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The challenge

Preparing farmers for future droughts

Australia is predicted to face more extreme weather in future, including more frequent and prolonged droughts.

Preparing for future climate scenarios is critical to farmers so that they can continue to produce high quality crops and livestock.

The agriculture sector needs new, location-specific climate prediction tools for better planning and decision making.

Our response

Farm-specific climate projections for the next 50 years

Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) is an online platform designed to help Australian farmers build resilience against future drought and climate risks.

CSA screenshot demonstrating past and future climate for Morwell in Victoria.

It combines historical, seasonal forecast and projected climate data to indicate how future climate could impact a specific farm in any location of Australia.

CSA is built on our advanced INDRA technology platform.

We've applied advanced analytics to CSIRO and BoM climate data, as well as other data sources, to provide useful insights on the risks of producing a particular crop or livestock for a specific location.

CSA covers a range of commodities including wheat, barley, canola, lupins, apples, almonds, beef and sheep. It will soon cover up to 90 per cent of Australian producers.

CSA is being developed in partnership with the Bureau of Meteorology, FarmLink Research and the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund.

The results

Better prepared for a changing climate

CSA aims to help to reduce the impacts of drought and climate change on farmers. 

The open-access platform is available online now for farmers to use.

When complete, CSA will contain millions of data points for one location, providing a range of insights for farmers.

It's currently being trialled across eight pilot regions to gather critical user feedback and input to ensure the platform is relevant to farmers and the wider agriculture sector.

In future, the underlying INDRA technology platform could be applied to other industry sectors impacted by climate change.

Preparing for the future is critical for everyone who lives or works on the land.

That’s why, we’ve developed the Climate Services for Agriculture platform – or CSA.

It’s an online tool designed to help Australian farmers build resilience for future drought and climate risks.

CSA provides farmers, agribusinesses, communities and other decision makers, with historical climate data, seasonal forecasts and future climate projections at a five-kilometre resolution right across Australia.

Climate information is tailored to meet the needs of a range of agricultural commodities, from meat to grains to horticulture and many more.

This means that farmers can now easily assess how the weather and climate factors matter to their business could change into the future. For example, a wheat producer can see how the timing intensity of seasonal rainfall in their region might change over time and how that might impact their farm.

We’ve built this tool by talking with Australian farmers and we want to continue the conversation.

Have your say in designing a platform that will help Australian farms and communities prepare for the future. For more information about CSA, visit the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website.

And to get involved contact DroughtResilience@agriculture.gov.au

CSA is developed by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, as part of the Australian government’s Future Drought Fund. 

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