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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Constraints and opportunities in applying seasonal climate forecasts in agriculture

Andrew Ash A E , Peter McIntosh B , Brendan Cullen A , Peter Carberry C and Mark Stafford Smith D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship, 306 Carmody Rd, St Lucia, Qld 4067, Australia.

B CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship, GPO Box 1538, Hobart, Tas. 7001, Australia.

C CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship, 203 Tor St, Toowoomba, Qld 4350, Australia.

D CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, GPO Box 284, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

E Corresponding author. Email: Andrew.Ash@csiro.au

Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 58(10) 952-965 https://doi.org/10.1071/AR06188
Submitted: 14 June 2006  Accepted: 13 June 2007   Published: 30 October 2007

Abstract

Climate variability has an enormous impact on agricultural productivity, rural livelihoods, and economics at farm, regional, and national scales. An every-day challenge facing farmers is to make management decisions in the face of this climate variability. Being able to minimise losses in droughts and take advantage of favourable seasons is the promise of seasonal climate forecasts. The criteria for their adoption depends on what variables are forecast, their accuracy, the likely economic and/or natural resource benefits and how well they are communicated. In reviewing how current seasonal climate forecasts meet these criteria, it is clear that they offer considerable potential to buffer the effects of climate variability in agriculture, particularly in regions that have high levels of inter-annual rainfall variability and are strongly influenced by El Niño and La Niña events. However, the current skill, lead time, relevance to agricultural decisions, and communication techniques are not well enough advanced and/or integrated to lead to widespread confidence and adoption by farmers. The current challenges are to continue to improve forecast reliability and to better communicate the probabilistic outputs of seasonal climate forecasts to decision makers.

Additional keywords: ENSO, adoption, communication.


Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the funding provided by Land and Water Australia’s Climate Variability in Agriculture Program, which assisted in the undertaking of this work. Greg McKeon, Steven Crimp, Holger Meinke, Mark Howden, and two anonymous reviewers provided many useful comments that have greatly improved the manuscript. Robert Fawcett at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne kindly supplied Fig. 1.


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