Climate

Climate change is threatening our life supporting resources by intensifying dry conditions, which will affect dairy farms in detrimental ways.

Responding to the risk of climate change includes both addressing exposure to climate change (acute and chronic physical impacts), as well as understanding the transitional costs (financial and legal requirements) required for a business to operate in a global economy moving to zero-carbon.

With the wider industry, we're working on-farm, in-manufacturing and in-distribution to find and enable smart, sustainable and cost-effective solutions to meet dairy farmer's adaptation challenges as well as industry targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

How we're investing in climate protection

Dairy Australia's Climate Commitment is to Adapt, Preserve, Embed, and Invest in solutions for dairy farmers to continue to reduce emissions.

Our portfolio is building on a wealth of knowledge and insights developed through previous research studies in this space, such as how dairy farmers have adapted, implemented and documented novel approaches to farming system challenges.

For detail on each of the work areas, click through to the following pages:

Adapt Australian dairy farming systems
Preserve our low emissions intensity
Embed climate action with environmental considerations
Invest in projects, people, promotion and action.

For a list of Dairy Australia's active investments in climate change see the Climate Change Strategy - Investment Summary (2021).

Resources

Dairy climate change learning and development package

Available late 2021 via Dairy Australia's extension platform, Enlight, this L&D package will be a one-stop-shop for for dairy farmers to access comprehensive knowledge on the challenge of climate change for their business.

Coming soon!
Dairy Australia YouTube Playlist - Climate change and dairy

A series of technical videos has been provided on each of these topics which are available to view via the Dairy Australia YouTube Playlist – Climate Change and Dairy.
Weather and climate tools for farmers

There are a number of useful tools available to help farmers better understand and forecast weather and climate at a local level. A number of relevant sites/tools for dairy farmers have been provided below.

Dairy Australia is currently working on a collaborative project to develop improved seasonal forecasting tools for farmers. The Forewarned is Forearmed project is using farmer reference groups to analyse existing weather and seasonal forecasting tools and determine the best fit-for-purpose data that can help with on-farm decision making. The project will deliver outputs by June 2021 which will be made available on this page once finalised.

For information on seasonal outlooks and conditions, visit the Bureau of Meteorology Climate Outlooks.

Climate Kelpie is for Australian farmers and their advisors. It connects them to tools and information about climate to help them make decisions about their farm business.
Regional climate guides

Australia's climate has warmed by just over one degree Celsius since 1910, leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events. Australian climate change projections show how Australia's climate may change in the future. The projections indicate that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Understanding of the climate influences across Australia is vital to down-scaling global climate change impacts for Australia and regions. See Climate Change in Australia for more information.

More detailed regional weather and climate information has been developed by the Bureau of Meteorology for all of the 56 regional catchments across Australia. These provide a summary of the latest climate information by catchment (2019) and are freely available on the Bureau of Meteorology website.

Access the Climate Guide for your region here.