Project Catalyst: Great Barrier Reef Sustainable Freshwater Revitilization Program
Company : The Coca-Cola Foundation
Groups : Reef Catchments (local natural resource management group); other natural resource management groups; WWF; sugarcane farmers located in the Mackay Whitsunday, Burdekin, and Wet Tropics regions; state of Queensland and commonwealth of Australia agencies.
Australia is the third largest global exporter of sugar. It produces 4 to 5 million tons of raw sugar annually from a farmland base of over 500,000 hectares along the Northeastern coast of New South Wales up through Queensland. Agrochemical (fertilizer and pesticide) runoff from sugarcane farms in Queensland significantly impacts the health of the Great Barrier Reef. The Reef, a World Heritage Area, is the world's largest living organism comprised of nearly 3,000 distinct reef structures. To conserve the Great Barrier Reef and foster innovative, sustainable approaches to sugarcane farming, The Coca-Cola Foundation, WWF, and Reef Catchments NRM created Project Catalyst
In Australia, Project Catalyst’s focus on innovation provides the missing piece to state and federal programs that aim to increase adoption of improved management practices. The project is ‘grower led’ and targets innovative farmers (termed A-Class growers) who have developed cutting-edge practices and require financial and risk management support to successfully trial them. This work aims to assess the economic, productivity and resource management implications of the A-Class practices. Through the project, the landholders receive direct support from agricultural consultants to design and implement precision agriculture practices and pilot an innovative practice. Furthermore, the project delivers proven results through ecosystem health monitoring and landscape research pertaining to natural resource improvement.
Project Catalyst is a five-year program. Each year the intent is to increase the number of sugarcane growers; first in the Great Barrier Reef then aiming to extend to Asia, Africa and South America. In 2009, the initiative achieved every benchmark, including contributing to the longer-term goal of economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef catchments and the Reef. In 2010, the project nearly tripled from 19 original cane growers to 53, covering in excess of 15,000 hectares of farmland.
Project Catalyst Growers have a dedicated support team of experts in the following fields: precision agriculture, water quality monitoring and modelling, economics, and communication. This support team has established monitoring systems specifically designed to validate innovative management practices being tested by growers in each region. With the support of a precision agriculture specialist, each grower develops a precision plan and makes a commitment to achieve best management practices and become involved in the identification and validation of innovative management. Across three regions Project Catalyst growers are validating 6 nutrient management practices, 7 chemical management activities, 17 soil management activities, and 5 irrigation activities. While all of these activities have an economics component there are also 4 economic specific activities that are investigating the business and data management aspects of innovation.
To validate water quality attributes, Project Catalyst is linked closely with the Paddock to Reef Monitoring Modelling, Evaluation and Reporting Program (Paddock to Reef Program). The Paddock to Reef Program has established monitoring sites which show that A-Class (innovative) and B-Class (best practice) management results in improved soil nutrient and herbicide losses from fields. By improving management practices the 53 Project Catalyst land managers have improved water quality of more than 77,500 ML of runoff and drainage water and provided the following annual load reductions to the Great Barrier Reef: 55 tons/yr of Particulate Nitrogen; 26 tons/yr of Phosphorous; 48 tons/yr of Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN); 10 tons/yr of Filterable Reactive Phosphorus (FRP); 420kg/yr of Herbicide.
Communication is also a key part of the Project Catalyst Activities. Communication materials (including newsletters, case studies and a website) have been developed to showcase the project and enable other sugarcane producing regions around the world to implement complementary projects, fostering industry wide knowledge and capitalizing on learnings to date.
The success of Project Catalyst has resulted in several awards, including the national Banksia Environmental Award and Queensland Premier's Sustainable Partnership Award in Brisbane.
