The Country 15/09/25: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

We talk to a primary sector academic who’s heading to an FAO UN Conference in Rome. We also discuss Dr Mike Joy on nitrates and removing agriculture from the school curriculum. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She is one of our leading primary sector academics, and
she's off to Rome in a couple of weeks to
represent us at the Food and Agriculture Organization United Nations conference.
Jack will and Roath or doctor Jackwell and Rowath. But
you're paying your own way.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah, this is an invitation, and I just thought the
best thing to do is accept it. Because I'm part
of the World Farmers Organizations Scientific Council. We were asked,
is anybody prepared to be there and put forward various stances,
And I will be talking about sustainable livestock, not just theiry,

(00:36):
not just sheep deer, all of it, just how we
approach it. And I will be doing it of course
from get the feed production right and that means soils
and fertilizers. And it will be really interesting because remember
an awful lot of the countries that belong to the
United Nations do not come from developed countries. They're going

(00:56):
to be talking about subsistence agriculture. Going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, if Dr Mark joy Head's way, we'd have subsistence agriculture.
Jacquillan in this country.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
You do have a point, you do, but we keep
trying to explain the realities, and sometimes it falls on
deaf fears. Probably there's been quite a lot of funding
behind all sorts of things, including dairy and light rates
and quater quality, and people are reluctant to lose funding streams.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Why don't we just have come by ours that around
the table, gather all the scientists from either side of
the argument together and try and reach an agreeable solution.
Surely science only has one answer.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, science is constantly developing, and we get new information
partly because of new techniques. Some of them might be
the web, you know, getting access to information from other countries.
Some of them might be because the GCMs, the measurement
techniques change. So where we have open mind, a good
scientist has an open mind about new information, and I

(02:05):
when somebody says I think you're wrong, I say, oh gosh,
which part and have another look? Or they say could
this be interpreted in this way? And we have a
discussion about the interpretation. But the meetings have been tried
several times, and I've been involved in them with activists,
with lobbyists on different campuses, in different roles, and it's

(02:30):
not what they want to hear. So we've tried, and
we received a block from some people, and it makes
it really difficult to proceed.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Did doctor Mike Joy get the boot from Messi University
when he went to Victoria or did he go of
his own? He very well, yep.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
He had a position offered that he thought would be
more independent. It wasn't in the classroom, it was with
a separate institute, and he chose to go work at
Victoria rather than Massie. So that was fine because he
was able to do what he wanted to do. The

(03:08):
question is is some of what he's doing good for
the country? And we have to keep asking that question.
We ask it of ourselves. I ask it of myself
as a scientist. What can I do with fertilizer to
make it sure it's in the right place, you know that?
And into the plant and into the animal, all of
those sorts of things. Trying to make sure that we
have the best possible evidence and are interpreting it in

(03:31):
the best possible way.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Can I just finish on education, especially egg education. What
do you make of the government's move to remove some
egg and science hot and science courses out of the
school curriculum. Surely this isn't a smart move.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think the pendulum might be swinging a bit far,
and we do need to be making adjustments to the
thinking around agriculture and horticulture, or just talk about food
food production a bit more sensibly. It always, in my view,
needs to be built on first principles, and that is bilology, physics, chemistry.

(04:09):
It should be set within social aspects. And I like
when talking about the Simple's model, I was there right
at the beginning when Peter Hampton started this, and it's
not being taken over by Kerry Allen, is that the
issue was that agriculture and horticulture wasn't being taught throughout

(04:30):
the curriculum. And what tended to happen is that people
that might have done science and learned about photosynce this
for instance in tomatoes or rye graphs, were then doing
ag instead. It creates a bit of a problem when
at university you actually want to study agricultural science because
some of the basics have been done earlier without being

(04:52):
able to set in context in quite the same more
life experience way. So I wouldn't have done exactly see
what has been done, but I will be very interested
to see what the teachers come back with the submissions
closed today, I gather and when I look at some
of the other subjects that have been routed, I do

(05:13):
think that those are sports people having their interview with
all that surfing going on behind was looked very jolly.
Was it actually an academic subject?

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Perhaps not. Doctor Jackel n Rollis will catch you in
a couple of weeks in Rome. Safe travels.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Thanks a lot, Jomie