Professor Kadambot Siddique, IOA’s Director, said the Institute
was invited by LU to become a partner in a ‘111 Project’ on
sustainable development of agricultural systems in dry and cold
ecosystems of the Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, west China.
“The project’s overall objective is capacity building, by
training researchers and postgraduate students in characterising
dry and cold ecosystems and improving crop and pasture
production technologies, land management and animal husbandry
practices.
“Long term it offers us strategies to deal with climate change
in Australia. Loess Plateau was once desert, but increased
demand for food led to its successful transition to arable,
productive land.
“Water shortage has increased environmental risks such as wind
erosion and dust storms, with large scale airborne dust storms
of past decades mostly arising from newly cultivated soils in
arid and semi-arid regions of China,” Professor Siddique said.
The project would assess how such soil attributes as soil
organic carbon and soil aggregation changed when uncultivated
soil became arable and it would determine what practices promote
long-term sustainability of agricultural use of these soils and
improved water harvesting and water use efficiency.
Another important aspect of the collaboration would be assessing
the impact of rural to urban migration on farming systems and
farm livelihoods.
Li Lihua, LU researcher from College of Pastoral Agriculture
Science and Technology, has interviewed 180 farming families in
Gansu Province on their production systems, social and cultural
structures and farm economic systems.
“City salaries are a critical source of income and well-being
for farming families and this has important implications for
farm labour, as much on-farm work is left to the elderly,” Ms
Lihua said.
While at the IOA, Ms Lihua is learning advanced socio-economic
analysis techniques, supervised by UWA’s Professor Mathew Tonts.
Professor Feng Min Li, Director of the National Key Laboratory
of Arid and Grassland Ecology, LU, leads the $1.9 million, five
year collaborative project, which involves 13 other
institutions, including the USA’s Yale University and Salk
Institute and Canada Agriculture and Food.
LU, with its overseas partners, successfully applied for a grant
from the Chinese Ministry of Education for a ‘111 Project’,
so-named because it was launched on September 11, 2006, with the
aim of inviting 1000 top academics from the world’s top 100
universities to establish 1000 innovative research centres in
China.
Established in 1909, two years earlier than UWA, LU has 27,000
enrolled students and is recognised as one of China’s leading
universities.
In 2007 Professor Zhou Xhoung, President of LU and Professor
Alan Robson, Vice Chancellor of UWA, signed a Memorandum of
Understanding and met in Beijing in June this year to discuss
progress on collaboration between the two universities.
While visiting LU in 2007, UWA’s Professor Siddique, Professor
Neil Turner (Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture)
and Dr Guijun Yan, (Senior Lecturer and Deputy Leader of the
IOA’s Plant Production Systems Program), delivered eight
seminars to more than 300 staff, postgraduates and
undergraduates.
Several UWA and LU academics have since exchanged visits.
Two LU lecturers, Dr Xiangwen Fang and Dr Yu Jia, plus Professor
Wang Yong of Dryland Agricultural Institute, Gansu Academy of
Agricultural Sciences, are now at UWA for specific research
projects.
Dr Fang, funded by an Endeavour Fellowship and the ‘111 Project’
is studying chickpea reproductive physiology under drought,
supervised by Professors Siddique and Turner, Dr Yan and Dr
Jairo Palta, CSIRO.
Dr Jia, funded by a Crawford International Award and the ‘111
Project’, is investigating soil chemistry and biology under
no-tillage systems, supervised by Dr Daniel Murphy, UWA and
Professor Siddique.
Professor Yong, funded by Gansu Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, is assessing how water stress affects grain filling in
barley and especially the contribution of awns, supervised by
Drs Palta and Yan and Professors Siddique and Turner.
Professor Siddique said UWA valued the opportunity for the IOA
to interact with Professor Li and his colleagues and learn more
about agricultural constraints in west China and, potentially,
climate change.
“The exchange will identify postgraduates to enrol at UWA or LU,
continue delivering lectures and seminars at LU and encourage
staff visits and sabbaticals between the universities, all with
the aim of building capacity, developing large joint projects,
publishing scientific papers and improving agricultural
productivity and sustainability in both countries,” Professor
Siddique said. |
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