23 May, 2017

Australian farmers are adapting to climate change

2016-17 has been a great year for Australian farmers, with record production, exports and profits. These records have been driven largely by good weather, in particular a wet winter in 2016, which led to exceptional yields for major crops.

Unfortunately, these good conditions go very much against the long-term trend. Recent CSIRO modelling suggests that changes in climate have reduced potential Australian wheat yields by around 27% since 1990.

While rising temperatures have caused global wheat yields to drop by around 5.5% between 1980 and 2008, the effects in Australia have been larger, as a result of major changes in rain patterns. Declines in winter rainfall in southern Australia have particularly hit major broadacre crops (like wheat, barley and canola) in the key southeastern and southwestern cropping zones. There is strong evidence that these changes are at least partly due to climate change.


Read the piece on The Conversation by a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, Neal Hughes - “Australian farmers are adapting to climate change.”

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