Farm biodiversity

Farm biodiversity is an important component of environmentally sustainable agriculture. The Future Farm Industries CRC’s work includes developing systems that improve the persistence of farm biodiversity while enabling profitable changes in agricultural systems. Integrating production and biodiversity delivers the greatest benefits to farm biodiversity.

The Productive Perennials for Biodiversity project is determining how production perennials can contribute to biodiversity conservation in farming landscapes. The project compares native animals’ needs to what is provided by farming systems. It also looks at what is required to maintain populations of native animals within agricultural landscapes, to the best of our knowledge.

The BioRisk project is developing models and tools that combine plant ecophysiological knowledge with catchment hydrological models to improve management decisions for biodiversity assets, such as ephemeral wetlands, threatened by altered hydrology such as salinity and water-logging. It aims to optimise the choice of perennial vegetation technologies and engineering works to achieve conservation objectives. 

The Investment Framework for Environmental Resources (INFFER) project is creating investment decision frameworks for developing and prioritising projects to address environmental issues such as water quality, biodiversity, environmental pests and land degradation. It aims to achieve the most valuable outcomes with the available financial resources. Through the application of the INFER framework and local knowledge, the project aims to influence program design by public agencies involved in natural resource management and environmental policy.