Overview of Australian Case Studies

1
Overview of Australian Case Studies

• John Mullen
• Research Leader, Economics Coordination and
  Evaluation
• NSW Department of Primary Industries, Orange

2
Background Climate variability

• Key issue for Australian agriculture
• CV greater in Australia than other continents
• Agriculture - the most weather dependant of all
  human activities
• CV responsible for 38 of the variation in the GV
  of Ag Prodn
• One of the main risks faced by Aust farmers
• Expected to be worse under climate change
• Implications of climate variability
• Reduced resource use efficiency on farm
• Natural resource degradation with both on and off
  site effects

3
What makes a forecast valuable

• USER FACES A CHOICE OR A DECISION
• SCF INFORMATION IS SKILFUL AND TIMELY

4
PROJECT OBJECTIVE

• HOW,
• WHEN,
• WHERE
• CAN SCF BE USED PROFITABLY

5
Overview of Australian Case Studies

• Western NSW Rangelands
• Liverpool Plains - Northern NSW
• NSW Murrumbidgee Valley

6
Location of Australian case studies
Northern NSW
Murrumbidgee
Rangelands
7
Western NSW Rangelands

• Key features
• 32.5 million ha - 42 of the land area of NSW
• 1700 graziers av prop size 19,000 ha
• populated by only 52,830 people.
• av rainfall of 200-400 mm with high variability
• pastoral country held under lease
• sheep and cattle grazing with some cropping in
  East and Southern parts
• many sustainability issues

8
Western NSW Rangelands
9
Western NSW Rangelands

• Application of seasonal climate forecasts
• Without SCF
• Pasture loss and soil erosion from maintaining
  stock into dry period
• Lost income opportunities from tactical
  management of stock numbers under favourable
  conditions
• With SCF
• real skill only in late winter-spring period
• SOI lt 0 ? DRY SPRING/SUMMER
• SOI lt 0
• what decisions occur then
• Graziers - sale/purchase/agist decisions

10
Western NSW Rangelands(some findings by Hacker
et al)
11
Liverpool Plains

• Area 1.2 Million ha
• Farms 1,600
• Climate Rainfall 604mm - 684mm (60 summer
  rainfall)
• Highly productive agricultural region
• Landuses - 48 grazing, 37 cropping, 14 timber
  reserves

12
Liverpool Plains

• Cropping
• winter cropping (wheat, barley, chickpeas)
• summer cropping (sorghum, sunflowers, soybeans,
  maize and cotton)
• Grazing - 3 million beef cattle
• Environmental issues
• Dryland salinity, erosion, water quality,
  vegetation management

13
Liverpool Plains

• Application of seasonal climate forecasts
• Without SCF - traditional Dryland cropping
• long fallow wheat and sorghum rotations
• minimise risk of crop failure by allowing soil
  moisture build up
• watertable and erosion problems
• With SCF greater adoption of opp cropping
• Planting decisions based on soil moisture and
  SCF
• higher profits, less soil erosion and reduced
  deep drainage
• higher risk as planting on lower soil moisture
  but reduced through a SCF

14
Liverpool Plains

• Forecast and rainfall associations (similar for
  yield)

15
Liverpool Plains

• Economic value of SCFs all forecasts

16
Liverpool Plains

• Economic value of SCFs all forecasts with
  higher sorghum price

17
Murrumbidgee Valley - NSW
18
Murrumbidgee Valley - NSW

• Irrigated agriculture
• major irrigated valley in NSW (8.4 mill ha)
• broadacre ag (rice, maize, wheat) hort crops
  (citrus, winegrapes)
• 50 of Austs rice, 25 of NSW total fruit veg
• broadacre irrigation - mainly flood systems
• 330,000 ha of irrigated crop and pastures
• Irrigation supplies
• very reliable due to large storages in the East
• historically - full irrigation allocations in 95
  of 100 yrs
• reforms lower reliability due to environmental
  flows

19
Murrumbidgee Valley - NSW

• Application of seasonal climate forecasts
• Without SCF
• allocation system does not take into account
  SCFs
• irrigators make decisions in October well before
  end of season allocations are known
• reduced economic efficiency from usual under
  planting
• environmental flows make this worse
• With SCF
• better info on likely inflows to dams flows
  through to more reliable irrigation allocations
• benefits of SCF - better matching of production
  plans to irrigation water supply conditions