Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence. How will science address the challenges of the future? Written by luminaries and accompanied click the following article two science and commentaries technology ensure a broader perspective, these articles run fortnightly and focus on each of the major scientific areas.
In this final instalment, we examine science and science and technology in agriculture essay agricultural legacy. Food and agriculture are fundamental to human survival and it was the birth of agriculture and farming that laid down the basis for human civilisation. Since the first crops were domesticated around 10, years ago, essay in agriculture have been agriculture essay linked with human agriculture and the growing world population.
Technology and innovation have underpinned science and technology in agriculture essay advances. Since agriculture essay Green Revolution in the early s crop production has increased nearly two and a half times, agriculture essay 1.
Agriculture today is a very sophisticated and highly technical industry, and in Australia it has been one of our most innovative and efficient industries. Our farmers have remained competitive in a global food market despite Australia having low levels of subsidies relative to our major competitors. The ability agriculture essay this industry to adapt, innovate and form successful science and technology in agriculture essay will continue to support a strong and prosperous Australia with sustainable food security.
For Australia, food security is inextricably linked to the agriculture essay stability of our region and has the potential to affect our national security.
Food security also affects our status as a premier food exporting nation and the health and wellbeing of our population. The likelihood of a food crisis directly affecting Australia is remote given that we have enjoyed cheap, safe and high quality food for many decades and we produce enough food today to feed 60 million people — three times our current population. Addressing the global food security problem will depend upon the development and delivery of technologies that lead to increased food production.
Our previous reliance on water and energy to drive up yields is not an option for the next phase of productivity gains. Agriculture has an excellent record of productivity growth over the past 50 years, allowing global production to meet the large population increase and, for countries such as Australia, these gains have science and technology in agriculture essay continue reading prices low while keeping farmers in science and technology in agriculture essay. Agricultural production has remained important to our economy because we have effectively developed and delivered new technologies through a strong research base and a highly skilled and innovative farming community.
Agriculture essay particular, we have been able to maintain our position even though we produce food on the driest inhabited continent, on low quality soils and with continual climate variability.
We can now implement this capability to enhance agricultural production both in Agriculture essay and in our region. These strengths provide a solid foundation to catalyse transformation of the agricultural agriculture just click for source to address regional food security. Australia can make a significant contribution to the task because we have extensive experience in dealing with difficult and low input science and technology in agriculture essay systems.
Our record in applying this experience may not have been science and technology in agriculture essay but we are now making read article attempts to address our past science and technology in agriculture essay. Indeed, we will have little choice given the predicted impact of climate change on our agricultural production regions. Our future in food production will lie within our current large scale farming systems where we agriculture essay clear skills and where there is scope for increased efficiency rather agriculture essay niche foods where high labour costs and low innovation make it pay someone to write an essay does it cost for us to complete.
Over the next decade we will move to a scene where engineering and biology are intimately linked.
Agriculture essay will essay data on crop and rangeland health and productivity. This information will be combined with ground data and used as the basis for farm management decisions. We will agriculture essay the detailed genetic makeup of our farm animals and our crops and will use the association between genotype the genetic makeup and phenotype agriculture physical characteristics to technology performance under a diverse set of environmental conditions.
This information will feed into the decisions made by breeders to develop science and crop cultivars or animal breeds to technology the use of available resources while minimising the environmental impact of farming. This move towards the utilisation of more please click for source skills in science and technology is evident even science and technology in agriculture essay. Nowadays research teams look very different to those of the past.
If you were to set up a team today to develop science and technology in agriculture essay strategy to breed wheat with enhanced drought tolerance, your team will need to include software programmers, computer scientists, statisticians, crop physiologists, agronomists, cell biologists, pathologists, molecular biologists and geneticists.
Ideally you would also collaborate with climate scientists to understand the future production article source and help predict how your new varieties will perform. The expectations of these scientists is agriculture essay changing: Farmers are already using science and technology in agriculture essay models to assess the status of their soils, crops and farming systems to support their decision making.
In the future science and technology in agriculture essay will also be capturing data from even more diverse sources, linking this to genetic information and predictive climate models and using the result to help them decide when to sow their crops, when to apply fertilisers, how to protect crops from disease and when to harvest. Perhaps our science and contribution to agricultural innovation will be through developing solutions to global food security challenges and delivering these solutions to partners around the world.
Our agricultural research capability has the potential to become a significant industry in its own right.
Over the next decade we should build management, regulatory and support structures that allow us to capitalise agriculture essay this international interest and build strong multinational research programs that can not only support food security in our science and technology in agriculture essay but also ensure our farmers have access to the latest technologies. Agriculture is among our most technologically advanced industries, yet agriculture essay Australians are largely unaware of the revolution that is occurring on our farms.
Many would be both science and technology and fascinated to know just economics homework help cpm sophisticated agricultural science has become and the role it plays in delivering the strong and prosperous Australia of the future.
The world is rapidly reaching the boundaries of agricultural land and the sustainable intensification of agriculture has emerged as a necessity to meet the increase in global demand for food.
Given the limits to natural resources the world simply cannot afford to sustain the loss of food that is caused by diseases of plants and animals. Intensification of food production tends to exacerbate the occurrence and impact of diseases, and climate variability and change has introduced another layer of complexity in the emergence and spread of diseases.
The success of agriculture in Australia has been science and technology in agriculture essay, in part, to the this web page freedom from diseases that impact food production elsewhere.
Indeed, the high biosecurity status of Australia ensures safe and healthy domestic food and gives Australia preferred status in global food markets. Diseases involve many of the sciences such as immunology, pathology, genetics, epidemiology, public health and sociology.
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