A national, grower-led collaboration to increase biodiversity and reduce emissions via the demonstration and accelerated adoption of best-practice water management, strengthening farm water security, productivity and sustainability.
Funded by a grant from the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust Climate-Smart Agriculture program.
Summary
In November 2024, the Grower Group Alliance (GGA) announced its new four-year nationwide project Ripple Effect, designed to improve water security, biodiversity and climate resilience for Australian farmers.
This is a new opportunity to guide growers towards multifunction water infrastructure that enhances and provides future biodiversity and carbon market opportunities while enhancing water security and quality.
GGA leads this consortium, which includes four universities and the Blue Carbon Lab.
All eight national Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs have pledged to support the
project, and it will engage with grower group networks representing over 20,000 producers.
This will drive the adoption of innovations in water security and quality, biodiversity and emissions reduction to protect natural resources, drive productivity and profitability, ensuring truly national and enduring impact.
Project Activities
- Creating a National Knowledge Hub: This hub will consolidate existing research on water management and sustainable agricultural practices, providing best-practice guidelines and tools accessible to the agricultural community.
- Trial and Demonstrate Innovations: Demonstration sites will showcase innovative practices in water quality management, biodiversity conservation, and emissions reduction. Grower groups and industry partners will monitor and document the performance of these practices and organise events like field walks, workshops, and prepare case studies to share findings.
- Financial Benchmarking and Economic Analysis: Economic assessments will gauge the financial impact of innovations, providing cost-benefit data to guide investment decisions in sustainable water infrastructure.
- Broad Communication and Extension Strategy: A communications plan will share findings and best practices nationwide through Drought Hubs, social media, workshops, field days, and partnerships with grower networks.
- Partnership with First Nations: Collaborating with First Nations organisations to incorporate traditional knowledge and address culturally significant environmental factors at project sites.
- Increase awareness of Industry Sustainability frameworks: Demonstrate a correlation between project activities and the Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework.
Overall, the project aims to create a scalable, collaborative approach to sustainable water management that is accessible to farmers and land managers across Australia, enhancing productivity, profitability, and environmental resilience on a national level.
Partners
- The Grower Group Alliance
- University of Western Australia
- Australian National University
- Blue Carbon Lab (RMIT)
- University of Adelaide
- University of Southern Queensland.
Service Delivery Areas
See the Service Delivery Areas for the project in the map below:
News
Follow the grower group project partners on Twitter.
Project Team
Contact
Enquiries to Daniel Kidd at GGA
Collaborators
