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Category: Current issues
recapping 2018 – Part one
2018 is soon drawing to a close. In today’s blog, we look back at our research activities both those of staff and students, contributions to development of policy GFAR researchers have made, as shared through our blogs this year from January to June. In January, we wrote about the water crisis in Cape Town where […]
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THE PARADOX OF IRRIGATION EFFICIENCY
According to a United Nations report, by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions. Crop irrigation accounts for 70% of the global water extractions. Irrigation efficiency measures are increasingly being promoted (and subsidised) throughout […]
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Mythical Nation Building: There’s 6 white elephants on the horizon
Blog post written by Dr. David Adamson After our recent political spill and fill, there is always a need to show that you are a positive change and you can do something. So combined with: oooh look its drought again; an on-going desire to put dams in to drought proof the country (because you know, its […]
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The Environment’s water is not Agriculture’s overdraft
Blog post prepared by Dr. David Adamson The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is based on the concept of ‘common property’ were a set of environmental rights are established and managed in the national good (economic, society & the environment). The environments rights were purchased from farmers either: directly via market mechanisms (i.e. buy-back where rights were […]
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GFAR and DAWR discuss new project on parallel trade
The Centre for Global Food and Resources (GFAR) researchers Dr. Alec Zuo, Prof. Wendy Umberger, Prof. Sarah Wheeler and Dr. David Adamson met with Mr. David Ironside, Assistant Secretary, Plant Export Operations, Biosecurity Plant Division, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) to discuss a new project titled ‘Understanding parallel trade of Australian products to China’ under the […]
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Happy Seeder – a catalyst to reduce environmental degradation
Today is World Environment Day. Preventing environmental degradation is critical to sustain agricultural production systems, curtail pollution and improving human health. In the past few blog posts, we have mentioned the issue of stubble burning in North West India and the harmful impact on the environment, which in turn affects soil and human health. A […]
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Mothballing northern abattoirs = reduction in resilience for the beef industry
In 2011, 4 Corners released ‘A bloody business’ highlighting beef animal welfare in the live-trade industry. The story basically shut down the beef live-trade industry in northern Australia for about 6 months. In 2018, the beef industry was seeking over $600 million in compensation by the forced shutdown.The lack of market resilience (i.e. markets can […]
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Regulations, Enforcement and Live Sheep Trade
Post prepared by Dr David Adamson (also posted on his blog) Regulatory agencies can be described as benevolent social welfare maximisers (Laffont & Tirole 1991) who serve the public interest. However, the effectiveness of regulations is eroded by regulatory capture (regulations are designed in the interest of business and not society) and the failure to […]
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Prof Sarah Wheeler talks water on radio
Prof Sarah Wheeler, Associate Director of Research, Centre for Global Food and Resources at the University of Adelaide was interviewed by Amanda Vanstone on Radio National’s Counterpoint on 19 March 2018. “Fixing leaky pipes no way to save a river”. Economists are critical of the way federal government money has been spent on saving the […]
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GFAR researchers in India and Bangladesh for the Happy Seeder Project
Blog post prepared by Rohan Yargop and Dr Adam Loch In one of our earlier blogs, we wrote about the practice of stubble burning in the Indian Gangetic Plains that has led to tremendous levels of air pollution in the region and has had a severe impact on the daily lives of people residing in […]
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