The Potential of Biomimicry to Describe and Extend Regenerative Australian Agriculture

Abstract

Australia’s methods of food production require reform. Concern over the environmentally harmful and self-undermining nature of existing productionist, industrial agriculture has sparked interest in ‘regenerative’ approaches to food production. Regenerative strategies aim to decrease agrochemical inputs and negative environmental impacts, through building agroecosystems’ capacity to provide ecosystem services. However, these methods are not widespread. This is in part due to the disconnect between agricultural research and practice, which has led to the lack of an accessible framework to transfer regenerative theory and practice between ecologically different areas, thus, inhibiting the adoption of successful practices into mainstream agriculture. This thesis used qualitative methods to assess the potential for biomimicry to provide this framework. Regenerative farmers and academics were interviewed to determine firstly, whether biomimicry and associated biomimetic methods were perceived to be consistent with regenerative practices. Secondly, how effectively these systems and methods function in the Australian landscape, and lastly, what insights biomimicry may have into extending regenerative Australian agriculture. This study found that systems using regenerative strategies were perceived to maintain higher productivity in a more sustainable manner than industrial systems, under Australia’s highly variable rainfall, making them well suited to the Australian landscape. Regenerative practices were perceived to be more productive in the long term, due to their better performance in sub-optimal conditions. Most participants believed regenerative agricultural practices were consistent with biomimicry. Insights into how biomimicry could be used to extend existing Australian agricultural strategies to improve their long-term sustainability and productivity were gained. These included expanding the spatial scale over which Australian agriculture is managed and adopting key functional elements from locally adapted ecosystems for long-term survival. The implications of this study are that biomimicry has potential to act as a holistic, accessible, and transferrable framework from which to cultivate participatory research into further development and wider adoption of regenerative practices in Australian agriculture. Further participatory research is recommended into a representative assessment of farmers’ perceptions of how natural ecosystems achieve goals relevant to agriculture, and how these could be feasibly translated into management. The current approach to drought subsidies is perceived as unfair by regenerative managers and future work should focus on creating policies that assist rather than disincentivise the uptake of regenerative practices. Australian agriculture could also benefit from further case-study based research into local adaptations of natural ecosystems, and their effectiveness in an agricultural context. Particularly strategies associated with improved water management will be advantageous applications of agricultural biomimicry in Australia’s variable climate. Show more