Farmers beat the dry times

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Farmers in many cropping regions of Australia are recognising the importance of forecasting to improve decision-making for farming in the dry.

And if these farmers can survive the droughts experienced in the past decade using forecasting as one of a suite of tools that improve the management of climate variability, there’s hope for the future.

These are the conclusions being presented today at the ABARE Outlook conference in Canberra in the Farming in the Dry session, sponsored by Land & Water Australia.

Speakers in the session at 11.30am include farmer, Ian McClelland and South Australian Research and Development Institute scientist, Dr Peter Hayman. Both have been involved with the Managing Climate Variability program over the past decade.

Managing Climate Variability is investing heavily in improving monthly, seasonal, annual and longer term forecasts based on a better understanding of what drives our climate.

Both Dr Hayman and Mr McClelland believe farmers’ resilience and adaptability to climate variability and change depends on R&D that will help farmers to better make decisions and manage their risks.

“Providing farmers with more accurate and timely forecasts will be particularly important for helping farmers to be more flexible in their approach to farming,” says Dr Hayman. “Farmers need the ability to better identify and analyse likely climate risks that will impact on their costs and profits.”

The Managing Climate Variability coordinator, Colin Creighton says, “Our research success will mean the agricultural sector can make better decisions on dryland production mixes and practices by linking their on-farm decisions to risk analysis and predictions for key attributes such as plant-available water, frost frequency, heat events and forage availability.”

“We’ve experienced a sustained dry period over the last 12 years with our growing season rainfall at 28 per cent below average,” says Ian McClelland, also Chairman of the Birchip Cropping Group in north western Victoria.

“But many of our farmers have been able to respond to this unrelenting dry period by implementing no till cropping, changing their enterprises from grain crops to hay production, and by using conservation farming techniques.”

Dr Hayman says that while climate change projections for rainfall are less confident than they are for temperature, there is a worrying consistency amongst the models for drying in southern regions.

“Although at times it feels like we will never get a good season again, the most likely future is to expect an increased ratio of poor seasons to good seasons. We need to have farming systems that can cope with runs of dry seasons and respond to the less frequent, but very important good seasons and do this in an environment of higher input costs.”

Managing Climate Variability is a collaborative research and development program between the Grains, Rural Industries and Sugar Research and Development Corporations, the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Dairy Australia, Meat & Livestock Australia and Land & Water Australia.

For interview:

• Ian McClelland, phone: 0428 772 217 awmcclelland@bigpond.com
• Dr Peter Hayman, phone: 08 83039424, 0401 996 448 hayman.peter@saugov.sa.gov.au
• Colin Creighton, phone: 0418 225 894 colinmwnrm@bigpond.com

Further information:

• Presentation abstract from Ian McClelland: http://products.lwa.gov.au/products/pn22298
• Report by Peter Hayman et al: http://www.sardi.sa.gov.au/climate/publications (report under recent project reports)
• Managing Climate Variability R&D Strategy: http://products.lwa.gov.au/products/pn22281

For media assistance:

Jenni Metcalfe, phone 0408 551 866 jenni@econnect.com.au

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2009. Farmers beat the dry times. [Online] (Updated April 6th, 2009)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/3071 [Accessed Wednesday 29th of February 2012 08:21:00 PM ].