Rainfall variability is expected to have significant regional impacts on agricultural policy and farm management Dr Geoff Love of the Bureau of Meteorology told delegates at the OUTLOOK 2005 conference.

‘Australians have to deal with some of the most variable rainfall on earth and what’s more it has increased with time in most of Australia’s agricultural regions’ Dr Love said.

Dr Rohan Nelson, Senior Economist with ABARE, showed how the impacts of climate on farm incomes can be forecast across Australia’s cropping regions at the start of each financial year, using ABARE’s AgFIRM model. Eventually, these forecasts have the potential to better target drought assistance for rural communities.

‘It is the impact of climate variability on farm incomes and the flow on effects to regional economies that are of most concern to farmers and rural communities’ explained Dr Nelson. ‘So the information used to support drought policy needs to focus on the broader socio-economic dimensions of vulnerability’.

‘Future improvements in the management of climate risk will come from forecasting techniques with longer lead time’, Dr David Stephens of the Department of Agriculture Western Australia, told the conference. ‘Producing this kind of forecast requires an understanding of pressure changes beyond the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), particularly those between south-eastern Australia and the South Pacific’ Dr Stephens explained.

Dr Roger Stone, from the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Queensland, discussed the importance of utilising innovative approaches to address the rising pressure on rural industries from a variable and changing climate. According to Dr Stone ‘climate information has no value unless it is used to support key policy and management decisions’.

Dr Stone concluded that ‘as a nation, Australia needs greater cooperation between research and development agencies and rural communities to come up with innovative ways of forecasting and capitalising on good seasons, and reducing the impact of bad seasons’.