The final-year students are from China’s Yunnan Agricultural University, Thailand’s Maejo University and La Trobe University.
The project comprises field trips to south east Australia – inspecting farms from Deniliquin in New South Wales to Portland, and over the border into South Australia. This will be followed by two weeks of learning in China and Thailand, from 1 to 15 April.
Project co-ordinator, Associate Professor in Agricultural Sciences, Peter Sale, said the idea is to let students ‘see’ what is happening across our landscape, rather than try to describe things in lecture theatres.
‘They will learn about unique aspects of Australian agriculture, land use and some of our major sustainability problems. Students will work in small teams, share the learning experience and meet agriculturalists who will explain first-hand how and why things are done in certain ways.’
The program covers various themes, and these are compared across different regions, from temperate Australia, through sub-tropical Yunnan, to tropical Thailand.
The themes include new farming systems and technologies that deliver productivity gains, comparisons of how these are managed in each country; sustainability issues where agriculture is causing environmental problems; and how farmers are being helped to improved practices.
La Trobe University’s Department of Agricultural Sciences pioneered the scheme in 2000 with a visit to Papua New Guinea. This was followed by visits to Indonesia (2002), PNG (2004) and to Yunnan province in China in 2005 and 2006.
Funding support is being provided by the Victorian Committee of the Crawford Fund, the Australia-Thailand Institute, the Rotary Club of Balwyn, and the three universities involved.
The Australian project schedule and topics include:
Monday 26 March, Northern Irrigation Country – visiting northern Victorian Murray River irrigation districts; drought and the lack of water; extreme hardship for many farmers; salinity in the irrigation area; how we are managing salinity; fruit growing in this difficult environment; Staying at Deniliquin Monday night.
Tuesday 27 March, Southern Riverina – beef and lamb feedlots; managing dryland salinity; reclaiming saline land; Staying at Swan Hill Tuesday night.
Wednesday 28 March, Southern Malleee and Wimmera – farmer-led research in dryland cropping country; cropping farms with new No-Till farm machinery. Staying at Halls Gap Wednesday night.
Thursday 29 March, High Rainfall Grazing land – beef grazing property in south west Victoria; an intensive dairy farm with irrigation in South Australia; Staying at Portland Thursday night.
Friday 30 March, High rainfall grazing in south west Victoria – visit to an intensive prime lamb farm.
Friday, 23 March 2007 Agricultural science students on the move - the world is their classroom! Forty university students from China, Thailand and Australia will hit the road next week throughout rural Victoria in the most ambitious of La Trobe University’s innovative ‘Shared-Learning Projects in Agricultural Sciences’.