Landholders throughout Australia are accessing climate information from a wide range of sources and using numerous climate indicators to assist in making management decisions. The Masters of the Climate project run for the Climate Variability in Agriculture R&D Program (CVAP) unearthed case studies showing how landholders are finding innovative ways to access, interpret and apply climate information to improve productivity and minimise losses.

Many observations about the uptake of climate information for management decisions and the confidence in this practice can be drawn from the case studies compiled for Masters of Climate.

1. Introduction

The Masters of the Climate project was commission by CVAP. The primary objective was to discover and document little known innovations employed by landholders including farmers, to develop management systems better adapted to climate variability. A secondary objective was to raise the profile of CVAP and climate management.

Masters of the Climate was run as a competition with landholders throughout Australia entering details about their use of climate information to assist in decision-making.

Cox Inall Communications was engaged by CVAP to develop the Masters of the Climate branding strategy, promote the competition and prepare case studies on a selected number of finalists.

The competition was promoted through key regional media, the distribution of brochures, community service announcements and segments on Cross Country TV and Austar’s Pay TV Weather 21 channel.

Partnerships were developed with Austar Pay TV and Rainman '99 for landholder incentives to enter the competition.

A total of 86 landholders provided details of their use of climate information. The entries were assessed by a committee comprising farmers, farm consultants and representatives from the Queensland Centre for Climate Applications Advisory Board, the Bureau of Meteorology, Bureau of Rural Sciences and CVAP. Winners and finalists were chosen for each State by the committee.

Cox Inall Communications sub-contracted Jesse Blackadder to compile case studies through face-to-face and telephone interviews with the 23 State winners and finalists.

From September to November this year, Cox Inall Communications is implementing a program to promote the findings of the Masters of the Climate project amongst landholders, extension officers, scientists and others in the agriculture and climate sectors. This aims to demonstrate the wide range of innovative techniques that landholders are using to find climate information and use it, with success, in management decisions.

The Masters of the Climate project revealed the wide range of climate indicators and sources of information that landholders are accessing.

Landholders entering Masters of the Climate demonstrated innovation in how they calibrated climate indicators with their own views of climate patterns. In particular, many are using their own rainfall records to identify analogous years and make management decisions based on these comparisons. What was also evident was farmer’s ability to integrate, through skill and experience, climate management into aspects of farm management.

The style of decision-making following the consultation with climate information matched the diversity of the landuse in the case studies.

Masters of the Climate entrants tended to be clustered in particular regions, related to the efforts of agriculture and climate extension officers. Queensland entrants tended to be associated with efforts of the Queensland Centre for Climate Applications (QCCA). Those who had come into contact with the QCCA developed skills through extension officers from the Department of Primary Industries, were aware of the impacts of the Southern Oscillation Index on Queensland climate and accessed climate information through QCCA.

A similar situation occurred in northern NSW, where entrants were familiar with Peter Hayman from NSW Agriculture and his chocolate wheel and climate workshops. These landholders are using diverse sources of climate information and are less certain about the impacts of the Southern Oscillation Index on their climate.

In South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria clusters exist although they are difficult to describe on the basis of the Masters of the Climate sample.

The Masters of the Climate project revealed a great deal of confusion amongst landholders between weather and climate.

Climate information needs to be seen as a major decision support tool that is monitored throughout the year and accessed at key decision-making times such as for farm budgeting, crop planning, livestock mating decisions, marketing and price risk management. It is suggested that climate be positioned differently from weather in farmer's minds through developing and using a distinct language to describe climate.

Masters of the Climate entrants are accessing a wide range of climate information sources, many over the Internet. Given the importance of the Internet as a source of climate information, the lack of a single climate Internet portal is an issue. One State finalist, Tom Porter from Hay in Southern NSW has created his own website to assist other farmers locate useful online climate sites.

One of the difficulties faced by the committee assessing entrants in Masters of the Climate was getting a handle on farmer’s interpretation of accuracy of climate forecasts. In most cases, landholders are not keeping detailed records of their interpretation of climate tools and the management decisions they are making in response.

The clustering of entrants in the Masters of the Climate competition shows that interest and enthusiasm for using climate information is associated with the efforts of extension staff. Future work to generate confidence amongst landholders in the use of climate information as a valuable decision-making tool should consider these clusters and their further identification and development on the basis of:

• the most accurate climate prediction tool for the area;
• the dominant research / extension network in the area; and
• broad landuse patterns (eg. summer or winter cropping).

This would assist in ensuring landholders are using tools best suited to their area and are aware of the accuracy of these tools.

The Masters of the Climate project successfully uncovered many innovative techniques being used by landholders to access climate information and use it to respond to the more recent understanding of climate. The observations made through the Masters of the Climate project provide some insights for future work in encouraging the use of, and confidence in, climate information as a useful decision-making tool for landholders. Key recommendations are to:

• position climate as distinct from weather in farmer’s minds;
• develop a single Internet portal for climate information;
• encourage landholders to record detailed information on interpretation of climate tools and management decisions that are made as a result; and
• further identifying and developing cluster areas where climate information is being used to ensure landholders are using the most suitable climate tools.