On the ground at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) operations centre in Melbourne recently, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce, joined Senator for Victoria, Bridget McKenzie, to announce the project, funded under the third round of the Coalition Government's Rural Research and Development (R&D) for Profit programme.

"Here at the BoM operations centre today, I've been pleased to take a first-hand look at their world-class climate prediction system, which this project will use to develop new specially tailored forecasts so that farmers get the information they need to support decision-making on-farm," Minister Joyce said.

MLA will be collaborating with the BoM and 13 other partners across the dairy, beef, sheep, grains, sugar and wine industries to;

• Identify what forecasting information on extreme events is needed for decision-making,
• Develop new forecasts of extreme weather events using the BoM's world-class seasonal prediction system, and
• Develop industry relevant tools for producers to help them understand how to use seasonal-forecasts of extreme climate events.

Manager of Environmental Sustainability for Meat and Livestock Australia, Dr Tom Davison told Farming Ahead the project will see a range of new products from the Bureau of Meteorology.

“One suite of products will be focused on the seven to 30-day period, the second will be looking at the likelihood of extreme events beyond 30 days, out to 12 months,” Dr Davison said.

“The Bureau of Meteorology has a big investment in seasonal forecasting, they are linked to the UK Met Office with global climate models and they have done some preliminary work around how they might predict heatwaves up to 30 days,” he said.

“That work showed it was better than just assuming seasonal averages, so we’re optimistic these two products can be developed.”

Dr Davison says the impact of the project will be about developing more proactive management practices for farmers.

“We will be able to engage with producers and advisors about how to use this information, which will be probability-based, to put into management and decision-making in a proactive way rather than a reactive way - we’re really trying to turn producers from being punters into bookmakers,” he explained.

“For example, if you’ve got a 70 per cent chance of a heatwave developing, what could growers do differently to prepare for that and manage the risk?

“It may be shifting livestock into low shade paddocks and then in three weeks time, when you think it’s going to be very hot, they can be shifted back into paddocks where there’s more grass and lots of shade.”

The project is going until early 2022, and it’s hoped beta products will be released for producers to testing in one to two years.