New management practices and new technologies have helped Aussie farmers offset the rising impacts of climate change on crops, according to a new ABARES report
Australian farmers are getting better at handling dry conditions, according to federal government statistics about the impact of climate change on agriculture.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) insights report found that Western Australian cropping farmers, in particular, had withstood the dry conditions during the 2020 winter harvest with crops “far exceeding expectations given the seasonal conditions experienced”.
Across the board, ABARES has cited technology and management practices as areas where farm productivity has increased.
Productivity has risen 68 per cent in the cropping sector since 1989 when adjusted for climate, while the wider broadacre farming sector has risen by 28 per cent in the same timeframe.
“These gains in productivity have offset the negative effects of climate over the last 30 years, such that actual industry productivity levels have still increased or at least remained stable,” the report says.
These productivity gains have been necessary because seasonal conditions have reduced the annual average farm profits by 23 per cent in the past two decades, the report found, which is $29,200 per farm.
Despite this, Australian farms have shown strong adaptability in the past decade, helped also by strong commodity prices, particularly for livestock.
“A combination of productivity growth, better prices and increases in farm size have resulted in an upward trend in farm profits over the last decade, at least until the droughts of 2018–19 and 2019–20,” says ABARES.
“Much of the adaptation effort on farms has been directed towards improving performance under dry conditions.
“Within the cropping sector, for example, there have been a variety of management practice changes implemented in recent decades (including conservation tillage and soil amelioration) focused on preserving soil moisture as an adaptation to reduced growing season rainfall.”
Another finding of the report is the “risk of very low farm returns due to climate variability” has doubled during the same time period from a 10 per cent frequency to 20 per cent.
South-western and south-eastern Australia have been the areas most impacted by the changing conditions, says ABARES.
This trend was tipped to continue according to 2050 projection scenarios.
“Cropping farms in western Australia are more heavily impacted than other regions under most climate scenarios, due largely to the more substantial projected declines in winter rainfall and the resulting effects on crop yield,” says ABARES.
Cropping regions in Australia’s north-east, particularly around Queensland, are forecast to be the least impacted by climate changes in the next 30 years.
ABARES also says there are several factors which will impact future productivity, which includes the extent of climate change impact in Australia compared to other nations.
“It remains hard to predict future productivity growth, particularly the extent to which new technologies can improve the water use efficiency of crop and pasture systems beyond current levels,” it says.
“In the long-term, there may be pressure for more transformative change, at least where productivity growth is insufficient to offset the effects of climate change.
“This could include the emergence of new land use activities such as carbon abatement, biodiversity conservation, or renewable energy generation as complements to traditional farming.”