Developing climate change resilient agribusinesses

CSIRO is working with primary producers to research practical management solutions to adapt to climate change.

• 1 March 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011

Research project

• Working with farmers to find solutions
• Research activities
• Partners 

Australia’s primary industries currently operate in a highly variable climate. This poses significant challenges to production that require sound and responsive management practices.

Climate change has, and will, introduce even greater challenges with shifting patterns and intensity of droughts, increased temperatures and extreme weather events.

Working with farmers to find solutions

CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship is working with farmers in a new three-year project to develop strategies for a range of mixed cropping and grazing systems Australia-wide. Bringing together adaptation options for expacted climate change and accounting for other business pressures, this project is run by a  multidisciplinary team from CSIRO, State Governments and private research agencies.

Farmers identify on-farm management options that they believe may offset negative impacts by combining information from real mixed cropping systems with expected climate change impacts.

These options are then tested using a series of cropping and grazing models to determine the production and natural resource management implications of introducing these adaptations.

As the work incorporates farmer knowledge it provides the best chance for impact from adaptation science and uptake on the ground.

Implementing the adaptation options identified through this collaborative approach could result in significant reduction in production losses from projected climate change.

For example, simulations for Australia's wheat growing industry for the year 2070 showed that the benefits from adapting by changing varieties and changing planting windows could be worth approximately A$100m to A$550m per annum when compared to current management practices.

Research activities

This project will establish a coordinated network of research activities with farmer and science groups across Australia.

Using a participatory research approach the goal is to adapt cropping and mixed cropping/grazing system businesses for a future with a more variable climate.

Establishing case studies in New South Wales (NSW), Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria, the project aims to:

• identify vulnerability to climate change across Australia as measured by exposure to production risk and available adaptive capacity
• improve formal evaluation of climate change impacts and effective adaptation options across a number of locations
• design and test appropriate regional adaptation practices and business designs that will provide resilience to projected climate change
• evaluate the likely costs and benefits of adaptation options as well as investigate existing barriers to adoption.

Partners

The resilient farmers project is a partnership between:

• CSIRO
• Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation [external link]
• Birchip Cropping Group, Victoria [external link]
• New South Wales Department of Primary Industries [external link] 
• South Australian Research and Development Institute [external link].

The project is partially funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation and Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) under the four-year Climate Change Research Program.

The Climate Change Research Program aims to deliver research activities initially focusing on reducing greenhouse pollution, better soil management and climate change adaptation.