Some scientists consider that the most sustainable systems will also be the most productive. This is not necessarily so. Existing degradation has been caused by the very activities and practices which have allowed output and efficiency increases to be achieved. Is there an alternative To argue that the pressures for farm adjustment in Australia may need to be modified in a way which better serves Australia's long term interests is not to suggest that market forces are irrelevant or that farmers must be cocooned from economic change. It is to recognise that, in at least one important way, farmers are different from other sectors of the workforce.
Farmers control the nation's agricultural resource base.
It is fragile and it has been progressively degraded. The challenge for Australia will be to alter the current trajectory of agriculture. It presently has a productionist orientation which induces overproduction as it simultaneously degrades soil and water resources. We will need to evaluate farmers less in terms of their output and productivity and more in terms of their ability to conserve and renew the natural environment. Perhaps one way forward would be for the Federal Government to create financial incentives and other inducements to boost the current level of interest among farmers in Landcare, whole farm planning and catchment management.