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  • Research topics
    • About my region: regional profiles
    • Agricultural outlook
      • Agricultural overview
      • Australian crop report
        • National overview
        • New South Wales
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        • South Australia
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        • Western Australia
      • Beef & veal
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      • Australian rice markets in 2020
      • Water market outlook
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      • Definitions
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    • Biosecurity
      • Biosecurity economics
        • A benefit-cost framework for responding to Varroa
        • Benefits of increased access to minor use chemicals
        • Biosecurity control strategies for red imported fire ants
        • Biosecurity response options for black-striped mussel
        • Consequences of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak
        • Economic consequences of a scrapie outbreak in Australia
        • Economic impacts of Xylella fastidiosa on the Australian wine grape and wine-making industries
        • Estimating the value of Australian biosecurity arrangements for equine influenza since the 2007 outbreak
        • Farm gate value of biosecurity
        • Potential impact of the wheat steam rust strain Ug99 in Australia
        • The impacts of Xylella fastidiosa on Australian horticulture and the environment
      • Biosecurity sciences
        • Treated ballast water and its impact on port water quality
      • Biosecurity engagement
    • Climate and drought
      • Agricultural Data Integration Project
      • Farm performance and climate
      • Measuring drought risk
    • Fisheries
      • Fishery status reports 2021
      • Fisheries and aquaculture statistics 2020
        • Australian fisheries and aquaculture production
        • Australia’s trade in fisheries and aquaculture products
          • Market access improvements: A case study of stone fruit exports to China
        • Seafood consumption in Australia
        • Employment in Australian fisheries and aquaculture 2019–20
        • About this report
        • Other useful information
        • Economic concepts in Australian fisheries and aquaculture statistics
      • Fisheries data
      • Fisheries economics
        • Australian fisheries and aquaculture outlook
        • Australian fisheries economic indicators
      • Fisheries research
        • Allocating fish stocks between commercial and recreational fishers: examples from Australia and overseas
        • Shark assessment report 2018
    • Food demand in Australia
      • Trends and issues 2018
      • Trends and food security issues 2017
    • Forests
      • Forest economics
        • Australian forest and wood products statistics
          • Socio-economic indicators—trends to 2018
        • Forest economic research
          • A framework for developing medium term projections of traded wood products
          • Economic potential for new plantation establishment in Australia
          • Future opportunities for using forest and sawmill residues in Australia
          • Illegal logging regulation: analysis of regulated importers by business size
          • Productivity and efficiency of the Australian sawmilling industry
          • Responsiveness of demand for structural pine to changes in timber and steel prices
          • Short-term forecasts of selected wood product sales volume: Method and assumptions
          • Upscaling the Australian softwood sawmill industry
        • Plantation and log supply
        • National wood processing survey
      • Forest sciences
      • Forest data
      • Forests overview
    • Invasive species
      • Distribution and impacts of established pest animals and weeds
      • Exotic invasive species with environmental impacts
      • Prioritising targets for biological control of weeds
      • The National Priority List of Exotic Environmental Pests, Weeds and Diseases dataset
      • The state of weeds data collection in Australia
      • Wild dog research
    • Labour
      • Australian agricultural workforce: Stocktake of data sources
      • Previous research
      • Trends in the Australian Agricultural Workforce
    • Land Use
      • Catchment scale land use of Australia - Commodities - Update December 2020
      • Catchment scale land use profiles
    • Agricultural productivity
      • Agricultural productivity estimates
      • International comparisons
      • Measuring productivity
      • Pathways to sustainable and productive agriculture
      • Productivity data
      • Productivity drivers
        • Seasonal workers and working holiday makers comparison report
      • Productivity introduction
      • Productivity publications
      • Related research
        • Labour force survey
        • Rural research, development and extension investment in Australia
    • Social sciences
      • Australian marine pest network analysis
      • Biosecurity research
      • Climate research
      • Community engagement
      • Community involvement in plant biosecurity
      • Human dimensions research
      • Making general surveillance work
        • General surveillance case study overviews
        • Guidelines for general surveillance programs
        • Literature review: Understanding general surveillance as a system
        • Research report: Making general surveillance programs work
        • Stocktake of general surveillance initiatives
      • Natural resource management
      • Pest animals and weed management survey
      • Recreational boat operators’ self-management of biofouling in Australia
      • Social aspects of weed management
      • Social impact assessment
    • Farm surveys and analysis
      • Farm performance
      • Farm survey data
      • Disaggregating farm performance statistics by size
      • Previous research
    • Trade
      • Australian wine in China: Impact of China’s anti-dumping duties
      • Case study of Australian citrus exports
      • Case study of cattle exports to ASEAN countries
      • Agricultural export price and volume indicators
      • Analysis of government support for Australian agricultural producers
      • Australia's biosecurity market access and agricultural exports
      • Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian agriculture, forestry and fisheries trade
      • Non tariff measures affecting Australian agriculture
      • Overview of recent ABARES China research
      • Research on agriculture, trade and COVID-19
      • South America: an emerging competitor for Australia's beef industry
      • South American wine industry
      • The future of Chinese agricultural policy
      • Understanding how China's tariff on Australian barley exports will affect the agricultural sector
    • Water
      • A model of water trade and irrigation activity in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • Future scenarios for the southern Murray-Darling Basin: Report to the Independent Assessment of Social and Economic Conditions in the Basin
      • Measuring water market prices
      • Murray-Darling Basin water markets: trends and drivers 2002-03 to 2018-19
      • Murray-Darling-Basin water market dataset
      • Trends in water entitlement holdings and trade: Analysis of ABARES survey data
      • Water Market Outlook – August 2021
    • Agricultural forecasting
      • Changes to reporting of marketing year data
      • Farm share and price spread
      • Farmers' terms of trade: Update to farm costs and prices paid
      • Forecasting national grain stocks in times of drought
      • Seasonal climate scenarios for medium-term forecasts
      • Summary of ABARES agricultural forecasting
      • The future of public sector forecasting in Australian agriculture
    • Working papers
      • Discount rates and risk in economic analysis
      • A micro-simulation model of irrigation farms in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • A model of spatial and inter-temporal water trade in the southern Murray-Darling Basin
      • Defining drought from the perspective of Australian farmers
      • Introducing ABARES farmpredict
      • Non-tariff measures: A methodology
      • Simulating the effects of climate change on the profitability of Australian farms

Climate and drought

Australia's climate is highly variable, with lower mean rainfall and higher rainfall variability than most other nations. As a result, Australian agriculture is subject to more revenue volatility than almost any other country in the world.

While Australian farmers are well accustomed to climate variability, the emergence of climate change is presenting some new challenges. Climate models predict large changes in future rainfall including lower rainfall in southern Australia and more severe droughts and floods. Over the last 20 years large changes in Australian climate have been observed, including reductions in average winter rainfall in southern Australia and general increases in temperature.

ABARES climate and drought research focuses on understanding and measuring the effect of climate variability and change on agricultural industries.

ABARES also produces its Weekly climate, water and agricultural update, which summarizes recent climatic conditions, notable weather events and their impact on agriculture, water storage levels, irrigation allocations, and commodity prices.

[expand all]

Climate research

Climate change impacts and adaptation on Australian farms

This report details the potential adaptation pressure facing Australian farmers at a regional scale. The ABARES farmpredict model is combined with downscaled projections (drawn from the CSIRO) for temperature and rainfall by 2050 to examine the effects of recent and future projected changes in climate on the profitability of Australian farms. Productivity trends are also presented, showing how farm adaptation has helped to offset the effects of hotter and drier conditions to date.

Published: 29 July 2021

Simulating the effects of climate change on the profitability of Australian farms

In this working paper, a statistical model of Australian cropping and livestock farms is applied to simulate the potential effects of climate change on farm profits. This farm model is combined with a range of downscaled projections for temperature and rainfall by 2050.

Published: 29 July 2021

Agricultural Data Integration Project Report

The Agricultural Data Integration Project (AgDIP) is a long-term collaboration between ABARES and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to develop, integrate and analyse new large-scale farm level agricultural data sets.

The AgDIP establishes a new national database of Australian farms, including information on agricultural production, business financial outcomes, weather conditions and commodity prices over the period 2000-01 to 2017-18.

This includes the construction of the Farm-level Longitudinal Agricultural Dataset (FLAD), the integration of FLAD with the ABS Business Longitudinal Agricultural Data Environment (BLADE) and the development of new predictive models linking farm outcomes with climate conditions.

Published: 16 December 2020

Opportunities from action on climate change: Insights

Climate change and associated policies have important implications for future competitiveness of Australia’s agricultural exports, which many agricultural industries are already addressing through ambitious emissions reduction plans. Some of Australia’s major agricultural exports are already relatively less emissions intensive than some major competitors providing scope for Australia to further its trade reputation as a reliable and sustainable producer.

This ABARES Insights report concludes that innovation and investment are key to decoupling emissions from agricultural production, and promoting evidence-based trade rules and product certification will help achieve industry goals of emissions reduction and revenue growth.

Published: 10 December 2020

New insights on the effects of drought and climate variability on Australian farms

The current drought across much of eastern Australia has demonstrated the dramatic effects that climate variability can have on farm businesses and households. The drought has also renewed longstanding discussions around the emerging effects of climate change on agriculture, and how governments can best help manage climate risk.

This Insights article provides some insight into these issues by examining the effects of recent climate variability on Australian farms.

Published: 18 December 2019.

Farm performance and climate: climate adjusted productivity on cropping farms

The Farm performance and climate report examines the effect of climate variability and climate change on the productivity of Australian broadacre cropping farms between 1977–78 and 2014–15.

The study combines ABARES farm survey data with climate data to estimate the effect of climate variables (such as, rainfall and temperature) on both cropping farm Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and wheat yields.

It also presents climate-adjusted productivity estimates with the effects of climate removed.

Published: 9 May 2017.

Farm risk management in a changing climate

This paper examines the risks of climate variability and climate change to agricultural production, and discusses, in particular, risk management as the most effective tool for agricultural producers to manage these risks.

Two risk management options, decision support systems and insurance and other financial products, are reviewed for their efficacy in managing current risks of climate variability and their potential role in managing future risks of climate change.

Published: 7 March 2012.

Options for insuring Australian Agriculture

This paper does not analyse the full range of risk management options available to farmers. Instead it focuses on the potential role of insurance and related products in risk management.

This paper surveys the literature on agricultural insurance, and makes conclusions in the context of current policy in Australia. The literature review is supplemented by ABARES estimates of insurance premiums for major crop types.

Published: September 2012.

Productivity pathways: climate adjusted production frontiers for Australian broadacre cropping farms

This study introduces two advances to the aggregate productivity index methodology typically employed by ABARES. First, it accounts for the effects of climate variability on measured productivity by matching spatial climate data to individual farms in the ABARES farm surveys database.

Second, a farm-level production frontier estimation technique is employed to facilitate the decomposition of productivity change into several key components, including technical change and technical efficiency change.

Published: 9 February 2011.

Climate risk and industry adaption

This paper presents findings from work undertaken across four drought-affected communities in the Murray-Darling Basin: two irrigated and two non-irrigated. It explores the links between people’s perceptions of climate variability, climate change and their preparedness and management of climate risks.

Published: 16 May 2008.

Climate change: impacts on Australian agriculture

In this article, the potential medium to long term economic and agricultural trade impacts of potential changes in climate on Australian and global agriculture sectors are investigated.

Published: 6 December 2007.

Climate change: issues and challenges for Australian agriculture and forestry

In this article, the potential impacts of climate change and climate change mitigation and adaptation responses in the agriculture and forestry sectors are discussed. Opportunities and challenges in incorporating these sectors in a domestic emissions trading scheme are also explored.

Published: 24 September 2007.

Drought research

Measuring drought risk

The Measuring drought risk report measures the effect of drought on the profits of farms and considers how drought risk varies across different farm types and regions. As expected, the results show that cropping farms face more drought risk than livestock farms, with regions in the more ‘marginal’ areas of the cropping zone facing the highest drought risk.

The Measuring drought risk report also presents trends in drought risk over time, reflecting the effects of new farm technologies and other structural changes. The results indicate that drought risk has increased slightly since 1989, due partly to a shift towards cropping activity (and away from sheep), particularly in southern Australia.

Published: 11 November 2020.

Defining drought from the perspective of Australian farmers

The Defining drought from the perspective of Australian farmers report presents a new drought indicator as  an alternative to traditional rainfall measures.

The new indicator is found to more accurately reflect the effects of drought on farm profits than simple rainfall measures, accounting for the unique circumstances of each farm and the effects of movements in domestic commodity prices (i.e. high grain and hay prices).

The Defining drought risk report also presents data on farmer self-assessments of drought. These data show differences in farmer perception of drought once variation in climate conditions has been controlled for. This includes a tendency for farmers in New South Wales and Queensland to be more likely to self-assess as ‘in-drought’ than farmers in Western Australia. There is also a trend for current farmers to be less likely to assess as in-drought than farmers in the past.

Published: 11 November 2020.

New insights on the effects of drought and climate variability on Australian farms

The current drought across much of eastern Australia has demonstrated the dramatic effects that climate variability can have on farm businesses and households. The drought has also renewed longstanding discussions around the emerging effects of climate change on agriculture, and how governments can best help manage climate risk.

This Insights article provides some insight into these issues by examining the effects of recent climate variability on Australian farms.

Published: 18 December 2019.

Impact of drought becoming more pronounced

The effects of the continuing drought are becoming more pronounced with falling production and high input costs presenting serious challenges, according to the December 2019 Agricultural Commodities report.

Published: 10 December 2019.

Winter crop production forecast to fall below 30m tonnes

Winter crop production is forecast to fall by 3 per cent in 2019–20 to 29.4 million tonnes, down 13 per cent from the production forecast in September, according to the December 2019 Crop Report.

Published: 3 December 2019

Forecasting national grain stocks in times of drought

The ongoing drought of 2018 and 2019 has highlighted the importance of providing well-grounded and reliable public information about the amount of grain likely to be available for domestic consumption over the coming year. As drought raised domestic grain prices during 2018 and the first half of 2019, intensive livestock and food manufacturing industries began to talk to me about the prospect of importing grain to secure supply.

ABARES revised its forecasts of national barley and wheat stocks for 2019–20 as part of the quarterly Agricultural commodities report, and these forecasts were published in the June 2019 edition. This report explains how ABARES revised its grain stocks forecasts for 2019–20, and put in place a process that can be used to forecast grain consumption and stocks in future drought years.

Published: 20 November 2019.

Drought impacts on broadacre and dairy farms in South-Eastern Australia 2018

Interim results1 from ABARES annual surveys of broadacre and dairy farms confirm that average farm financial performance in South-Eastern Australia will worsen significantly in 2018-19 relative to the previous year, but not to the levels experienced during the 2002-03 and 2006-07 droughts. The impacts of the drought on farm financial performance will be variable however, largely in line with regional differences in the severity of rainfall deficiencies.

Published: 19 December 2018.

Analysis of 2018 drought

This brief is based on a presentation by ABARES’ Executive Director to the National Drought Summit in October 2018 describing the effects of the current drought on Australian agriculture. The brief summarises current livestock market conditions, the extent of rainfall deficiencies, and the effects on crop production and farm incomes. The climate information in Figures 1 and 2 was presented to the Drought Summit by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Published: 26 October 2018


For access to all ABARES past climate and drought related research visit the ABARES publications library.

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Last updated: 29 July 2021

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