Building drought and climate resilience for Australian farmers
The Long-term Trial program is funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund to support projects that investigate innovative farming techniques through science-based long-term trials, building drought and climate resilience for Australian farmers. The University of Melbourne-led project “Long-term economic, environmental and social outcomes of drought resilience practices in mixed farming” investigates drought and climate resilience of different broadacre farming systems, from pure cropping over cropping-dominant mixed farming with annual pastures and dual-purpose crops to provide animal feed, mixed farming with ley pastures and dual purpose crops to permanent pasture systems. The central question is whether the greater diversity of mixed farming systems can provide greater resilience to drought and climate shocks.
The project is undertaken by a consortium of partners: The University of Melbourne runs the central experiment on its Dookie Campus. Farming systems groups Birchip Cropping Group and Southern Farming Systems are running trials implementing regionally co-designed aspects or variations of the central experiment, Riverine Plains undertakes extension activities around the central Dookie experiments, and the Tasmania Institute of Agriculture/University of Tasmania runs a trial investigating resilience aspects of grazing management on permanent pastures.
The plethora of data created in these experiments are managed by Federation University and feed into a comprehensive systems modelling activity undertaken by the University of Tasmania team to allow extrapolation of results spatially and under future climate scenarios.
Engagement with end-users is key to creating project impact, and extension and communication activities are core part of the project, undertaken by farming systems groups and Tasmania Institute of Agriculture around the regional trials, and extended to on-farm demonstrations of regionally co-designed aspects. Social research using a living laboratory approach accompanies these engagement activities to assess enablers and barriers to adoption of any new knowledge gained in the project.
The project's central experiment is at Dookie. Several spokes trials implement regionally co-designed aspects or variations of the central experiment.
Activities undertaken by the University of Tasmania team allow extrapolation of results spatially and under future climate scenarios.
Investigating resilience and adoption, Riverine Plains conducts research and extension activities around the central Dookie experiments.
University of Melbourne's Dookie Campus is already producing information that is helpful for crop and livestock farmers to manage drought.
Trial design completed and trial sites set up with monitoring equipment in 5 locations across Victoria and Tasmania.
This video by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry gives a great overview of the core experiments at The University of Melbourne's Dookie campus and associated on-farm demonstrations organised by our partners Riverine Plains Inc.
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This video provides a simple introduction to regenerative agriculture. It explains the main practices involved, such as cell and rotational grazing, silvopastoral systems, agroforestry, minimal soil disturbance, reduced use of synthetic fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides, and greater diversity in farming systems.