Provocations Public Lecture

Nature-based solutions for future farming

Date: Wednesday, 20 August

Time: 6 pm. The public lecture will take place from 6 pm to 7 pm.

This online lecture is free to attend.

Abstract

Why is the world so green? When we visualise terrestrial ecosystems, green vegetation dominates to such an extent that we take it for granted.

Even in many urban settings, the Earth's surface, aside from areas covered by snow, ice, or desert sands, is a carpet of green. This greenery is an expression of the abundance of chlorophyll in the photosynthetic tissues of plants. Yet, this presents a profound paradox: green plant tissue is highly nutritious, so why is there so much of it? Why isn’t it all simply devoured by hungry herbivores, everything from caterpillars to antelopes?

Exploring this enigma offers powerful, useful insights into how to better protect the crops we cultivate. Whether it is wheat in Australia's grain belt, rice in the paddies of Asia, or sweet potato on the hillsides of Papua New Guinea, learning from nature can help us protect these crops from voracious pests—and reduce our reliance on pesticides.

Two factors explain why our planet remains so green. First, plants are far better at defending themselves than we might imagine. Plants may armour their foliage with hairs, spikes, or tough waxy cuticles. And internally, their tissues may be protected by defensive chemicals to deter hungry mouths. Second, plants have powerful allies—natural enemies of herbivores that help keep those populations in check. These allies include spiders, parasitic wasps, and even insect-killing fungi. Together, they prevent herbivores from becoming so abundant that they strip the world bare of greenery.

This talk will illustrate how researchers at Charles Sturt University are networking internationally to develop and apply nature-based solutions to protect crops, enhancing plants’ natural defences and boosting the impact of enemies of pests. Already, these approaches are having real-world impacts and delivering cascading benefits for pollination and on-farm biodiversity conservation. Oh, and farmer profits are enhanced too!

Speaker 

Distinguished Professor Geoff Gurr
Distinguished Professor Gurr is a British-trained ecologist with a PhD from Imperial and postdoctoral experience at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in Cambridge.

Since migrating to Australia, he has worked at the universities of Melbourne, New England, Sydney and Charles Sturt. His research over the last three decades has focused on nature-based solutions to harmonise agriculture with the environment, which has been supported by grants with a combined value of over $28 million. This has involved extensive international collaboration, including visiting professor positions at Lincoln University in New Zealand, Zhejiang University and Fujian Agriculture & Forestry University in China, where his work has been supported by a prestigious 'Thousand Talents' fellowship. He has successfully supervised 44 PhD and MPhil students and published over 450 papers, which have earned a place in Stanford University's "World's Top 2% Scientists" list.

The Provocations Public Lecture is co-hosted by the Royal Society of New South Wales (Western Branch) and Charles Sturt University.