With a veterinarian father, Dr Matt Champness' earliest memories are of spending time counting cattle while he preg-tested in western NSW before the family later moved to South West Victoria.
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Dr Champness comes from a long line of farmers, with both sides of his family having farmed for several generations across the eastern seaboard.
So, it is little wonder he chose to study agricultural science at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga.
"Whilst Mum and Dad weren't farmers, I always loved spending school holidays on my grandparent's farm in Central West NSW," Dr Champness said.
"After finishing school, I was initially unsure what to do, so I took a gap year working on farms and in natural resource management and then decided to head off to CSU."
The seed was planted for Dr Champness to pursue international agricultural research and development during his third year at university when he was selected to participate in a Syngenta Connections trip to Vietnam, which linked students from across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.
"This was my first exposure to smallholder farming and the challenges they face," he said.
"As I neared the end of my fourth year, I was once again unsure which path to take, with many agronomy and livestock consulting opportunities presented.
"One of my lecturers told me of a volunteer opportunity in Laos, working in rice.
"At the time, I didn't know much about rice, nor exactly where Laos was, but I thought it was the most 'out of the box' opportunity I had been offered, so I jumped at it."
Dr Champness' passion for improving water efficiency, farm productivity and environmental outcomes has led to him working on innovative local-scale agronomy projects in South East Asia, the Pacific, and Africa, assisting smallholder farmers in adopting automated irrigation technologies and mechanised weed control for direct-seeded rice growers.
"Globally, rice cultivation is responsible for 12 per cent of anthropogenic methane emissions, equivalent to 1.5pc of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with this percentage even higher in Asia, where rice is a significant agricultural product," he said.
"The nature of this problem is linked to anaerobic conditions resulting from submerged paddy fields during its cultivation.
"Periodic draining of flooded rice fields by way of mid-season drainage or alternate wetting and drying (AWD) can reduce methane emissions by 50pc and significantly reduce water use.
"Given the growing water scarcity issues faced by major rice-growing regions, many countries are looking for support to assist with adopting water-saving, low-methane rice to help meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the Global Methane Pledge.
"My work with the World Bank Group and United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation has been to assist in creating resources and frameworks to assist countries and projects with measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions at scale to quantify GHG emissions and demonstrate emission reduction from practices such as AWD.
"This work has also looked into green financing alternatives to incentivise the adoption of water-saving, low-methane rice."
As well as managing his own consulting business working on United Nations-funded projects, Dr Champness works part-time for the North Coast Local Land Services.
He has applied his PhD research focused on water-saving aerobic rice production and automated gravity surface irrigation systems conducted on commercial farms in the Riverina to his new role.
"During COVID-19, I undertook a PhD based at Griffith in the Riverina focused on determining the most appropriate irrigation schedule for non-ponded/aerobic rice and maximise water productivity," he said.
"This work also focussed on developing automated irrigation systems to enable water changes to occur at any day or night - all controlled via the web, saving significant labour.
"After recently moving away from the Riverina to the North Coast, I am now using the specific learnings and outcomes from this research in my role as a senior agricultural advisor with LLS to build capacity and knowledge regarding water budgeting and irrigation scheduling to northern rivers rice growers and more broadly to creating resources and facilitating extension activities to assist landholders with drought planning and preparedness across the state of NSW."
Based on his experience working abroad and in Australia, Dr Champness believes "farmers are farmers" regardless of whether they are wealthy or poverty-stricken.
"They are all at the peril of environmental conditions and global markets," he said.
"They are innovative and willing to adapt to new practices to meet their needs and goals - be it family food security, maximising production returns or enhancing biodiversity.
"Some farmers have a greater risk appetite to change practices than others, depending on the negative consequence risk (e.g., being unable to feed the family). However, they are willing to learn, share experiences and try new things to some degree.
"The biggest similarity when it comes to adopting new techniques or practices is the need to look over the fence and talk things through with an early adopter.
"In development and extension in Australia and abroad, a strong focus has to be on building trust with these farmers and being there for the whole journey to support and guide practice change."
Dr Champness said working with poor farmers was challenging yet incredibly rewarding.
"Small changes to practices to become more efficient - be it labour, productivity or profitability - can have an immense impact on livelihoods to alleviate food insecurity and poverty or enable excess money to be put towards educating their children," he said.
His most memorable experience came when working in Laos.
He returned to a farm where he had worked three years before to see if the farmer continued using the inter-row weed cultivator he and his team had developed.
"Upon arrival, he recognised me as the (roughly translated) 'crazy foreign rice guy' and proceeded to tell me the implement I developed wore out quickly and was no good," he said.
"He then led me to his shed and showed me how he had modified my original design to make it more robust with greater longevity.
"The farmer explained how his wife thinks the rice is now 'more beautiful' than before, and his wife spends less time hand weeding, so she is happy.
"However, he instead had to do the weeding, at least now in a more mechanised and efficient manner."
Hayley Warden
Hayley Warden is a digital journalist with ACM Agri based on the NSW South Coast.
Hayley Warden is a digital journalist with ACM Agri based on the NSW South Coast.
