Wednesday 23nd November 2016 - Conference
Welcome and opening
Welcome from SRA-ANZ president - Naomi Cogger
Naomi has been involved with the SRA-ANZ since the first meeting in 2006 and has
served on the Executive committee from 2008 to 2010. Her research in the area of biosecurity has included projects with government and private sector agencies in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain. She also teaches risk analysis and worked with the Australian Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis to develop an online course in risk and decision making for postgraduate students in 2010.
Naomi is the current President of SRA-ANZ. You can find out more about her here.
served on the Executive committee from 2008 to 2010. Her research in the area of biosecurity has included projects with government and private sector agencies in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain. She also teaches risk analysis and worked with the Australian Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis to develop an online course in risk and decision making for postgraduate students in 2010.
Naomi is the current President of SRA-ANZ. You can find out more about her here.
Welcome from VC Central Queensland University - Scott Bowman
Who better to deliver the official welcome to our conference on Engaging Risk than Professor Scott Bowman, Vice-Chancellor and President of Central Queensland University. From an early career as a radiographer in the UK, Scott has reinvigorated a regional university with a strategy of 'strong to great through community engagement'. He successfully managing the risks of a merger with Central Queensland TAFE to create Queensland's first dual sector university.
Scott is an inspiring and engaged speaker. Check out his blog and follow him on twitter.
Scott is an inspiring and engaged speaker. Check out his blog and follow him on twitter.
Welcome from SRA President - James Lambert
James H. Lambert has served on the faculty of the University of Virginia since 1996. He is the President-Elect of the Society for Risk Analysis (www.sra.org). He is an author/coauthor of journal papers, book chapters, and conference proceedings addressing risk analysis and systems engineering.
He has taught at the graduate and undergraduate level courses including multiobjective optimization, e-commerce systems evaluation, systems testing and reliability, integrated risk management, and systems integration. He has presented at numerous workshops and short courses and international conferences.
You can find out more information on Jim here.
He has taught at the graduate and undergraduate level courses including multiobjective optimization, e-commerce systems evaluation, systems testing and reliability, integrated risk management, and systems integration. He has presented at numerous workshops and short courses and international conferences.
You can find out more information on Jim here.
Indirect risks from the growing divide between farmers and consumers
Keynote from Professor David Swain
Agriculture emerged as a way for hunter-gatherer communities to provide food security. Rather than hunting to procure a lump of meat it made much more sense to keep a food-producing animal to provide readily accessible and nourishing meals. David and Marcia Pimentel in their book ‘Food, Energy and Society’ (2007) show how the increasing amounts of nutritional energy for human diets from agriculture lead to a progression in community structures. With the progression and refinement of farming practices, the majority of people in industrialised nations have nothing to do with producing their food.
The success of modern farming has been achieved through some important innovations. Plant and animal breeding have provided a diversity of crops and animals that are both more efficient and can be specifically selected for adaptation to local conditions. Early farming practices were developed so that there were sustainable ways to manage nutrients, pests and diseases. There were also a number of engineering innovations such as irrigation that enabled more food to be produced. The most recent and single greatest factor that has led to intensive agriculture has been the introduction of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provide an abundant energy source that can be used in fertilisers, agrochemicals and machinery.
Modern farmers are able to grow more food with less people. A by-product of the intensification of farming is an increase in monocultures (farms that only produce one or two types of crops or food producing domestic animal). Single genotypes are the easiest to manage with limited labour and provide the greatest production opportunities from intensification.
Ecologists have studied stability and risks in natural ecosystems and the underlying knowledge points towards catastrophic failure when ecological feedback loops get broken. Rowley-Conwy and Layton (2011) explored the importance of ecological status and the links to foraging and farming systems. They identified stable and unstable adaptations in farming systems and conclude that modern farming is not an effective strategy to reduce demographic or political risk in farming populations. This paper explores how we might better understand the growing social disconnection between farmers and consumers and how this might inform our understanding of the risks of maintaining food security.
Biography
Professor David Swain's research activities are focussed on the behavioural ecology of livestock in extensive production systems. In particular his work aims to obtain a more complete picture of how behavioural strategies are used to overcome resource limitations. Understanding the link between environmental drivers and evolutionary derived behaviours will enable management intervention to compliment innate livestock behavioural preferences.
Agriculture emerged as a way for hunter-gatherer communities to provide food security. Rather than hunting to procure a lump of meat it made much more sense to keep a food-producing animal to provide readily accessible and nourishing meals. David and Marcia Pimentel in their book ‘Food, Energy and Society’ (2007) show how the increasing amounts of nutritional energy for human diets from agriculture lead to a progression in community structures. With the progression and refinement of farming practices, the majority of people in industrialised nations have nothing to do with producing their food.
The success of modern farming has been achieved through some important innovations. Plant and animal breeding have provided a diversity of crops and animals that are both more efficient and can be specifically selected for adaptation to local conditions. Early farming practices were developed so that there were sustainable ways to manage nutrients, pests and diseases. There were also a number of engineering innovations such as irrigation that enabled more food to be produced. The most recent and single greatest factor that has led to intensive agriculture has been the introduction of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provide an abundant energy source that can be used in fertilisers, agrochemicals and machinery.
Modern farmers are able to grow more food with less people. A by-product of the intensification of farming is an increase in monocultures (farms that only produce one or two types of crops or food producing domestic animal). Single genotypes are the easiest to manage with limited labour and provide the greatest production opportunities from intensification.
Ecologists have studied stability and risks in natural ecosystems and the underlying knowledge points towards catastrophic failure when ecological feedback loops get broken. Rowley-Conwy and Layton (2011) explored the importance of ecological status and the links to foraging and farming systems. They identified stable and unstable adaptations in farming systems and conclude that modern farming is not an effective strategy to reduce demographic or political risk in farming populations. This paper explores how we might better understand the growing social disconnection between farmers and consumers and how this might inform our understanding of the risks of maintaining food security.
Biography
Professor David Swain's research activities are focussed on the behavioural ecology of livestock in extensive production systems. In particular his work aims to obtain a more complete picture of how behavioural strategies are used to overcome resource limitations. Understanding the link between environmental drivers and evolutionary derived behaviours will enable management intervention to compliment innate livestock behavioural preferences.
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