Climate change is here, and Australian agriculture is acutely feeling the effects. Three farmers explain how it's impacting their lives and livelihoods.
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| George Mills at Panshanger, near Longford in Tasmania.
(ABC Rural: Rosemary Grant) Climate change makes farming more of a gamble than it ever was. It should be a complete concern to everyone who eats on this planet, because the whole world is going to be gambling on food production. |
In some instances the rates of warming are tracking at 2050 scenarios.
Scientists concerned that climate change is biting harder and faster than models anticipated are campaigning for more research investment to protect Australia's $58 billion agriculture industry from extreme weather.
Background Briefing has learned that their concerns about the capability of Australian research to address climate change will be validated in an independent review by the prestigious Australian Academy of Science.
The review, due for release in the next few weeks, has identified a substantial shortfall in the nation's climate research firepower.
It's understood that the review will recommend that the number of scientists working for CSIRO and its partners on climate science needs to increase by about 90. That is almost double the current number of full time positions.
Meanwhile, the reality is already confronting farmers on the front line, many of them battered by this last year of wild conditions.
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| Mark McDougall on his potato farm in Tasmania.
(ABC RN: Jo Chandler) Climate change is here, there is no doubt about it ... The hip pocket is when it makes you decide it is here or not, and it hurt our hip pockets, so we know. We're going to be still digging spuds at the end of September. We've never done that before, ever — it's a bugger. It's normally the end of May, middle of June, so we're miles behind. We pre-watered before we even planted the crop. Then as soon as we planted, we were watering straight away, then we went from that through until January. We got a rain event at the end of January which wiped out about 1,500 tonnes. Then at the end of April we got another rain event, and lost about another 1,500 tonnes. It costs about $1,000,000 of turnover. It's people we employ who don't get to work. It affects the community, it affects everyone. If that's not climate change, I don't know what is. I've been farming this area all of my life. I've only ever seen one dry period like that before, but never seen the rain events like that. |
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| Brett McClen, chief viticulturist at Brown Brothers.
(Supplied: Brown Brothers) We are seeing grapes ripening faster and ripening within a much shorter timeframe than they once did. |
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