Journal article
Management options for dairy farms under climate change: Effects of intensification, adaptation and simplification on pastures, milk production and profitability
MT Harrison, BR Cullen, D Armstrong
Agricultural Systems | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2017
Abstract
There are few holistic analyses of agricultural systems that inclusively consider how the combination of gradual climate change and increased frequencies of extreme climatic events influence biophysical variables as well as economic returns. Here we examine how climate change to 2040 influences pasture growth rates, grazed pasture harvested (PH) and profitability of three case study (baseline) farms in southern Australia. We applied ‘development options’ (or adaptations) to baseline farms in each region that either intensified, simplified or modified the seasonal distribution of feed supply (Intensify, Simplify or Adapt, respectively) by manipulating several components of the farm system sim..
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Awarded by University of Melbourne
Funding Acknowledgements
This project was supported by The University of Melbourne and The Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture through funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Dairy Australia. We thank the Dairy Businesses for Future Climates (R0021803) team members (Gillian Hayman, Warren Mason, Margaret Ayre, Nicole Reichelt, Cathy Phelps, Monique White, Ruth Nettle, Richard Rawnsley, Rachel Brown and Ruth Beilin) for their work in the project. We acknowledge Natalie Doran-Browne for support in conducting DairyMod simulations. We thank the case study farmers and the regional working group members for their contribution to the project.