Drought hardened Australia. In this parched country it can be a struggle to raise livestock
or grow crops.
We were in drought for three years, so we really didn't crop anything for three years.
Warmer temperatures are increasing the frequency and severity of droughts, reducing agricultural
output.
The loss of income was quite extreme. We dropped from about five permanent staff to three.
A lot of these guys had been here for a long time.
I’ve come to north-eastern New South Wales to investigate the future of farming on the
world’s driest inhabited land.
Gidday. Good to me you.
I’m Guy. Jamie.
Welcome.
At this two thousand hectare research farm in Narrabri, Guy Roth and his team are on
a mission to find new and sustainable farming techniques to better suit the climate.
We've got researchers here looking at different types of wheat, fava beans, and chickpeas,
trying to select lines that are more tolerant of heat stress, which will then in turn, in
years to come produce higher yields for farmers.
The rains finally came here earlier this year, but in these photos taken here over the last
3 years, you can see the effects of their worst drought on record.
Dust storms like these also show why Guy’s team is veering away from traditional ploughing
and tilling that makes soil more susceptible to being blown away.
That's our valuable soil being lost into the atmosphere. It's our most fertile soil.
Using digital technology is a key strategy in capturing and holding the maximum amount
of moisture in the soil.
We've got some soil moisture probes, they are measuring the soil 24-7. I can look that
up on my phone and see the soil water content in real time. So we can get, make that more
accurate, because it affects potential yield that's for better returns and better profitability
for farmers.
We also do yield mapping. We know where the highest yielding spots are and the lowest
yielding spots are. The GPS enables us to drive the tracks always in the same spot.
So we don't have any soil compaction and that increases the yield where there is no tracks.
Guy and his team work with local farmers like Andrew Watson in nearby Boggabri who provide
them with advice on what they see as a priority.
Last year was not much more than 210 millimetres of rainfall for the entire year.
What did this look like last year, in the drought?
Dry dead grass pretty much. So it wasn’t very pretty.
In Australia, overall farm profits fell $64,000 per farm over the past two years, according
to Australia’s agricultural research agency.
What was the impact of that drought?
Essentially we were irrigating about 15 per cent of our land where we'd normally irrigate
60 per cent.
One way of battling the effects of climate change is sharing data.
So we've been very heavily involved in an economic benchmarking group, essentially a
broad group across New South Wales. We take the data from that that shows what cropping
system, not just what crops, so that's what rotations are working the best.
He’s also embraced technology to minimise water loss.
So certainly the overhead sprinkler systems have brought about a 30 per cent water saving
on average. We've been able to grow the same yields or better yields with less water.
Back in Narrabri, I catch up with another local farmer.
Ian Gourley runs a rain fed, dryland farm.
He’s also trying new farming techniques and technology.
So we've all out where everything is all GPS guidance. We have permanent wheel tracks.
Satellite imagery to do crop monitoring. EM surveys to look at, you know, what our soil
structure is and what our water holding capacities are and how we can then manage that.
Innovative rotation practices can even include planting non-profitable cover crops, simply
to protect or improve the soil for future crops.
You know, maybe forgoing a year's income on a cash crop to grow a cover crop, to make
the whole rotation more profitable.
Australia’s farmers are not alone in fighting the effects of climate change. However the
agricultural industry here has been forced to move faster and it’s now set to become
a digital leader in farming.
What we learned out of this drought was it just changed our whole thinking on what the
future might look like.
Farming is not static. It continues to evolve.