Farming For The Future Program Director
CurrentThe Macdoch Foundation seeks to address systemic challenges through a variety of interventions, including research in the areas of landscape regeneration, climate change solutions and rural and regional mental health and wellbeing. Farming for the Future (FftF) is one such research project.Farming for the Future (FftF) was initiated and seeded by the Macdoch Foundation in 2021 as a once-in-a-generation, world-leading research project undertaken in collaboration with Australian farmers and their trusted advisors. It seeks to build the business case for farmers to improve natural capital on productive landscapes, at scale. It aims to provide the data and tools to support a more financially prosperous, climate-resilient, and environmentally positive agriculture sector in Australia. What is the FftF Program’s core hypothesis?The key hypothesis of FftF is that agricultural producers can improve medium to long term farm productivity and profitability through managing natural capital as a factor of production. Why does this gap exist?The program views the reason these benefits have not yet been achieved as originating from the fact that natural capital has not been treated as a factor of production, it has rarely been measured, and it has almost never been explicitly incorporated into farm management on a broad scale. What is FFTF’s approach?FftF is focused on providing the evidence base, tools and resources for farmers to build more profitable and resilient businesses by actively managing their farms’ natural resources. It seeks to provide a mechanism, facilitated through partnership with farm advisory networks, which allows farmers to increase their awareness of the role of natural capital in farming systems and to move onto planning and implementation for integration of natural capital into their farm management.