Risk assessment of new practices

Decisions about sustainably increasing soil productivity are often influenced by financial profitability rather than considerations of ecosystem resilience. This project used integrated risk management software to facilitate collaborative resilience thinking. It integrated field data about on-farm productivity with farmers’ and experts’ real-world, lived experiences of how farm productivity is affected by the consequences of unsustainable practices.

It mapped out the risk profiles for a catchment using farmers’ and experts’ shared meanings of the risks and benefits emerging from the Soil CRC’s research. This in turn will help farmers and their advisers decide on acceptable risk thresholds, which ultimately increases farmer productivity and profitability.

The project used a web-based, integrated risk platform to socially integrate the multi-dimensional attributes of soil re-engineering interventions. It enables the transfer of knowledge between scientists and farmers as they examine the consequences of re-engineering.