How This Submission Responds To The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference

This submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry Into The Australian Government Rural Research and Development Corporations Model offers an insight into the workings of “Taxpayer-Funded Science” from the point of view of the primary producer in Agriculture, through the lens of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.
The Carbon Coalition’s submission addresses the following imperatives of the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry:
• The wider community benefits of RDC output – specifically the potential impact on global warming of widespread adoption of farming practices which result in soil carbon sequestration.
• The value of collaboration, not just across silos but also across stakeholder groups, such as farmers who are the ultimate customer of the scientific agencies and whose knowledge is discounted and ignored because it does not fit the format of formal Science.
• The value of RDC activities, both to the community and to levy-paying growers – and the proportion of funds invested which is wasted on projects that are either inappropriate or structurally flawed.

The Carbon Coalition’s submission reveals the following:
• How the generic structure of scientific inquiry and the management of the findings work against effective responses to urgent issues.
• How scientific objectivity has been abandoned in favour of approaches designed to control or suppress grassroots innovation.
• How effective solutions to climate change have been delayed and diverted from implementation by political activity conducted by some RDCs.
• How much of the investment in research is wasted because of methodological mistakes made because scientists are not necessarily good farmers, capable of reproducing on-farm conditions in their experiments.

The Coalition’s submission ends with the following recommendations:
1. That the current ‘top-down’ approach to innovation in agriculture be abandoned in favour of a more collaborative approach whereby farmers and scientists/agronomists seek knowledge from each other.
2. That farmers be incorporated into the processes of innovation as primary solution providers.
3. That farmers be incorporated into the processes of innovation as advisors on methodology for scientific studies.
4. That the funding for science be contingent on the degree of engagement of farmers in the processes.
5. That policy-makers be discouraged from outsourcing decision-making to ‘sound science’ if they have no way of assessing its soundness themselves.
6. That the Commonwealth levy a small amount from each soil carbon offset traded to go towards funding sound, independent and collaborative research into soil carbon.