If I was starting a career in agriculture over again, Australia is the place I would go to prepare for it.

Why?

One good reason is Richard Stirzaker, author of “Out of the Scientist’s Garden: A Story of Water and Food” (CSIRO Publishing, 2010, 193 pp.). Expert gardener, tinkerer, educator, raconteur and, Senior Research Fellow at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, Australia, Stirzaker melds the rigor of scientific thinking with a profound understanding of scale and problem solving as it affects how we feed ourselves. Stirzaker invites us to ponder the meaning of hard-to-pin-down words like “sustainable” that have ambushed the lexicon of agricultural scientists and emissaries of development (now pivoting to “climate smart^®“). What exactly is the template for sustainable agriculture in a world expected to reach a human population of 9+ billion by 2050? Continue reading