Development of a Soil Health Framework for Australian agricultural production systems

⁠⁠⁠Healthy soils underpin high performing, efficient and profitable agricultural production systems. The growing emergence of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting to demonstrate sustainable and responsible agricultural practices e.g., Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework, (AASF), including principles relating to the protection and enhancement of soil health, necessitate a coordinated and national approach.

Value capture opportunities for protecting and/or enhancing soil health on-farm include increased production/yield, improved input use efficiencies and reduced costs, access to existing or emerging markets (and potential price premiums), access to (cheaper) finance, enhanced natural capital and potential biodiversity and/or carbon credit schemes.

A key gap for Australian producers to capture value is the lack of a common definition and approach for quantifying, monitoring and reporting soil health against relevant benchmarks. An integrated Soil Health Framework that defines soil health and provides measurable, interpretable, and decision-useful indicators will generate the evidence base for sustainable soil management practices that enable growers/farmers to measure, monitor, manage and report the status of their soil health, thereby demonstrating their sustainability credentials whilst driving more resilient and profitable production systems. Importantly, a standard approach across the agricultural industry, that is practical, cost-effective and appropriate for Australian conditions, provides an opportunity to set the agenda and future-proof Australian agricultural production systems, ensuring Australian producers remain competitive in an increasingly challenging global market and changing climate.

A multi-disciplinary team is expected to review national and international approaches and consult extensively with key industry stakeholders across the value chain (including but not limited to growers, advisors, finance sector/banks, markets/traders/buyers, government, industry bodies/representative organisations) to co-design, develop and validate the Soil Health Framework, ensuring it is internationally recognised and relevant to Australian conditions. Opportunities to leverage and value add to existing activities and data sets (for example, existing GRDC [and other RDC] investments, National Soil Action Plan 2023-28 activities including the National Soil Monitoring Program and Australian National Soil Information System [ANSIS], Future Drought Fund projects, Soil Science Challenge projects, Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils, etc) deemed relevant for delivery of the investment should be explored. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate capacity to deliver the investment outcome across the Australian agricultural industry. GRDC budget will cover the cost of delivering all three investment outputs, with Outputs 2 (validation) and 3 (monitoring and evaluation) focussed solely on grain production systems. Additional, commodity specific validation and monitoring & evaluation activities will be subject to additional funding from relevant RDCs.

GRDC is seeking a 50:50 co-investment (cash and/or in-kind) by research partners for Outputs 1, 2 and 3.

To provide a consistent cross sector approach, GRDC will establish a Participation Agreement with RDCs to facilitate cross-commodity collaboration. The Participation Agreement will provide RDCs with an opportunity to provide input / feedback relevant to their respective commodity, including provision of in-kind contributions (e.g., access to existing data, information, resources) to GRDC for use by the preferred tenderer (if deemed relevant) to the development of the Soil Health Framework. The Participation Agreement will cover governance and reporting arrangements as well as rights and obligations of RDCs that choose to participate.