This year most of NSW has experienced a very dry and warm winter season.
Is this just another example of typical Australian seasonal variability or is it part of a long term trend for warmer and dryer weather?
The answer to this question has big implications for planning for the future and managing a farm.
In September, we have seen temperature records broken right across Australia and there has been a report released by Australian National University warning that we could see heatwave temperatures reaching 50 degrees in Sydney and Melbourne by 2040 – even if the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to two degrees are met.
Click: here for details
Along with this possible increase in temperature, weather records are showing a decline in rainfall across farming regions of Australia.
The graph (pictured) shows the trend in wheat growing areas.
The graph of rainfall totals from 2009 to 2015, shows large variability within and between years, but general downward trend.
Managing a farm involves addressing a wide variety of risks including farm safety, commodity price risks, biosecurity risks, financial risks and many others.
Managing possible changes in weather and climate will be a major challenge for farmers over the coming years and developing a plan in advance is a good way to reduce the impact of changes on the farm business.
A climate risk management plan will be different for every farm and should be based on helping to achieve the goals of the farm owner and manager.
When developing a plan to manage a changing climate, it is essential to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in terms of:
- The physical resources – what do you want from the soil, the pastures, crops and livestock, native vegetation, water wildlife..
- Financial – what do you want the farm to deliver financially?
- Family and personal – what are your lifestyle goals?
The next step in the process is to identify and prioritise possible weather and climate risk which could affect the farm.
These can be short term seasonal risks such as a hail storm damaging a crop just before harvest, through to longer term risks such as declining rainfall reducing the volume of water available for storage on the farm or increased average temperatures changing the composition of pastures.
Having identified and prioritised risks, you can then decide on a strategy to manage the risk.
Risk management strategies can be categorised as follows:
- Avoid risk: Typically you choose not to do something. For example, you might choose not to plant a crop due to increased likelihood of heatwave conditions at flowering.
- Reduce risk: Take action to reduce the likelihood or consequences of the risk. For example, you may choose an earlier maturing crop variety to reduce the impact of heatwave conditions at flowering. Or you might plant shelter belts to reduce the impact of cold and wet conditions on lambing ewes.
- Retain risk: You may decide that you can ‘live with the risk’ as it will have limited impact on the business.
- Transfer risk: Pay for insurance to transfer the risk to an insurance company. Taking out hail insurance is a good example this.
Your weather and climate risk management plan should include specific plans to address the risks you have identified and prioritised.
For example, if your farm is prone to water-logging or flooding in wet seasons you need to have a strategy to manage pastures crops and livestock in the event of a wet year.
Most parts of Australia experience drought conditions from time to time so you also need to have a plan for crops and livestock in these conditions.
A good resource to assist you to better understand weather and climate, and help you in developing a management plan is the AgGuide ‘Managing climate risk on your farm’ available from Tocal College.
