DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE SUGARCANE FARMING SYSTEMS COMBINING ECONOMIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS

The future of the Australian sugar industry in a global economy depends on achieving enhanced profitability, environmental sustainability and social responsibility, which together make up the ‘triple bottom line’. Future innovations in sugarcane farming systems should therefore have simultaneous benefits for production, conservation and the farming and wider community. A review of the development of Australian sugarcane production systems over recent decades reveals adoption of a number of innovations that satisfy all three criteria. These include green cane trash blanketing, legume fallows, trickle irrigation and trees for rat control. We suggest future innovations may emerge from a process of diagnosis of constraints on the sustainability of current farming systems and subsequent design of new systems to overcome these constraints. Incorporation into sugarcane farming systems of attributes that confer stability and persistence on natural ecosystems may provide a springboard to achieving triple bottom line outcomes to innovation. Integration of functions from forest ecosystems into farm enterprises could simultaneously provide valuable products, enhance sustainability and satisfy community expectations. Land-use options for sugarcane farming with potential to achieve this can be identified. Examples exist in the industry of growers beginning to experiment with these land-use options.