Reef Trust Phase Three

Investment

Prioritisation Guide

1


Table of contents

Overview

Relative Priorities and Indicative Funding Allocations

Grazing

Cane

Grains, Horticulture and Dairy

Component 1: Supporting cane farmers to move beyond industry best practice for nutrient, irrigation, pesticide and soil management

Executive Summary

Component Description

Priority Practices – Cane

Component 2: Improving grazing land management to reduce erosion losses to the Reef

Executive Summary

Component Description

Priority Practices – Grazing

Component 3: Maintaining water quality improvement momentum in Reef catchment grains, dairy and horticulture industries

Executive Summary

Component Description

Priority Practices – Bananas

Priority Practices – Other Horticulture Crops

Priority Practices – Grains

Priority Practices – Dairy

Programme Delivery Principles

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY

Overview

This document provides information to supplement that provided in the Reef Trust Phase Three Investment Programme Applicant Guidelines 2015-16. Indicative funding allocations across the six Great Barrier Reef natural resource management (NRM) regions are provided to help Applicants frame their applications against realistic funding targets.

Further detail is provided on the design of the three Reef Trust Phase Three Investment Programme (Programme) components, the priority practices to be supported under the Programme on an industry-by-industry basis and some general guidance on Programme delivery principles.

Relative Priorities and Indicative Funding Allocations

(Across Natural Resource Management Regions)

The purpose of this section of the Investment Prioritisation Guide is to provide guidance to Applicants on the indicative Reef Trust Phase 3 Programme funding ranges for the cane and grazing industries across the Reef catchment NRM regions. Some general guidance on principles for prioritisation of funding across regions for grains/broad acre cropping, horticulture and dairy is also provided. This information should be used by Applicants to frame their proposals against realistic funding targets. Strong justification will need to be provided by the Applicant if significant variance from the indicative funding allocations is proposed.

Indicative NRM regional funding allocation ranges have been developed by the Department based on the 2013 Reef Plan Investment Prioritisation project report (available on the Australian Government Department of Agriculture website), with some minor modifications to account for other factors, including other Reef protection investments by both the Australian and Queensland governments under Reef Plan 2013, and key recommendations from regional Water Quality Improvement Plans (WQIPs) where available.

The Reef Plan Investment Prioritisation project used a spatial multi-criteria analysis approach and the results of the Reef Plan 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement risk assessment component (available on the Reef Plan website) coupled with additional factors (anthropogenic reef water pollutant loads and room for improvement in the level of adoption of improved practices by graziers and cane growers) to develop relative investment priority ratings for sub-catchments and NRM regions. Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks are a major cause of coral loss and high nutrient levels the initiation zone are a key factor in increasing the frequency of outbreak. For this reason, a crown-of-thorns starfish factor was included to give priority to sub-catchments contributing nitrogen pollution to the crown-of-thorns starfish outbreak initiation zone. The Reef Plan investment prioritisation process was guided by a science advisory panel and peer-reviewed before publication.

Grazing

($24.5 million 2015-16 to 2018-19)

Under The Australian Government’s Reef Rescue (2008-2013) and Reef Programme (20132018) initiatives, support was provided to graziers to improve their land management practices across all Reef NRM regions. The Reef Trust Phase 3 Programme will target extensive grazing properties where ground cover is lowest and erosion risk is highest. The priority NRM regions are therefore the Burdekin and Fitzroy, with the Cape York and Burnett Mary regions being significantly lower priority.

Indicative funding allocations from the Reef Trust Phase 3 grazing component for these regions are shown in the table below.

Region / Cape York / Burdekin / Fitzroy / Burnett Mary
Indicative funding range / 10 to 15 per cent
($2.5 to $3.7 million) / 37.5 to 42.5 per cent
($9.2 to $10.4 million) / 35 to 40 per cent
($8.6 to $9.8 million) / 7.5-12.5 per cent
($1.8 to $3.1 million)

Cane

($25.0 million 2015-16 to 2018-19)

Under Reef rescue and Reef Programme, all cane growers across the Reef catchment were eligible to receive support to improve their land management practices. Cane land occupies a relatively small footprint in the Reef catchment (approximately 1 per cent of land area) but contributes disproportionately high pollutant loads to the Reef due to high nutrient and pesticide inputs and due to its coastal location. The Reef Plan Investment Prioritisation report, Scientific Consensus Statement and 2014 Report Card, and regional WQIPs indicate there is room for continued improvement in cane land management across all regions, with significant differences in relative priority across regions. The Reef Trust Phase 3 Programme will therefore provide continued assistance to cane growers across all cane producing regions to help the industry move to best practice for water quality and industry sustainability outcomes.

Indicative funding allocations from the Reef Trust Phase 3 cane component for these regions are shown in the table below.

Region / Wet Tropics / Burdekin / Mackay Whitsunday Isaacs / Burnett Mary
Indicative funding range / 37.5 to 42.5 per cent
($9.4 to $10.6 million) / 27.5 to 32.5 per cent
($6.9 to $8.1 million) / 20 to 25 per cent ($5.0 to $6.3 million) / 7.5 to10 per cent ($1.9 to $2.5 million)

Grains, Horticulture and Dairy

($6.5 million 2015-16 to 2018-19)

Allocations across these three land uses have been set in consideration of their footprint (area) and risk posed to the Reef (i.e. ground cover, fertiliser and pesticide use, and geographic location).

Grains/broad acre cropping excluding sugarcane ($3.6 million)

The highest priority for investment is the Fitzroy due to the large area of grains cropping in this region. The grains/broad acre cropping industries of the Burdekin, Burnett Mary and Wet Tropics (i.e. Atherton Tablelands catchment) are of significantly lower priority, in proportion to the smaller footprints of the industry in these regions.

Horticulture ($2.4 million)

The highest priority for investment in horticulture is the banana industry, located primarily in the Wet Tropics, with rapid expansion occurring from a low base in the Cape York region. The banana industry has by far the highest footprint of any single horticultural crop in the Reef catchment (approximately 100 km2 of 600 km2 total horticulture) and is a high priority for Reef Trust Phase 3 Programme investment due to high risk of fertiliser and soil loss from this land use. Other horticulture comprises over 100 different crops, with variable and largely unquantified water quality risk.

Dairy ($0.5 million)

The dairy industry in the Reef catchment is located mainly in the Wet Tropics and Burnett Mary regions, with a relatively small number of farms in the Fitzroy region. Due to the higher water quality risk rating of the Wet Tropics region, the relative investment priority for dairy farms across NRM regions is Wet Tropics>Burnett Mary>Fitzroy.

Component 1: Supporting cane farmers to move beyond industry best practice for nutrient, irrigation, pesticide and soil management

($25 million available funding)

Executive Summary

The key threats to the Reef to be addressed through this component, in order of priority, are the loss of nutrients (primarily nitrogen) and pesticides, and sediment and associated particulate nutrients from cane lands across the Reef catchments. Losses of nitrogen from cane, particularly from the Wet Tropics region, are linked to more frequent crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and to coral to macroalgae phase shifts. In addition, poor water quality decreases reef resilience to other stressors such as climate change.

To address these key threats this component will build on the learnings and momentum gained from eight years of on-ground water quality improvement projects and associated farm planning and extension under Reef Plan. The component will target investment to support the adoption of the most cost effective, proven management practices on the highest risk cane farms, for example according to geographical location, soil type and estimated nitrogen surplus, and the benchmarking of the current level of adoption of improved management practices of individual cane enterprises.

A proportion of funding for this component (up to 20 per cent) will be available to support development and validation of highly innovative practices and programme delivery mechanisms. Support provided for all innovation projects will be subject to water quality improvement cost effectiveness analysis. The component will seek to gain a better understanding of the social and behavioural drivers and impediments to the adoption of improved land management practices in the cane industry. These insights may be used to deliver social marketing and engage previously unengaged cane farmers.

The aims of this component include a reduction of the annual average Reef-wide anthropogenic dissolved inorganic (DIN) load delivered to the Reef by at least 493 tons, or ten per cent. The funding allocated across all cane regions is $25 million over 3.5 years. This component seeks to move cane farmers to more efficient and sustainable practices and for this reason it is expected that the component will have ongoing legacy in terms of pollutant load reductions.

Component Description

The highest risks to the Reef from cane production remain fertiliser (especially nitrogen) and pesticide (primarily herbicide) losses. A range of validated improved management practices and decision support tools are available to reduce these losses, as well as practices to prevent off-farm movement of topsoil and improve water use efficiency in irrigated cane production systems (2013 Scientific Consensus Statement – Land use impacts on Great Barrier Reef water quality and ecosystem condition).

Under Reef Rescue and Reef Programme, significant Australian Government investment, with at least matching land manager co-investment, has been directed to upgrading farm infrastructure and equipment, updating farmer skills through provision of training and extension, and implementing new cane farming systems (for example precision agriculture, minimum tillage and controlled traffic farming). The programmes have also provided grants to growers to trial innovative practices to improve farm sustainability and profitability. These programmes have fundamentally underpinned the encouraging progress made towards meeting Reef Plan water quality targets to date (Reef Plan 2014 Report Card).

Component design

The cane component will build on the momentum and delivery capacity established through previous large-scale on-ground delivery programmes over an eight year period. Continuity of funding will ensure delivery capacity is maintained for future catchment-based Reef protection projects.

The effectiveness of past investments has been evaluated over seven years, including through the Reef Plan ‘Paddock to Reef’ programme, with many important lessons learned that facilitate improved targeting of actions and spatial locations according to water quality risk and the predicted cost effectiveness of pollutant load reductions. This component will utilise this information and build on past investments and current initiatives to deliver more targeted and cost effective reductions in nutrient and pesticide loads. The component will be implemented to align with regulatory requirements and with other new initiatives to maximise outcomes.

Delivery mechanism

One or more Delivery Partners will be selected through a competitive process set out in the programme guidelines to deliver the programme at a regional or industry-wide scale. The required services are defined by the programme guidelines, with applications assessed against these guidelines. Delivery Partners will be required to use a holistic approach to addressing water quality risks on an individual enterprise basis. Farm risk assessment should be aligned to the current Reef Plan Sugarcane Water Quality Risk Framework with prioritisation of pollutants and spatial prioritisation aligned with the risk assessment component of the Reef Plan 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement, the Reef Plan 2013 Investment Prioritisation project report, available regional water quality improvement plans, Reef Plan ‘Paddock to Reef’ reports and other key scientific documents such as the Sugar Research Australia report ‘A Review of Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Sugarcane’.

Delivery Partners should use local, trusted extension providers to deliver highly targeted farm risk assessment, training, extension and (in some instances) incentives, tailored to individual business needs. Financial incentives should be provided for high priority projects, with land manager co-investment requirements based on relative public/private benefit of the project and the regional practice demonstration potential of the project. Estimation of the cost effectiveness of individual on-ground projects with land managers should be informed by performance assessment of similar projects assessed through ‘Paddock to Reef’.

Financial incentives for specific management practices should be delivered via the Delivery Partners through grant processes. Potential on-ground projects should be ranked based on merit and the cost effectiveness of pollutant load reductions. Smartcane BMP is recommended as the initial land manager engagement, self assessment and action planning tool. Reporting requirements of all projects will need to meet Reef Trust and ‘Paddock to Reef’ requirements.

Nutrient management actions (in order of priority) include improved nutrient budgeting (matching nutrient inputs to crop target yield and class requirements, and accounting for all sources of nutrient inputs), fertiliser form, timing and placement. Priority should also be given to improving nutrient use efficiency (NUE) by overcoming yield constraints, especially on blocks/management units where persistent low yields have been identified from past yield records and where NUE is therefore lowest. Strategies for improving NUE should be tailored to individual business needs and may include improved irrigation efficiency, mitigation/amelioration of intrinsic soil health constraints, use of seasonal climate forecasting and improved nutrient input formulation/delivery. Consideration should be given to management of nutrient losses from all pathways, including leaching, runoff, denitrification and volatilisation, according to specific soil/site characteristics and other environmental factors.

For irrigated cane systems, improved irrigation efficiency and/or tail water recycle capacity should be a high priority to minimise environmental losses of nutrients, pesticides and soil. Activities supported should be tailored according to soil type, landscape position, and other risk factors. For rain-fed production systems, consideration should also be given to maintaining ground cover and reducing run-off through practices such as fallow cover maintenance, minimum/zero tillage, controlled traffic farming and improved farm layout.

The focus of actions to support more efficient pesticide usage/retention on-farm should be on training and extension to ensure compliance with current industry best practice.

Priority practices for this component are described in the following section.

Supporting innovation

A portion of the component funding for on-ground projects/incentives (up to 20 per cent) is available for innovation. Innovation may take two forms:

  • Funding for cane farmers to trial and/or validate highly innovative land management practices that have water quality and productivity benefits above and beyond current best practice. These ‘A-class’ practices, if validated, will become the ‘B-class’ practices of the future. This continual improvement in best practice is required to help meet the ambitious Reef 2050 Plan water quality targets. Proposed innovation projects will be evaluated by an independent technical panel to ensure funding is targeted to the highest priority practices, in the highest priority locations.
  • Funding for Delivery Partners to trial innovative approaches to communicating and engaging with cane farmers who would otherwise not participate in the component. An example of a current approach used by Canegrowers is the ‘Cane Tube’ You Tube competition for the best cane industry sustainability videos.

Outcomes sought

The number of cane farms to be engaged and the area of these farms will vary according to the nature of project proposals received from cane farmers in each region. An estimate of the area of cane area over which nutrient management should be improved is 150,000 ha, or approximately 1000 farms. These figures correspond to approximately 37 per cent of cane land and 30 per cent of cane farms.

The aim of this component is to reduce the annual average Reef-wide anthropogenic DIN load delivered to the Reef by 493 tons, or ten per cent. The funding available is $25 million over 3.5 years. This was calculated based on the average total cost estimate of DIN reductions achieved under Reef Rescue over all cane growing regions over five years. This is an ambitious target, as the rate of DIN reduction has declined markedly in the 2014 Reef Plan report card due to the ‘early wins/low hanging fruit’ already having been taken (for example the ‘early engager’ segment of the industry). This ambitious target is justified under this proposed component due to the much higher level of spatial, land manager and management practice targeting that will be used.

This component seeks to move cane farmers to more efficient and sustainable practices (i.e. more modern farming systems). For this reason it is expected that the component will have ongoing legacy in terms of pollutant load reductions beyond the 3.5 year component timeframe, as reversion to outdated or less efficient practices would be disadvantageous for growers who will have made significant cash and/or in-kind investment in their projects.