Helping land managers demonstrate their environmental credentials

Researchers from Federation University's Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) are leading a project that will help landowners manage a growing number of requests to show that their land is being managed sustainably. 

The researchers have partnered with Food Agility CRC, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority, Precision Agriculture and Southern Farming Systems. The project will develop an innovative environmental data integration platform to empower farming enterprises and other land managers. The platform will streamline data collection, processing, and reporting, making it easier for land managers to demonstrate their environmental credentials. It will accommodate a wide variety of data inputs and end-user needs. 

Professor of Environmental Accounting at CeRDI Francisco Ascui says the platform makes it easier for landowners to respond to the overwhelming number of requests for environmental information. 

"If it was just a case of reporting to government and complying with regulations, that would be relatively straightforward, but there are requests coming from so many directions," Prof Ascui said. 

"When you have state and federal governments asking for different sets of information, an export market like the European Union asking for something else, your supply chain, your bank, your investors all asking for evidence that you're managing your land sustainably – that's what creates costs and inefficiencies," he said. 

"If you are responding to each of these independently and starting from scratch each time, that leads to very costly duplication."  

The project will develop a flexible architecture to enable more efficient reporting. The goal is to handle changing requirements from different stakeholders over time, making the reporting process more adaptable and streamlined. 

Prof Ascui says the usable output from the project will be a set of natural capital accounts and reports that can be used to demonstrate the value of environmental assets and a statement of the impacts and dependencies on nature. 

"But the significant value add is building that infrastructure that enables these reports to be produced more efficiently," he said. 

The research team plans to engage with landowners within the Leigh River, Native Hut Creek, Bruce Creek and Moorabool River catchments in western Victoria and partner with them to collect data across a diverse range of land uses, including cropping, grazing and dairy farming. 

CeRDI Systems Analyst Programmer Richard Archer, who is leading the project, says it is becoming more important for landowners to demonstrate the sustainability of their operations. 

He says the project aims to demonstrate that public data sources, including government data, and private data sources, like farm observations — can be used independently or together to demonstrate environmental credentials. 

"We're starting at a high level and will demonstrate the proof of concept to ensure we have the underlying infrastructure and concepts right. We’ll enhance that over time with more data, better classification of that data, and richer and deeper analysis, which leads to more accurate and diverse reports," Mr Archer said. 

"Farmers are highly engaged and early adopters of technology. We want to work closely with farmers to develop tools and solutions that meet their needs. Farmers have a deep understanding of how their land responds to different weather conditions and farming practices, which makes their insights invaluable.  

“Farmers can play a key role in validating our outputs, helping to refine and improve our approach through their real-world observations."  

Land managers interested in participating in the project can contact CeRDI.