Operationalising soil security by making soil data useful: Digital soil mapping, assessment and return-on-investment

Abstract

Farmer decision making about soil constraint management in eastern Australia has not changed greatly since the 1970s and major yield gaps exist. Limited capital tended to be used for purchase and clearing of native vegetation on new land, rather than improvement of land already cleared. Incentives did not exist for natural capital outcomes. But farmers and their advisers now have access to approaches that comprehensively measure and digitally map key soil factors throughout the root-zone of crops, map grain yields and compare the results with modelled data to provide an estimate of yield gaps and financial losses. To encourage environmental stewardship, it is likely that farmers will have the opportunity to be rewarded for environmental services through payable credits and/or offsets via commercial environmental markets. Success of such evaluations and markets cannot be assured without clear demonstration of the economic value of on-farm soil data. An important initial step is to consider the cost of comprehensive and accurate soil assessment and management as an up-front capital investment, rather than the tradition of regarding it as an annual cost. This study demonstrates that soil constraints potentially can be regarded from now on as economic opportunities through the use of accurate soil testing and variable rate management. Productivity improvements raise annual returns because of increases in grain yield, and also can boost land values following successful soil assessment and amelioration. Theory associated with the global Soil Security Framework is shown to be compatible with the ROI approach developed here.

Keywords

• Soil condition
• Soil capability
• Soil constraints
• Soil health
• Soil quality
• Ecosystem services