What is the most intelligent form of support the Government can provide to ensure the long term sustainability of rural and regional communities, including the fostering of the next generation of Australian farmers? Cleaning up our soil.

Healthy soil is the key to the future of rural Australia. It is essential for the following reasons:

• Capture and storage of water,
  
• Efficient conversion of stored soil water and nutrients into valuable agricultural commodities,
  
• Storage of carbon,
  
• Erosion control.

Unfortunately, the current approach to rural soil management across Australia is extremely ad hoc.

There is unnecessary duplication between federal, state and regional agencies. Taxpayer dollars often are wasted. Many landholders miss out on urgently needed advice. In NSW, for example, the provision of soil management expertise is dealt with in an uncoordinated and highly inefficient manner by DPI, DECC, CMAs, universities and private providers. Rural adjustment funding (eg. Farmbiz) has been wasted on dubious training providers from overseas.

CSIRO Land & Water has provided excellent national leadership with their ASRIS system for regional soil mapping. However, CSIRO – and other federal agencies – have not given clear and inspiring directions for the assessment and management of soil on farms.

The federal government needs to correct these deficiencies by urgently pursuing the following objectives:

• Define the required soil assessment and management competencies of 3 main target groups: farmers, “general practitioner (GP)” advisers, and soil management specialists.
  
• Establish training and assessment procedures – via NTIS, industry training providers and universities – for these 3 groups.
  
• Establish a national “soil knowledge bank” that includes a comprehensive collection of case studies. This initiative needs to be compatible with world’s-best information delivery systems, and must be linked with procedures for the setting of R&D priorities.
  
• Engage an independent non-government body – for example, Australian Society of Soil Science Inc. (ASSSI) – to supervise these processes.
  
• Provide funding to landholders – possibly via a ‘food consumption / Landcare’ tax – to encourage the development of whole-farm soil management plans with a high quality. Get everyone beyond the zero-to-ten centimetre soil-depth mentality – think instead about integrated management of soil physical, chemical and biological processes throughout the root zone and beyond.

If we could follow through on such an initiative the results could have widespread benefits, such as:

• Improved competencies amongst farmers and service providers in rural Australia. If climate change leads to mass movements of farmers to new locations, their accredited training in soil and landscape management would reduce the pain of re-adjustment.
  
• Accredited farmers, GPs and specialists could form teams to provide desperately-needed soil management advice to other parts of the world, eg. Africa, Southeast Asia.
  
• The training and accreditation packages for the 3 target groups could be taught overseas via the Internet and earn valuable export dollars for Australia.

The Rudd Government must take the lead with the development and maintenance of an effective human resource network for ‘Healthy Soil Management’ across rural Australia. A logical starting point would be a meeting between the Federal Minister for Primary Industries and the ASSSI President.

But we must be wary of city-based “armchair experts” and recently arrived opportunists. The Government needs to talk with genuine soil experts who understand farmers, and who have personal experience with soil assessment and management in the field.