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Long term strategies for adapting to climate change will result from a collaborative project between researchers at the Institute of Agriculture (IOA), The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Lanzhou University (LU) in west China.

Professor Kadambot Siddique, IOA’s Director, said the Institute was invited by LU to become a partner in a ‘111 Project’ on sustainable development of agricultural systems in dry and cold ecosystems of the Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, west China.

“The project’s overall objective is capacity building, by training researchers and postgraduate students in characterising dry and cold ecosystems and improving crop and pasture production technologies, land management and animal husbandry practices.

“Long term it offers us strategies to deal with climate change in Australia. Loess Plateau was once desert, but increased demand for food led to its successful transition to arable, productive land.

“Water shortage has increased environmental risks such as wind erosion and dust storms, with large scale airborne dust storms of past decades mostly arising from newly cultivated soils in arid and semi-arid regions of China,” Professor Siddique said.

The project would assess how such soil attributes as soil organic carbon and soil aggregation changed when uncultivated soil became arable and it would determine what practices promote long-term sustainability of agricultural use of these soils and improved water harvesting and water use efficiency.

Another important aspect of the collaboration would be assessing the impact of rural to urban migration on farming systems and farm livelihoods.

Li Lihua, LU researcher from College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, has interviewed 180 farming families in Gansu Province on their production systems, social and cultural structures and farm economic systems.

“City salaries are a critical source of income and well-being for farming families and this has important implications for farm labour, as much on-farm work is left to the elderly,” Ms Lihua said.

While at the IOA, Ms Lihua is learning advanced socio-economic analysis techniques, supervised by UWA’s Professor Mathew Tonts.

Professor Feng Min Li, Director of the National Key Laboratory of Arid and Grassland Ecology, LU, leads the $1.9 million, five year collaborative project, which involves 13 other institutions, including the USA’s Yale University and Salk Institute and Canada Agriculture and Food.

LU, with its overseas partners, successfully applied for a grant from the Chinese Ministry of Education for a ‘111 Project’, so-named because it was launched on September 11, 2006, with the aim of inviting 1000 top academics from the world’s top 100 universities to establish 1000 innovative research centres in China.

Established in 1909, two years earlier than UWA, LU has 27,000 enrolled students and is recognised as one of China’s leading universities.

In 2007 Professor Zhou Xhoung, President of LU and Professor Alan Robson, Vice Chancellor of UWA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding and met in Beijing in June this year to discuss progress on collaboration between the two universities.

While visiting LU in 2007, UWA’s Professor Siddique, Professor Neil Turner (Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture) and Dr Guijun Yan, (Senior Lecturer and Deputy Leader of the IOA’s Plant Production Systems Program), delivered eight seminars to more than 300 staff, postgraduates and undergraduates.

Several UWA and LU academics have since exchanged visits.

Two LU lecturers, Dr Xiangwen Fang and Dr Yu Jia, plus Professor Wang Yong of Dryland Agricultural Institute, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, are now at UWA for specific research projects.

Dr Fang, funded by an Endeavour Fellowship and the ‘111 Project’ is studying chickpea reproductive physiology under drought, supervised by Professors Siddique and Turner, Dr Yan and Dr Jairo Palta, CSIRO.

Dr Jia, funded by a Crawford International Award and the ‘111 Project’, is investigating soil chemistry and biology under no-tillage systems, supervised by Dr Daniel Murphy, UWA and Professor Siddique.

Professor Yong, funded by Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is assessing how water stress affects grain filling in barley and especially the contribution of awns, supervised by Drs Palta and Yan and Professors Siddique and Turner.

Professor Siddique said UWA valued the opportunity for the IOA to interact with Professor Li and his colleagues and learn more about agricultural constraints in west China and, potentially, climate change.

“The exchange will identify postgraduates to enrol at UWA or LU, continue delivering lectures and seminars at LU and encourage staff visits and sabbaticals between the universities, all with the aim of building capacity, developing large joint projects, publishing scientific papers and improving agricultural productivity and sustainability in both countries,” Professor Siddique said.

Authorised by ‘Institute of Agriculture – UWA’ and issued on its behalf by
Brendon Cant & Associates, Tel 08 9384 1122

Media references

Professor Kadambot Siddique, Tel 08 6488 7012, Mobile 0411 155 396