Sustainability, Reporting and Market Access for Grain and Oilseed Growers: Can Yield Data Provide More Rigour and Transparency?

Robert Clark, Peter Dahlhaus, Nathan Robinson, Elizabeth Morse-McNabb
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Abstract

The adoption of sustainable farming practices will improve food security around the world. The evidence that food is produced sustainably has become important for maintaining access to global markets and is influencing commodity marketing and pricing. This paper explores the current state of global sustainability reporting and examines whether yield data could improve the sustainability of farming by adding more rigour and transparency to the evidential basis of sustainability. The Australian grains and oilseeds industry is used as a case study with most of the Australian grain and oilseed crop grown for export markets. Sustainability policies in the European Union, United States of America and Australia are contrasted, with a focus on the improved management of nitrogenous fertiliser, which is viewed as the most efficient way to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Generally, sustainability reporting is based on a suite of indicators that are easy to measure and interpret, sensitive to change, technically sound and cost-effective. These indicators serve as a mechanism to quantify and document the practices used to produce crops but some of the current measures are relatively coarse and lack transparency. The time and cost incurred to collect these measurements could be reduced by using secondary data to report on sustainability. Yield data are already collected by many grain, and oilseed growers, and provide a transparent, evidence-based way to optimise and report on fertiliser application at fine scale. Yield data can help to maintain soil health and farm profit, reduce environmental damage and generate quantitative data for reporting on agricultural sustainability, but some challenges remain before it could be implemented as a universal reporting measure.

Abstract Image

粮食和油籽种植者的可持续性、报告和市场准入:产量数据能提供更严格和透明度吗?
采用可持续农业做法将改善世界各地的粮食安全。粮食以可持续方式生产的证据已成为保持进入全球市场的重要证据,并正在影响商品的销售和定价。本文探讨了全球可持续发展报告的现状,并研究了产量数据是否可以通过增加可持续性证据基础的严谨性和透明度来提高农业的可持续性。澳大利亚的谷物和油籽产业被用作一个案例研究,澳大利亚的大多数谷物和油籽作物都是为出口市场而种植的。欧洲联盟、美利坚合众国和澳大利亚的可持续性政策形成对比,重点是改进氮肥的管理,这被认为是减少农业对环境影响的最有效办法。一般来说,可持续发展报告是根据一套指标编制的,这些指标易于衡量和解释,对变化敏感,技术上合理,成本效益高。这些指标是一种量化和记录用于生产作物的做法的机制,但目前的一些措施相对粗糙,缺乏透明度。通过使用二手数据来报告可持续性,可以减少收集这些测量值所花费的时间和费用。许多谷物和油籽种植者已经收集了产量数据,并提供了一种透明的、以证据为基础的方式来优化和报告小规模的化肥施用。产量数据有助于保持土壤健康和农场利润,减少环境破坏,并为报告农业可持续性提供定量数据,但在将其作为一项普遍报告措施加以实施之前,仍存在一些挑战。
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