European-style agricultural practices must change to avoid accelerating degradation of the Australian landscape, according to CSIRO Land and Water scientist Dr John Williams.

Dr Williams said while farmers are well aware of problems facing the Murray-Darling system, there needs to be a government and community wake-up to recognise the magnitude of the problem and realise Australia must adapt its core agricultural production techniques to suit the native landscape.

‘Some of Australia’s core agriculture such as the wool industry and cereal cropping may become a thing of the past within the next 40 years, if we are to combat the salinity threat facing our rivers and water supplies,’ Dr Williams said.

Persisting with current land use for large areas of the Australian landscape is the road to suicide, and business as usual is not on.’

Dr Williams is one of 24 speakers who will present findings at a national Soil Science Symposium in Adelaide on November 11 and 12.

Fixing the Foundations: A National Symposium on the Role of Science in Sustainable Land and Water Management will address key symptoms of Australia’s landscape and water problems.

'Soil science in the past has been about agricultural productivity — today we have to balance this with a focus on the sustainability of the landscape and river systems rather than pass the problems on to the next generation of farmers and Australians,’ Dr Williams said.

The conference aims to redirect soil science to underpin new land uses and farming systems and to build these with the farming community.’

He said the recent release of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission salinity audit should be taken extremely seriously if Australia’s water and landscape are to survive into the 21st Century.

‘Salinity is just one area of the Australian landscape that needs repair. ‘We must fix the foundations for the future now, with farmers, policy makers and land care groups addressing the need to build new land uses and repair our current landscape as a whole. Our main objective is to look at how the native landscape carried and diverted water, and ensure our agricultural practices mirror this for the sustainability and health of our environment.’

Dr Williams said at the moment the wool industry uses a lot of annuals and shallow-rooted pasture which leak into ground water and mobilise salt.

‘Irrigated cropping and the dairy industry also leach too much nutrient into the river system, which leads to an overload of phosphorous and nitrogen and recurrent algal blooms,’ he said. ‘In addition, movement of pesticides and heavy metal fertilisers into the river system further degrades the quality of our environment.’

The Soil Science Symposium will be held at the South Australian Research and Development Institute, University of Adelaide, Waite Campus.

For more details about the conference, telephone (02) 6247 5777 or visit the web site at: http://www.science.org.au/soil.htm