The role of farming systems group approaches in achieving sustainability in Australian agriculture

The concepts surrounding sustainability are outlined and economic, environmental and social sustainability are defined for Australian farming systems — including the issue of scale at which sustainability can be practically applied. Farming systems work in Australia is often a farmer–scientist partnership, with research mainly conducted at the paddock/farm scale, this being where management decisions are made. Farming systems research as conducted currently has concentrated on components of the ‘system’ and could be described as systems in name more than substance. Farming systems groups have primarily focused on issue of profitability and economic sustainability (soil resource). Some groups have focused on salinity and recharge related issues using perennial pastures, but work on biodiversity has been limited, despite its role as a key environmental sustainability issue, at least, in southern Australia. Several groups are addressing issues of social sustainability at scales larger (e.g. local community or region) than the farm. Farming systems groups need to progress towards more sustainable farming systems involving increased complexity and consideration of multiple values for a number of reasons outlined in this paper. Important factors in this evolution include investment in developing new technologies, the knowledge and learning environment, increased emphasis on environmental and social sustainability, progression to larger scales (e.g. catchment or region), and different relationships in view of changing institutional arrangements. Social learning and ‘soft systems’ approaches will become more important to provide skills to deal with complexity, conflict, and multiple values of people. Farming systems groups need to become more actively engaged with a wider group of stakeholders including catchment management organisations and other non-farming members of the community. Such engagement is occurring in some groups. However, there are large training needs, particularly for facilitators to effectively deal with the increasing complexity of work conducted by groups that are involving larger scales and using a multi-disciplinary approach.