Unknown Speaker 0:03 So welcome everybody. This is the rural and remote health and the food, soil and water security streams, Unknown Speaker 0:10 we're doing those two things together. My name is John Whiteman. I'm a health services researcher, Unknown Speaker 0:16 I work for the Menzies School of Health Research here in in our springs. Firstly, I just like to acknowledge the traditional owners, the central r&d people where we are now and acknowledge their leaders past and present. And also acknowledge the traditional lands on which all of you are located around the country, and also acknowledge all the First Nations participants in this in this session. So today, we've got a number of presentations, then a panel discussion at the end. If you do have questions, please put your questions in writing in the in the chat room. And my colleague, Supriya Matthew, is also going to be keeping time, we'll moderate those questions, and we'll put them to the panel at the end. So you just think about those questions as we go, that would be really good. We've got two two broad objectives for the session this afternoon. The first is to identify potential theme rich research priorities through these presentations and the panel discussion. So if there are some priorities that come out of this that you think we should be focusing on, please highlight those for us. The second broad objective is to facilitate networking with researchers with common interest in these themes. So you'll be able to interact a little bit through the session, not too not too much to go with the technology. But if you want to contact anybody that you come across in the chat room, please go ahead. And also the conference will be it will be producing a list of participants so that you're able to track people down. So without any further introduction, are allowed to introduce door Marinova. And door is a professor of sustainability at the Curtin University sustainability policy institute, where she teaches and conducts research related to food and planetary health. She has an impressive 430 publications, including two best in the world books, successfully supervised, certainly PhD students. And her talk certainly is entitled, generation Zed and food preferences. Thank you, Dora. Unknown Speaker 2:54 Thanks for the introduction. Can you see my screen now? Yes. Okay, so I'm on water Nanga land, in, in West in Western Australia. And I respect respectfully acknowledge the custodians of the land. So I'm talking about generations that and therefore preferences, and I'm wondering whether anybody from the audience belongs to generations that I certainly don't. So these are people who are born between 1995 and 2010. And the work is conducted with a colleague of mine, Deanna? Deanna Bhagavan. So what we are doing, we are looking at the problems of food from various perspectives. We're looking at the food systems, the way they're designed, what is the environmental impact of food? What are the health impacts of the food that we consume, as well as issues related to food security, but there are also many other aspects that you can link to our essential need need, need a food. All this slide is very busy. But the only thing that I want you to see is that the latest estimates of the contribution of food systems to global greenhouse gas emissions up to 34% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. So that was in a paper published earlier this year in nature, a previous paper put them at 26% because it did not include what happens after we buy the food that he that, that even other estimates that show that the environmental and greenhouse gas emissions footprint of the food is enormous. However, this issue is often lost in the discussions and we just finished cop 2026 and the cow in the room was not at the forefront, and a lot of the things that were the problems that we face around food and the implications of food It is in relation to our dependency on animal based food products. And this is an area where behaviour change is so essential. So what we're doing in this study is we actually looking at generation Zed, because this happens to be the largest generation in Australia and worldwide. It's 30% of global population and 20% of Australia's population. And they're very well connected, very tech savvy. And they are very much campaigning around climate change and other social causes, as you well know about the climate strikes and Greta, turn Berg and Malala and all this, that generations that has been so actively engaged in. So they want their voices to be heard. And they are ultimately going to make the decision what's going to happen with our food choices. So what we did, we conducted two surveys in Australia, one was with a focus on climate change, the other one was specific, specifically on food. And we looked at adult generations that that means that people who have turned, turned 18, rather than the 10, the 11 year olds sell that in the climate in the climate change survey. Unknown Speaker 6:34 We asked the questions, what are the main contributors to climate change, because as we know, generations that is pretty well. It's a digital native, they know a lot. And we allowed multiple choices. We saw 85% of them said that anything to do with energy is the biggest contributor. There was deforestation and destruction of the natural environment. And food came at 38%. So out of old paper, probably about 180 from the sample said that that food is a contributor, or one of the main contributors to climate change, then we asked Is everybody is human diet contributing to climate change. And we were absolutely shocked to find out that more than 55% responded negatively. So they said Now it doesn't matter what our food choices are, you know, climate change is independent. It's obviously linked to energy, but it and biodiversity, but it's not linked to our food choices. And this is in a situation where all scientific evidence tells us that it is such a big contributor. The second survey was was looking specifically at new alternatives to animal based products, because all evidence that we have from consultancies, companies such as currently shows that we are moving away from conventional meat towards plant based replacements cultured meat and, and insects and another another food choices. So the responses were, again, among generation Australia generation said the 28% were happy, acceptable of cultured or lab grown made the plant based alternatives, but against cultured meat and edible insects with 35%. Quite a big chunk. There was a very small percentage that we're accepting insects, despite the fact that insects have been traditionally eaten in many cultures. There were many against all meat alternatives and wanting to give the current that and there were 11% that were saying, well, we can just stick to traditional vegetarian and vegan diets which is more or less in line with the share of valiance that are vegan, then we asked and vegetarian then we asked what will make you change your behaviour. So sustainability came very high. On the on the factors, resource depletion and health were the three main reasons why Gen, Zed would actually embrace alternatives to animal based animal based products. So what are the what are the conclusions from from the from the two studies, general generations that will define the future food by sheer numbers by the fact that they're upcoming consumers, but we need to educate them as to water, the implications of the food choices that we make every day with every meal. And the other thing that came very, very strong is that they really want to know what is behind the the new food alternatives that are coming on. The market they want there to be transparent and that transparency is essential to influence their food choices. Thank you. Unknown Speaker 10:10 Thank you. Dora was great. Right, just keep moving to next. Unknown Speaker 10:15 I need to stop sharing. Yes. Did I manage to do that? Yes, thank you. Thank Unknown Speaker 10:22 you. The next presentation is a pre recorded presentation from Mr. Austin. Austin is a researcher working at the Centre for water climate land, University of Newcastle, New South Wales. And our talk is entitled, drought related stress month farmers during the Millennium drought. Good morning. Unknown Speaker 10:42 Thank you for the opportunity to provide a pre recorded presentation about the delivery of safe drinking water and effective sanitation or surge management in remote indigenous communities. And I'm presenting from a publication with my UQ colleagues Amanda Lee, Wendy Coy and Sandra crema. And I recognise that I'm sitting here on Jaeger and trouble country in it Mandarin, also known as Brisbane, and I pay my respects to elder's past, present and emerging. So, very briefly, I want to talk about the human right to water and sanitation, and its delivery and the importance of its delivery in Australia, especially. Because we know, this is completely linked with the provision of good health and well being. remote communities are geographically diverse, culturally diverse, they're what sources of water for drinking and treatment for treatment and drinking are diverse. Yet, we also know that the burden of disease is incredibly high, disproportionately high in remote communities. And there are a lot of preventable diseases that are linked to water, sanitation and hygiene. So it's a focus, that's incredibly important. But there's so many challenges. And on screen, we can see a quote about palatability and whether people actually want to drink it, but also about potability. And the challenges of monitoring the range of contamination from biological to to industrial to chemical, there the issue of appropriate training and support for on ground water operators. And then that palatability dimension of whether people actually want to drink the water and what they turn to, if their preferences is, is otherwise. And similarly in sanitation or surgery management. We have a whole range of technologies being installed, but not necessarily appropriate for the context for the location climatically for the training level of staff, or for the actual usage of it. And and there's a whole range of challenges, again, with monitoring, but also inappropriateness of technology, but also about unintended consequences, such as other outlets for waste management and the sewage system being used as a de facto waste option. But this presentation has five enablers. It's a positive presentation about five important dimensions, and I'll go through them very briefly. So firstly, we've got to think about the people factor. Are there on ground operators will support it? Was there training on the equipment that they're actually using in community? And when they engage with head office or other agencies? Or are they engaging with people who actually are bringing cultural competency and sensitivity to the interactions? Secondly, is there collaboration happening is it enabled a lot of government agencies often to collaborate easily with their counterparts in other agencies. But there are some great examples of when this has happened. It's efficient, it completes the picture of all the dimensions that need to be considered. And we've got the New South Wales and the Torres Strait examples on screen. Thirdly, really crucial, the technology that is installed, it needs to be considering three dimensions, the place in which it's going to be located. What is the climatic dimension? What is exposed to what's the purpose? Is it about preventing biological contamination or treating chemical contamination? And who are the people and what is their training? Who are going to be operating it and how are they supported? Falsely funding, we have this situation in Queensland, where the indigenous councils are actually set up under a different structure, not local government structure, but the deed of grant interest structure. So they do not have a consistent funding base. They do not have a rate space, they are reliant on grants. And there are other ad hoc schemes that exist and yet this delivery of essential services needs sufficient funding for for for sustainable outcomes. And finally, thinking how can you systems approach to identify any unintended consequences. On screen here, we've got a water reservoir in one of the outer islands in the Torres Strait. It was intended to be clean drinking water, and covered to prevent evapo transpiration. But what was not considered in the system was the the arrival of a whole range of migratory birds over different seasons, who then have contaminated the water with their faecal output, and so had to rethink the whole storage and treatment of this water. Unknown Speaker 15:36 So just to close on, on quotes, that are from the implementation one is about this is this is about supporting people to live on country, traditional country, and having equivalent standards to the city, that all people in Australia should be able to turn on the tap and have a safe drink of water and to be able to have bathroom facilities that mean there's a separation between human contact and faecal waste. It's not always the case, but it should be. And Australia is a signatory to the sustainable development. They have this overarching goal to leave no one behind. And yet currently in 2021, there are a range of people in who are being left behind. And that's a conversation for us to have and to keep pushing until there is equivalence. There's a range of publications and interests on this topic, and I'd love to stay in touch with you. Thank you very much Unknown Speaker 16:36 unchanged Okay, so that wasn't Dora. That wasn't Mr. Austin. That was Nina Lansbury sorry. We inverted the the order. And Nina's a research and teaching academic at University of Queensland School of Public Health, and she's clearly interested in water and issues to do with remote indigenous communities. So the next presentation will be in Austin, talking about drought related stress most farmers during the Millennium drought. So welcome Ross Bailey, who's who's made it and he's the CO convener of the ruin road health stream. Unknown Speaker 17:17 Hello, thank you for tuning into our talk about drought related stress among farmers in New South Wales during the Millennium drought. My name is Emma Austen and open the Centre for water climate and lands at the University of Newcastle. I'd just like to acknowledge and thank my co authors and colleagues and point out that we form a really multidisciplinary team. We have environmental scientists, psychiatrist, cardiologists, human geography, so together, we are quite a multidisciplinary team. And I think that's really significant when we're dealing with a problem like climate and health. The answers can only come when we we all work together. The data that I'm using for this research comes from the Australian royal mental health study or arms. And that's a really comprehensive study that looked at the determinants of mental health as influenced by individual family and community practice. And it was conducted in nonmetropolitan, New South Wales, they will fall waves of the arms and importantly, pointedly the first three waves baseline when you follow up in three year follow up occurred during the Millennium drought. At by the three year follow up it was recognised that drought had was impacting the cohort and additional water and climate modules included with the three year follow up. haven't got time to talk too much about the answers today. But please get in contact if you'd like some more information. There's quite a lot of publications that use on Stata. Aim of our study was to investigate stress experienced by farmers on both a personal and community level and the socio demographic and community influences of that stress. As I said the data came from the arms and our population was 664 farmers at baseline of the arms. We define farmers as people who lived worked or both lived and worked on a farm. We had three outcome measures, personal drought related stress, community drought related stress and general psychological distress as measured by the Kessler 10 or K 10. Terms of findings for drought related stress, we found that younger farmers so those under the age of 35 years experience more drought related stress, those who both lived and worked on a farm and those who were already experiencing financial hardship. There was also a link between degree of remoteness and those farmers who were in our original Remote and very remote, New South Wales experienced more drought related stress. So, importantly also, we found that there were different influences to drought related stress and general psychological stress. From our findings, we've made some recommendations, recommendations and suggestions for solutions. In terms of stigma, there is a need to reduce stigma and may make it more common and easy to access, mental health support, and to help seeking in these rural communities. There's a need for increased availability and access, excuse me to professional help. There's a need for education, particularly those first responders so perhaps people like Fitz and financial counsellors who come to the farm, are often the first point of contact for people who are who are having problems with their mental health and well being. There's a need for transparent and consistent information and opportunities should be enhanced to create and maintain social networks. We also found that there was a need for our reasonably priced and reliable internet access. The programme the rural adversity, mental health programme coordinators were discussed during the project. And we suggest that that's something that is really beneficial and should be maintained. Importantly, we found for that drought stress persists after the end of drought. So these programmes and initiatives in place need to consider that. So why this matters, our work can contribute to increasing resilience and improving adaptation to future drought. Our findings provide evidence and justification to target and support vulnerable vulnerable groups in most need. The findings have implications for clinical practice and community and also infrastructure policy, education and outreach. Unknown Speaker 22:09 This is just a comment from an online comment from our paper. And it basically just says that the best way to mitigate stress is to have a plan. And what we really need to do is focus on adaptation. And to do this, we need funding for research. And importantly, it's necessary to plan for drought in times of non drought. So before the drought conditions become too bad, and also afterwards, it needs to be maintained, so that there's a plan in place. These are our contact details, please, please feel free to get in contact with myself or Anthony. Here's the link to the paper in the MGA. Thanks for listening. Unknown Speaker 23:00 Okay, so that's the end of our presentations. Now we have a panel with Dora. And I'd like to introduce Joe Longman. So Joe's a senior research fellow at the University Centre for rural health. She's based in Lismore in New South Wales, with a particular interest also in mental health and climate change. So we're not getting overwhelmed with questions here. So please, you know, put up your hand if you do have a question. I might ask you, Joe, if you want to make any comment, any general comment, but specifically, he talked about mental health and we people talk a lot about resilience, or some positive features of rural communities that make people better able to cope with climate change. Unknown Speaker 23:45 Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everybody. And thanks very much for this opportunity to join this panel. I know it's a bit unusual, not having spoken myself on a presentation. So I'd just like to say Yes, I'm coming from the lands of the people of the Bundjalung nation and I would like to pay my respects to elder's past, present and emerging. So my area of research interest is the impact of climate change on mental health. And I'm really happy to see that mental health has come up quite a lot already today. Certainly, Alastair would would talked about and Mark howdens presentation and others. So lots of people are thinking about mental health impacts as well as as well as other more physical, mental, most physical health impacts. So what are some of the what are some of the issues around mental health in rural and remote communities? I think some of the I mean, your question, John, you asked about the positive, the positive features of rural and remote communities. I think I'd like to pick up on some of what Janine Muhammad from the Load Change Institute talked about earlier, she, she gave a presentation about the discussion paper, I was involved in some of the work behind that discussion paper. So I think in remote and rural communities where we haven't got the largest numbers of the, of the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander populations, but you've got higher proportions of those populations. And there's an amazing amount of indigenous knowledge and, and care for country amazing care for country developed over millennia. And I think there's a general recognition that, that indigenous knowledge has not been front and centre of a lot of these discussions. And that's a that's a an era, that's something that we need to work on, and privilege really Indigenous Knowledges and understanding about caring for country, and I think that that will make a difference, both in terms of mitigation strategies, but also in adaptation. And clearly, adaptations are a massive thing, you know, 1.5 degrees C. increases, it's here to stay. So a number of people have said today already, you know, we have to, we have to get better adaptation. So I think that's a real strength of rural and remote populations, communities. I think the other the other potential strength within rural areas is really around that notion of community and belonging and social connectedness, which is often seen as, as more developed in in rural and remote communities. And certainly, the research evidence is, is there that around that notion of social capital and feelings of belonging to community and informal social connectedness, that that can actually be quite a powerful mitigator of the mental health effects of something like an extreme weather related event. So in in Lismore at the University Centre for rural health, we did a fairly substantial piece of work following the some devastating flooding that happened in 2017. I don't know if people remember the floods. But it's pretty topical today, given what's going on in in Forbes, in New South Wales today with flooding. And we followed the community we did a cross sectional survey of about two and a half 1000 people in the community at the Northern Rivers looking at their mental health, six months after the flood, and again two years after the flood. And that research evidence was quite strong in terms of feelings of belonging, and informal social connectedness and how they were people who had more sense of belonging and social connectedness in their community, their mental health outcomes were better than people who had less of that kind of social capital. So I think I think the that's a potential real strength of rural and remote communities. But it doesn't mean that you know that there couldn't be more things we could do to help encourage that and develop that and support that happening. There's sort of flip side of that, potentially, is that a slight notion of Unknown Speaker 28:39 rural communities where there's, there's a stoicism, there's a She'll be right. And I don't necessarily need help. And then Emma's presentation there. She talks a little bit about, I'm trying to support people in reaching out for help. And there are a number of initiatives around including the the rural mental health programme that she was talking about the ramp programme, which is there specifically to try and encourage and support people reaching out for help in terms of their their mental health in the context of say droughts and farmers, or extreme floods or bushfires or heat. So I think, I think potentially the flip side is upset is that is that slightly sort of stoical stoicism that you might find in rural and remote communities? That's obviously a stereotype but I think there's some evidence there that there's a it's not necessarily part of the fabric of the community to to, you know, reach out to services and providers for support for mental health. Unknown Speaker 29:45 Thanks, so that's great. We're not getting flooded with questions. He might just continue on us door Christian, come to you Ross and says You got any comments? So Dora, keeping with a sort of solutions focused approach and building on strengths, what are we Do about generations in food? Unknown Speaker 30:04 Well, there are so so many aspects that that that you can take. First of all, I'll just throw some statistics at you because we often everybody, because we often lose perspective from the cities in the offices where we, where we're sitting. We use 1% of the landmass on this planet, for all human settlements, roads, infrastructure, you name it, it's 1% of the landmass, while livestock uses 27% of the landmass, and that is linked to production of feed, as well as grazing. So somehow, what's happening with the planet is outside of our comfortable lives in the cities, and we have allowed this industry to cause a lot of damage in relation to biodiversity loss, the majority of the land clearing around the world, and in Australia is because of expansion of livestock production and animal based foods. So we have allowed this to happen, then we have very little understanding as to what are the implications of our food choices, we understand energy we now call is bad fossil fuels are not a good choice. But we have not done the same amount of thinking and following of the connections. And understanding that one thing is, has a higher impact on the environment than the other, we don't even understand that soil is a non renewable resource, you know, we pump nitrogen and phosphorus, but we don't understand that it has taken 1000s of years for the soil to form so that it can maintain maintain food, food production. There is there are a lot I've tried to cover some of the physical aspects, but there are a lot of social aspects in relation to you know, I'm a man, I admit, you're a woman, you know, you can have your vegetable so so that distinction between masculinity and, and strength being linked to the consumption of animal based products, which is not necessarily true, actually, it's the opposite is something that has become a social norm with it with it within the Australian society, we have done other research that is currently being being published around experience of men who, for the first time go to a vegan restaurant. So they say, Yeah, I can try it. But please don't tell my mates, or pray, please don't put this on Instagram, because what are what are people going to think of me going and eating only plant based plant based foods. So there is a lot of this social culture press pressure on people, when they make their, their food choices. And that's across all generations, generations that from what we are from what we are finding working with them, they're very open. So when you present the evidence to them, they kind of they double check it and they and they are happy to break the status quo. Unknown Speaker 33:46 However, not there are quite often mixed messages, you know, the messages from the medical profession you need to eat meat for, for your iron level, or, you know, this is something that we've always done and we and we need to continue to do. So. The other thing that generations that is, is extremely sceptical about is the fact that people such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, invest are investing in cultured meat. So they're saying, okay, are they trying to trick us again? So we already have climate change problems with the energy production, are they going out to treat us and create even further problems around our food choices? So this is I didn't have time to expand further, but they really want to know what is behind the cultured meat what is behind the plant based analogues like sausages or steaks or whatever you have there. So they want to know who is benefiting so they're not so much interested in it. In becoming rich, or making money, but they're interested in making the right choices. So if they don't have enough information about what is hidden between these new food options that are appearing on the market, they will no go they will not go for that. So, I have a lot of hope in general and generations that, because we are seeing them with the climate change, we're seeing them with taking to call the Environment Minister of Australia for decisions that are linked to coal mines, hoping that they will find out the truth around our food production systems. So I don't know whether I answered your question. I can keep talking about this, about this topic. Because I truly believe that if there is no change, it doesn't matter how much progress we make in buildings in energy production in transport, we will be doomed. And when I'm saying make the right changes, I always say reduce, reduce reduce the consumption of animal products. I'm not saying we should eliminate all of them from the from the food system, but we need to be smart, we need to be clever how we're using the resources on this on this planet, Unknown Speaker 36:20 Matador. Personally, this was help, or complex social into the food is it's not a feed. It's something much more than that. I have two two sons who are not quite generation say they're a bit older than that. They live in Fitzroy, and in Melbourne, it's hard to get anything but vegan food there. So it's a big country. It is. Look, we were running out of time, I want to give people a break. So that we got a couple of minutes to have conflict stopper. Ross. Just to finish off, would you like to make any any comment? Unknown Speaker 36:54 Thanks, John. No, just just sorry, I came late. But this thing to that discussion really highlights the point that the solutions need to come from from rural communities. And, you know, one of the one of the big challenges we have, we kind of rely on a health system where, you know, we've got health professionals, but there are extreme shortages of health professionals in rural areas and rural and remote areas. So psychologists, you know, they're very few of them. And if we thinking that psychologists are the solution, then they're not many of them to provide that solution. But also, people are not necessarily willing to use those services. I think Emma and her presentation talked about the importance of bonding social networks and social connections, Joe, sort of just interesting, resilience. You know, quick story from some of the community consultations we did in relation to the flood project that Joe was talking about. And other farmers and farm representatives say, you know, they don't want somebody to hold their hand in this, you know, they actually, they need to go and talk to their mates. But at the same time, farming is a very, it's a very us isolated industry, and people can spend, you know, you know, a week on their farm on their own or just with their family, and they're not being exposed. So the big question is, how do we kind of develop community initiatives? And I think this touches on the sort of thing that Dora was talking about, where is the activism? And where is the community organisation? And how do we support that community organisation to find solutions that work whether it's about knowledge of food and food choices, or whether it's about solutions to providing mental health support or social emotional well being support for people in rural communities? I think they these are the big questions, how do we engage and support communities to come up with solutions that work for them? And I think that's kind of connects to this concept of resilience as well with how do we support the development of resilience in rural communities. Unknown Speaker 39:03 Thank you. We were about to they were about to close down the room 30 or 40 seconds. Let me just think Dora and Joe, thank you, Ross. Thank you all for attending. And please be in touch with with one another. It's the beginning of he'll and it could be something I think it will be something really big and significant and good. So thank you all and we'll see see you around.