Helping growers see natural capital as an asset class, this project aims to understand attitudes towards collaborating across a regional scale using Natural Capital Accounting and natural asset companies. Conserving biodiversity, building resilience, strengthening regional communities, increased productivity, diversified income, and being rewarded by financial markets and investors are the potential benefits of supporting nature through their enterprises.

Through its education and workshop component, the project will identify knowledge gaps, perceptions of risk, perceptions towards nature repair, and the probability of integrating natural capital into farming businesses through collaboration as a group to form a company or cooperative structure. This will indicate the potential of a Natural Asset equity structure within a production landscape.

As a component of this project, Wheatbelt NRM will co-host a grower and stakeholder workshop during September 2024. More details will be available soon.

The project is one of six 18-month transformational agricultural projects, which were recently awarded a combined $1 million in grants from the South‐West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (SW WA Hub).

The SW WA Hub, led by the Grower Group Alliance and funded by the Australian Government’s $5 billion Future Drought Fund program, aims to improve the drought resilience and preparedness of local farmers and their communities, and foster agricultural innovation.

Led by UWA Associate Professor Ram Pandit, the research team includes Dr Fiona Dempster from the UWA Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, Edith Cowan University research fellow Dr Lizzy Lowe, Yaraguia Enterprises Director Oral McGuire, MobileGlobal Managing Director Tom Picton-Warlow, and external advisor Dr Ana Manero Ruiz.

Project partners include grower groups Mingenew Irwin Group, Southern Forests Food Council, Southern Rangelands Pastoral Alliance, Stirlings to Coast, and ASHEEP & BEEF, as well as Natural Resource Management (NRM) groups Wheatbelt NRM, South Coast NRM and South-West NRM.

Insights gained from this project will help industry make informed decisions around Natural Capital. Media release can be found here: https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2024/may/helping-growers-see-natural...