As many of our members and others involved in soil are aware, there is a dearth of technical expertise in soils today—especially in the agricultural sector—with many renowned experts reaching the end of their professional careers. This is concerning given over 50 per cent of Australia’s land is used for agriculture.
This lack of technical expertise has been highlighted most recently in gap analyses carried out by the national network of Regional Soil Coordinators (RSCs). The RSCs are all members of the Smart Soils National Community of practice (Smart Soils CoP) convened by Soil Science Australia (SSA) as part of our Smart Soils project, which is supported by the Australian Government under the Natural Heritage Trust.
The Smart Soils project is being delivered through the:
SSA’s Smart Soils project is focused on improving the capacity and capability of Australian farmers and their advisers. Directly delivering on priority three of the National Soil Action Plan (NSAP), the project has clear links with the other three priorities. The project is helping develop functional knowledge networks and mentoring models, and is highlighting the value of soils expertise to our nation.
Members of the Smart Soils CoP have an extension focus. Members also have a unique opportunity to ground truth what’s happening in the regions and provide feedback on national policy instruments designed to improve the management of Australia’s soils.
The recently published RSC gap analyses identify areas of concern that affect the capacity and capability of the agricultural sector to manage our soil resource. While some of the suggestions from these reports focus on the wider theme of workforce planning, it is the passing on of know-how and knowledge that figures highly.
The value of knowledge exchange has also been recognised by a number of the states and territories. Half of the NSAP bilateral arrangements between the states/territories and the Commonwealth Government include different mentoring and knowledge base development approaches.
The ACT has ‘Soil Champions’—a coaching and mentoring program to train ACT farmers, government and landcare staff to become future soil coaches through peer-to-peer mentoring. The NT has ‘Developing Soil Knowledge Capacity in Northern Australia’ to train and mentor graduates. This project is designed to expose participants to all aspects of soil investigation and survey. Queensland has a project targeting graduates to accelerate their training and development (including at least two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders) in both contemporary and traditional soil science. While not specifically championing mentoring, South Australia’s project proposes a ‘South Australian Soils Collaboration Centre’ to improve the state’s soil knowledge base through increased collaboration and coordination and establish a ‘South Australian Soils Knowledge Network’.
It is clear that capacity-building and mentoring is vital for the realisation of not one, but all of the four priority actions in the NSAP 2024–2028. SSA is the obvious place to look for this expertise.
Written by: Abigail Jenkins, Smart Soils project coordinator.
Link to published gaps analyses
Southern NSW report: https://cdn.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/4377449/Regional-Soils-Coordinators-Gap-Analysis-Southern-NSW-July-2024.pdf
Southern Qld / Northern NSW report:
https://www.unisq.edu.au/research/sqnnsw-hub/blogs/soil-gap-analysis