Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
lowering the farmer's water trading capacity). How would these two contradictory
outcomes be reconciled to alter current farmer behaviour?
With payments for future mitigation options 'on hold', the need for adaptation
within Australian farming is viewed as imperative. A number of adaptation options
have been suggested, including:
Cropping and horticulture:
• plant species that have increased resistance to heat, frosts or drought
• alter application times for fertilization and irrigated water applications
• alter timing and location of cropping activities
• use varieties that are more pest and disease resistant
• retain stubble to reduce soil erosion.
Livestok:
• adapt annual production cycle to beter math the production of feed
• alter pasture rotations and modify grazing times
• alter animal species or breeds
• provide supplementary feeding.
Sector-wide:
• diversify farm income and increase off-farm income
• invest outside agriculture
• ofset increased cost of managing climate hange by reducing other costs
• employ new risk management tools - suh as futures contracts and water trad-
ing
Stokes and Howden (2008)
Most of these 'new' adaptation options are strategies that Australian farmers
have been doing for decades. he most signiicant hange is the shiting of risk from
the state to individual farmers, through tools suh as futures trading. Previously,
suh risks were shared by the state via single-desk systems suh as wheat and wool
boards. Under neoliberalism, however, the philosophy of self-help prevails. Placing
more risk in the hands of farmers does litle to respond to environmental problems
associated with productivist agriculture.
