Signposts for Australian Agriculture

What is Signposts?

The Signposts for Australian Agriculture (Signposts) project aimed to inform policy development by assessing and reporting on the environmental, economic and social contributions of Australian agricultural industries.

Signposts was designed to address the question - How does an agricultural industry contribute to ecologically sustainable development? The information has been used to:

• build industry credibility in environmental management
• address community concerns about industry practices
• identify priority issues and areas for action

Signposts was a collaborative project involving the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) and Research and Development Corporations (RDCs). The project was managed by the National Land & Water Resources Audit (the Audit).

What Signposts Can Do

Signposts provides Australian agricultural industries with tools to assess, illustrate and demonstrate how their activities contribute to ecologically sustainable development (ESD) in Australia.

Signposts developed the following products:

• a reporting framework including associated outcome statements and indicators on the environmental, economic and social contributions of Australian agricultural industries
• The "signposts for agriculture" website consisting of electronic profiles for the grains, meat, dairy, cotton, wine and horticulture industries based on the reporting framework
• reports summarising the contributions of individual industries
  Industry Pilot Report, Stage 3b (pdf - 668KB)

Governance

A reference group provides advice and endorsement of Signposts products and ensures they are relevant to government and industry policy. It is comprised of representatives from the Australian government (DAFF), state and territory governments, industry, RDCs, Australian Food and Grocery Council, regional bodies, the Audit Advisory Council and the Audit.

Stages

Summary information on the activities and outputs generated under each stage of Signposts
Signposts Activities and Outputs (pdf - 48KB).

Detailed information on the products developed at each stage of Signposts is available below:

Stage 4

Stage 4 involved the development of the framework and its population with data for the grains, beef, dairy, horticulture, wine and cotton industries. This stage produced:

• electronic profiles of six agricultural industries. A progress report by BRS includes a proposal for updating the framework, the current status of industry profiles and a stakeholder engagement plan for obtaining comments on the profiles
  BRR 48- Signposts Stage 4a, status report (pdf - 595KB) 
• hard copy assessments of six industries based on their electronic profiles. The assessments will demonstrate the relationship between land use, management practices and the achievement of ESD outcomes; the capacity of land managers to change management practices; the level of adoption of sustainable management practices; and the impact of government and industry initiatives on capacity to change and the adoption of sustainable management practices

Stage 3

Stage 3 involved the ongoing development of the framework and its population with data from the grains, beef, dairy and horticulture industries. This stage produced:

• electronic profiles of four agricultural industries. The final report by BRS includes background information on the framework, compares it with other reporting frameworks, and describes the development of the industry profiles and the consultation process
  Industry Profiles, Stage 3a (pdf - 1819KB)
• an initial assessment of the grains industry, piloting the use of the electronic profile as the basis for reporting. This report, by CIE, piloted an assessment of the contributions of agriculture to ESD 
  Industry Pilot Report, Stage 3b (pdf - 668KB)
• a review of the economic, social and biophysical components of the framework and associated management practices by ABS. It also identified available data for inclusion in the framework
    
• Signposts for Australian Agriculture, review of social components of the framework. A final report prepared for the Bureau of Rural Sciences
  Final Report (pdf - 254KB)

Stage 2

Stage 2 involved the review and development of the framework. This stage:

• produced a preliminary electronic profile for the grains industry
• refined the preliminary framework developed under Stage 1. A report by BRS identified the link between Signposts, program logic and the adoption of sustainable practices
  Stage 2a: Refinement of the Preliminary Framework (pdf - 658KB)
• reviewed the preliminary framework, the report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) provided recommendations on the economic and social components of the Signposts framework
  A Framework for Developing Economic and Social Indicators (pdf - 490KB)

Stage 1

Stage 1 involved the initial development of the framework in consultation with six RDCs. It also provided a generic framework to depict the contributions of agricultural industries to ecologically sustainable development. This stage produced:

• a preliminary framework for the collation of industry profiles
• a report by Land & Water Australia documented the extent to which RDCs were reporting on the contribution of their industries to ESD, including data availability and information needs.

Data Sources

Signposts uses existing datasets held by the Audit, DAFF, ABARE, BRS, ABS, states and territories, RDCs, the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) and other relevant sources.

Signposts includes information on indicators from the national NRM monitoring and evaluation framework.

Signposts also includes new available data from:

• ABS Census of Population and Housing 2006
• ABS Agricultural Census 2006
• ABS Natural Resource Management on Australian Farms survey 2004-05
• ABARE Resource Management Survey 2006
• Australian Soil Resource Information System (ASRIS) 2006 datasets
• National Landuse Maps of Australia 1992, 1994, 2001, 2003
   FarmBis

Related Activities

National Coordinated Industry Survey (NCIS)

The Audit funded this survey of land managers’ capacity to change and the level of adoption of key natural resource and business management practices. The survey was a supplement to the ABARE Farm Survey with the results to be inserted into the Signposts industry profiles and associated Audit reports.

The NCIS have been undertaken in June 2007 with results available between April/May 2008. A prospectus for this project is available
NCIS Prospectus (pdf - 486KB)

Spatial footprint

An important step in developing an industry profile is determining where the industry occurs in space. An industry ‘spatial footprint’ identifies the land held by an agricultural industry. ‘Held’ means land that is managed by an agricultural industry irrespective of the form of tenure. It includes more than the land under production at any particular time such as corridors of native vegetation. Knowing which land is held by an agricultural industry allows Signposts to convert much of the generic spatial data on natural resource condition to industry specific information.

A spatial footprint also enables information on the extent and condition of a natural asset to be conceptually linked with information on:

• the industry managing that asset
• their management practices
• their capacity to change
• the appropriate networks or channels to use in delivering government and industry initiatives.

The Audit worked with BRS and ABS to develop new techniques to map the spatial footprints of industries. An issues paper which documents the methods used to generate spatial footprints and provides recommendations for future refinements is currently in progress.

National monitoring and evaluation framework indicators

The socio-economic indicators and protocols for the national NRM monitoring and evaluation framework have been used in Signposts. For more information refer to other areas of thematic activity.

Assessing contributions of food value chain

Stage 5 of the Signposts project assessed the feasibility of extending the Signposts framework beyond the primary production sector. A report by the BRS assessing the food value chain includes a case study for the baking and confectionery industry.
Assessing the Environmental Performance of the Food Value Chain (pdf - 751KB)

Business Management Practices

Stage 6 of the Signposts project identified key business management practices for inclusion in Signposts.

Audit Related Publications