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This chapter presents findings on the relationships between employment status, health, and wellbeing, focusing on the protective role of active labor market programs ( ALMPs ). Conceptual frameworks from work psychology and social epidemiology are used to understand how employment status and participation in ALMPs affect health and wellbeing. Economic insecurity and involuntary unemployment pose significant risks to health and wellbeing. It is found that participating in ALMPs helps improve resilience to the health risks of unemployment and increases the likelihood of job reintegration. ALMPs are most successful when programs combine personal development, as well as skills training and employment recovery. In the context of austerity policies, investment in ALMPs offers economic and social value through helping to protect public health while readying the economy for recovery.

Crop yield must increase to keep pace with growing global demand. Past increases in crop production have rarely been attributable to an individual innovation but have occurred when technologies and practices combine to form improved farming systems. Inevitably this has involved synergy between genotypic (G) and management (M) improvements. We argue that research focussed on developing synergistic systems that overcome clear production constraints will accelerate increases in yield. This offers the opportunity to better focus and multiply the impact of discipline-focussed research. Here we use the rainfed grain production systems of south eastern Australia as a case study of how transformational change in water productivity can be achieved with research focussed on G x M synergies. In this region, rainfall is low and variable and has declined since 1990. Despite this, growers have maintained yields by implementing synergistic systems combining innovations in (1) soil water conservation (2) crop diversity (3) earlier sowing and (4) matching nitrogen fertiliser to water-limited demand. Further increases are emerging from synergies between genetic improvements to deliver flowering time stability, adjusted sowing times and potential dual-purpose use. Collaboration between agronomists, physiologists and crop breeders has led to development of commercial genotypes with stable flowering time which are in early phases of testing and adoption.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most widely-grown crop in the Mediterranean semiarid (150-400 mm) cropping zones of both southern Australia and the inland Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the United States of America (United States). Low precipitation, low winter temperatures and heat and drought conditions during late spring and summer limit wheat yields in both regions. Due to rising temperatures, reduced autumn rainfall and increased frost risk in southern Australia since 1990, cropping conditions in these two environments have grown increasingly similar. This presents the opportunity for southern Australian growers to learn from the experiences of their PNW counterparts. Wheat cultivars with an obligate vernalization requirement (winter wheat), are an integral part of semi-arid PNW cropping systems, but in Australia are most frequently grown in cool or cold temperate cropping zones that receive high rainfall (>500 mm p.a.). It has recently been shown that early-sown winter wheat cultivars can increase water-limited potential yield in semi-arid southern Australia, in the face of decreasing autumn rainfall. Despite this research, there has to date been little breeding effort invested in winter wheat for growers in semi-arid southern Australia, and agronomic research into the management of early-sown winter wheat has only occurred in recent years. This paper explores the current and emerging environmental constraints of cropping in semi-arid southern Australia and, using the genotype × management strategies developed over 120 years of winter wheat agronomy in the PNW, highlights the potential advantages early-sown winter wheat offers growers in low-rainfall environments. The increased biomass, stable flowering time and late-summer establishment opportunities offered by winter wheat genotypes ensure they achieve higher yields in the PNW compared to later-sown spring wheat. Traits that make winter wheat advantageous in the PNW

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