Effective pest and disease management in agricultural landscapes is challenged by fragmented research networks, diverse farming systems, and complex landscapes. These factors hinder coordinated action, while reliance on chemical pesticides leads to increasing risks from deregistration and resistance. The uncertainty surrounding the future availability of chemical interventions highlights the urgent need for robust area-wide integrated pest and disease management (AW-IPDM). Sustainable solutions require informed decision-making to optimise existing chemical use while advancing knowledge of non-chemical alternatives. Achieving this necessitates a coordinated, cross-sectoral approach that engages industries, stakeholders, and governance bodies in a unified strategy for resilient pest and disease management.

Regional communities, fortunately, have a strong culture of innovation and collaboration. Pest READI seeks to enhance communication and cooperation to support farming resilience. Over five years, the project is integrating knowledge into a digital platform, co-designed with diverse stakeholders, including growers, advisors, and First Nations communities, to facilitate informed decision-making across landscapes.

How will Pest READI address these challenges? A key aspect of Pest READI is the co-development of digital tools to support better decision-making, risk analysis, and AW-IPDM in horticulture. Using an agricultural innovation systems approach, Pest READI has engaged these key stakeholders via interviews, workshops and focus groups in the Northern Rivers region—Bundjalung Country—to co-develop digital tools and establish a community of practice that supports an area-wide approach to more sustainable IPDM. We conducted 38 interviews across the macadamia, avocado, berry, custard apple, banana, and coffee industries. Participants included farmers, advisors, agricultural suppliers, and government extension, with interests that ranged from small family-run farms to large corporate operations, and who apply a wide range of IPDM practices.

Findings revealed crop-specific pest and disease challenges like flower diseases in macadamia, but also several shared disease and pest threats such as Phytophthora cinnamomi, which affects avocado, macadamia, and blueberries. Several post-harvest pathogens were also prevalent across multiple crops. Stakeholders reported difficulty in accessing reliable, tailored, and consistent IPDM information beyond chemical pesticide management. Additionally, they emphasised the need for evidence-based alternative solutions before adopting new practices. These results highlight the need for improved cross-industry coordination to enhance preparedness. Growers were overwhelmingly interested in improving ecosystem health and reducing chemical use but many would need industry or government incentives to enable practice change, and there is a clear desire for additional R&D investment in alternatives to pesticide solutions.

The insights gained from the community will be taken forward to inform the development of digital tools to support AW-IPDM in the Pest READI project. We aim to support decision making on-farm to reduce pest and disease pressure while supporting Indigenous-led initiatives to improve ecocultural outcomes for the region. Pest READI: ‘Regionally Enabled Agroecological Decision Intelligence’ is funded through Hort Innovation Frontiers with co-investment from CSIRO’s ‘Catalysing Australia’s Biosecurity’ initiative, Macquarie University, NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, GrowCom, Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation and contributions from the Australian Government.