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Quantum physics says no to GM
If we have learned anything from the Green Revolution, it is that the next successful modernization in agriculture will be through eco-technology, where farming works with, not against, nature. Nature confronts us with complex systems, with intricate food webs, and with a myriad of dynamic visible and invisible interdependencies.
Complex Systems Science in food production
Published in: CSIRO Sustainability Network Update
No.15: 10-13, June 2002, ed. E. Heij
The following essay on the future of agricultural research is provided by CSIRO’s Dr Maarten Stapper. Maarten’s training in Holland gave him an early understanding of the need for a more inclusive type of agricultural science to underpin food production – a holistic science based on linking the physics, chemistry and biology of natural systems from the complex food web of the soil, through crops and livestock, to human and environmental health.
Soils part of Ecosystems
Agricultural systems have become addicted to the soluble acidic-based NPK fertilisers and this addiction, supported with the then required pesticides and herbicides, leads to soil degradation: loss of structure, compaction, poor infiltration, wind and water erosion, acidity and salinity. Production needs to be maintained with more inputs, thus keeping producers on the ‘production treadmill’ with “more’on” farming.
Managing improvement of degraded soils
Agricultural systems have become addicted to the soluble acidic-based NPK fertilisers and this addiction, supported with the then required pesticides and herbicides, leads to soil degradation: loss of structure, compaction, poor infiltration, wind and water erosion, acidity and salinity. Production needs to be maintained with more inputs, thus keeping producers on the ‘production treadmill’ with “more’on” farming.
Eight Tonne Wheat Club rule challenge
The Eight Tonne Club was started in 2002 and a feature about management factors has since been published in Primefact 197 (2006, Lacy and Giblin ) of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries . Many of the factors for achieving eight tones per hectare were obtained from Maarten Stapper’s SIRAGCROP studies of the eighties and his recent ‘High-yielding irrigated wheat crop management’. (read more . . )
Change Ag Science focus
Maarten Stapper was interviewed in a private capacity for a Channel 9 story about salinity to help dismantle the doctrine that rising watertables are the sole cause of dryland salinity.
Complex Systems Science in food production
In: CSIRO Sustainability Network Update – No.15: p.10-13, June 2002, ed. Elizabeth Heij http://www.bml.csiro.au/susnetnl/netwl11E.pdf
The following essay on the future of agricultural research is provided by CSIRO's Dr Maarten Stapper. Maarten's training in Holland gave him an early understanding of the need for a more inclusive type of agricultural science to underpin food production – a holistic science based on linking the physics, chemistry and biology of natural systems from the complex food web of the soil, through crops and livestock, to human and environmental health.