An industry led communication and education program

An industry led communication program focusing on practical and proven strategies available for dairy farms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under current ‘conditions’ that supports farmers to identify which strategies are best suited to their business. The program should also focus on providing on-going engagement and training of dairy industry advisers and service providers - recognising that new knowledge, new strategies and new policies are constantly emerging from farmers, from RD&E and from Government.

A second component of the communication activity should also be targeted at the wider community

including policy developers to reinforce the key message that well managed, efficient and profitable dairy farms are clearly the farms best placed to face any future challenges including GHG mitigation.

Organisations that should be involved: Industry funders (DA and Gardiner) and service providers, DAFF, State Governments.

8.5. Time frame for activities

fMeasurement methodology

fQuantifying dairy specific GHG abatement strategies

fEvaluation of GHG emissions abatement strategies at an integrated systems level

fAn industry led communication and education program

fCommence within 1–2 years fCommence in 2–4 years

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8.6. Qualitative Ranking of impact and likelihood of success

Figure 6. Example of a likelihood of success vs industry impact graph (size of the bubble indicates scale of investment needed within that activity area)*

Industr y impac t Likelihood of success Legend 1: Measurement 2: Specific reduction strategies 3: Systems verification 4: Communication 1 4 2 3

* Estimations of impact, likelihood and scale of project are qualitative only and reflect the opinion of the Dairy Moving Forward expert working group

Impact vs Success

8.7. RD&E Capability (gaps and resources) for the Investment Priorities

Question Assessment Comment

Is there a clear group of relevant organisations and people available to collaborate around this space?

A major effort is already going into the basic science of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions because of Commonwealth initiatives.

Do these people and organisations represent the majority of prior learning in this area?

Yes, though refinement and improvement are needed to bring a strong focus onto the specific dairy industry challenges. Systems level implications is an area of capability need. Is it clear that an investment in

this area will provide benefits and outcomes for the co investors?

Benefits for co-investors are not clear without policy signals.

Would the collaborators be able to provide diverse avenues for change?

Potentially if strong industry leadership is provided. However, this objective is not about change, but about preparing the options, strategies and industry preparedness for potential future needs to change. Is the capability present (funds,

people and infrastructure) in the collaboration to deliver the specified outcome?

Because there has been major DAFF funding into this investment priority, in the short term the capability is strong. Longer term challenges may face significant capability limitations if Commonwealth priorities change. Not at all Completed

Not at all Completed

Not at all Completed

Not at all Completed

Not at all Completed

8.8. RD & E priority activities

currently underway

There is a limited amount of investment currently underway in priority investment areas 1 & 2.

9. Priority Outcome 4: Long term sustainable use of nutrients

through greater understanding of nutrient pathways

9.1. Background context

The loss of nutrients from dairy farms is both an economic issue for dairy farmers and an environmental ‘problem’ for the dairy industry. Understanding and better quantifying some of the loss (and therefore by default, capture) pathways is an important priority. Within the NRM&CC arena, there is a second nutrient focused outcome, “Improved extension of nutrient management

principles and practices to achieve a more rigorous objective approach to nutrient management at farm level” which is focused on extension of good nutrient

management practice.

Industry research has found the utilization of nutrients on dairy farms can be very inefficient, although there are variations in efficiency between farms suggesting opportunities to improve. Increasing fertilizer inputs, in particular N generally leads to increases in production of fodder for dairy cows, although this is not the case for all nutrients and all farming systems. To ensure nutrients are not a limiting factor farmers often apply more fertiliser than soil and tissue tests suggest is needed.

Excess nutrients such as phosphorous can accumulate in soil and be lost to surface and groundwater; while surplus nitrogen can end up in groundwater (through leaching), surface water (through runoff and shallow soil profile drainage) or the atmosphere (ammonia volatilization, nitrification and denitrification). Nutrient movement and concentration (feedpads, laneways, night paddocks and effluent treated areas) within the farm can result in nutrient ‘hot spots’ which have implications for animal health and off-farm losses. Improved recycling of N and P from urine and dung represents a significant but challenging opportunity for improved farm-level nutrient use efficiency.

Utilisation of nutrients has an animal scale, farm scale and catchment scale

Any program of work to optimize nutrient efficiency, in particular N efficiency should be developed in partnership with the Feedbase and Animal areas. For example assessment of new pasture/fodder crop

combinations requires assessment of both economic and environmental performance (including GHG emissions). Another example is manipulating the diet to minimize loss of urinary N.

The factors influencing the pathways by which excess N is being lost off farm under Australian conditions are

not well understood. From an environmental viewpoint it is important for the Australian dairy industry to be able to quantify whether excess N is being lost as di- nitrogen, ammonia, nitric or nitrous oxide or ending up in surface and ground water as nitrate. Significant investment has been directed towards measurement of gas effluxes from dairy soil without consideration of the microbial community changes associated with these events. Soil carbon plays a significant role in both capture (N-fixing) and loss (denitrifying) pathways. Mechanistic understanding of the underlying functions leading to efflux events will inform management solutions. Environmental standards

The “off site” impacts of nitrogen and phosphorus can include significant declines in water quality and other associated environmental impacts including potential threats to human and animal health. The health aspect of pathogens in water supply catchments is a key issue in some areas. Whilst pathogens from dairy effluent are not associated with nutrients they do leave farms via the same pathways.

Diffuse source nutrient regulation targeted at the dairy industry is limited to a few high risk catchments and is likely to remain so in the near future. There are existing standards/principles for nutrient/fertiliser management at an international level and these may be adopted by international companies purchasing Australian dairy products.

Quantifying the impact of changed on-farm nutrient management practices on the environment at the catchment scale is a major challenge

Nitrogen and phosphorus exports are a natural

consequence of any plant or animal production system. However, the impacts of these exports depend on the complex nutrient mobilisation and immobilization processes occurring beyond the farm and the sensitivity of the ultimate receiving environment.

The dairy industry has made significant investments in catchments studies and the development of dairy catchment models. This work has helped build a better understanding of the off farm impacts of dairy practices on water quality. However there are still knowledge gaps in nutrient mobilisation and immobilization processes and the spatial and temporal variability of nutrient

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exports from dairy systems. The recommendation from some members of the expert group was that the fate of nutrients off farm is extremely complex and relevant R&D should be left to other groups, for example the Landscape Logic research hub being funded by DEWHA. Dairy may most effectively benefit from improving its engagement with these groups rather than commissioning its own research.

9.2. Industry needs and strategies

to achieve the outcome

Integrated approaches

Project development should involve representatives from the NRM, Feedbase, Animals and Climate Change mitigation programs. Inefficient utilisation of nutrients can impact on animal health and performance, farm profitability, catchment health and greenhouse gas emissions.

Whole farm systems perspective

Some nutrients are in limited supply (e.g. Phosphorus), others (e.g. Nitrogen) are intimately linked to high energy inputs for production and greenhouse gas emissions, raising long term issues associated with sustainability and efficiency. Improving the efficiency of nutrient use on dairy farms will require:

› Improved understanding of nutrient movement within the farm and nutrient loss pathways from a systems as well as a component perspective

› Identifying practices with the ability to reduce losses and increase production

› Industry ‘best practice’ application and management of nutrients being compatible with the long term sustainability of soil health.

Awareness of possible regulatory requirements Likely nutrient management reporting requirements at international, national, state and catchment scales need to be explored and understood to assist the focus of RD&E activities. For example in some areas, such as WA and QLD access to fertilisers and/or water may be linked to adoption of good practice nutrient management. Investigation of the role of soil microorganisms Lessons on plant nutrient management and soil biology learned by other industries, particularly grain cropping, can have benefits for the dairy industry. The new sequencing technologies that are enabling unprecedented access to the 95–99% of the microbial community that can be cultured will vastly improve understanding of the specific roles of

soil bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses in N fixation and P accumulation thereby adding significant value to the traditional chemistry based approaches to nutrient management. Existing and potential microbial inoculant products that maximize nitrogen fixation and phosphorus uptake, and microbial inhibitory products that block nutrient transformation pathways should also be explored to determine the extent to which they improve current best practice pasture/forage management practices.

9.3. Key past and existing investments

There has been significant levels of investment by industry to build knowledge about on and off farm nutrient management, examples include Phosphorous in Dairy Farms, Better Fertiliser Decisions, Accounting for Nutrients, Accountable Dairying, Montagu Catchment Study, DairyCatch, GipRip, Queensland Riparian Assessment, Brucknell Creek, Coastal Dairy Catchments, Understanding Dairy Catchments, Grazing Strategies to reduce Nutrient losses from Australian Dairy Farms, and Spatial and temporal modelling of water and nutrient flows from Australian Dairy catchments.

9.4. Priorities for future RD&E activities

to deliver the priority outcome

Note: a separate expert working group is dealing with improved extension of nutrient management principles and practices. Even so, this expert working group acknowledges the need for much of the suggested future R&D work below, to engage directly with producers through participatory on-farm R&D activities.