Abstract
Soil is the foundation for sustainable food production and environmental protection. Created by unsustainable land management practices and a range of social, economic and environmental drivers, soil degradation and pollution have been an ongoing threat to international food security and environmental quality. Soil degradation and pollution assessments are, however, often focused on the soil itself with little scope to devise new soil management approaches that match food production systems and/or environmental protection. This study draws lessons from an Australia-China Joint Research Center Program, Healthy Soils for Sustainable Food Production and Environmental Quality: a research platform that has brought together multi-disciplinary approaches from world-renowned universities and research organizations in Australia and China. To this end, a framework is presented for future soil management in a new way that combines excellence in research, industry and policymakers in a partnership that will ensure not only the right focus of the research but also that high-quality outputs will be transferable to industry and end-users.
Highlights
Soil is the foundation for sustainable agricultural development but it is a nonrenewable finite resource[1,2]
To tackle this task the Australia-China Joint Research Center (ACJRC) Program, Healthy Soils for Sustainable Food Production and Environmental Quality, had five deliverables underpinned by a core objective of delivering new research and innovative products that addressed the current and future challenges of food security and sustainable soil management
The new fertilizers and decision tools have been integrated into the Soil & Landscape Grid of Australia, the Global Soil Map and ASRIS, and Chinese farmers (Science and Technology Backyard network developed and managed by China Agricultural University (CAU), China)
Summary
Soil is the foundation for sustainable agricultural development but it is a nonrenewable finite resource[1,2]. China must produce more food for its growing population from finite land resources without further degrading soil and water resources, while Australia is experiencing increasing soil losses, soil degradation and growing evidence of yield gaps due in part to inefficiencies in nutrient and water use driven by poor management practices[10] To tackle this task the ACJRC Program, Healthy Soils for Sustainable Food Production and Environmental Quality, had five deliverables underpinned by a core objective of delivering new research and innovative products that addressed the current and future challenges of food security and sustainable soil management. This interactive network provided a long-term legacy of the ACJRC by taking a holistic view on healthy soils, in a new way that combines excellence in research, policymakers and industry in a partnership that will ensure the right focus of the research and that high-quality outputs will be transferable to industry and end-users (Fig. 2)
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