Keith Pekin: The future of farming in a drying environment

It is increasingly evident we are in a drying climate. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states: “The Southwest of Australia is one of the first places on the planet to see a trend of rainfall reduction and it is one of the few regions in the world where the bulk of models agree drying will continue”. For farmers, the uncertainty that comes from a drying environment with more frequent and extreme weather events makes it a lot harder to apply good farm management practices. Farmers are contending with a wide range of other factors that also reduce the viability of farming, which further constrains their capacity to adapt to the drying climate. This scenario is already impacting on the availability and price of some food and the capacity of farmers to keep producing the range and quantity of food our growing population is accustomed to. It is now up to our Government to provide substantial long-term investment to address the urgency of the situation — there are no quick or cheap fixes to ensuring we remain food-secure in a drying environment. We have all benefited from the draw-down of natural capital and it is up to us to pay forward to ensure future generations have fair and reasonable access to the natural capital they will need. Some measures that can be taken include supporting farmers to restore beneficial natural capital on less productive land, supporting farmers to adopt more climate-friendly regenerative practices on productive land and investing in green infrastructure to help rehydrate the farming landscape. Natural capital accounting frameworks are emerging as the means to verify change in the stock and condition of natural capital assets and they have the potential to stack Australian carbon credit units with biodiversity credits (when established). The Macdoch Foundation’s Farming for the Future program takes a farm scale approach and the Accounting for Nature framework provides more options for environmental accounting at a landscape scale. While our small corner of the planet has been globally recognised as a global drying hotspot, there is opportunity for innovative WA farmers and researchers to lead international research projects. These projects could identify viable farming practices that are likely to work in other farming landscapes that are on the same drying trajectory. With that in mind, we are already starting to plan our next conference for September 2025. The conference will have a focus on regen ag in a drying climate and we will be encouraging participation from other regions around the planet where farmers are also facing the challenges of farming in a drying climate. What happens on farms has an inevitable impact on consumers, so we will be seeking to build the connectivity and understanding between farmers, health professionals, researchers, scientists, Government and other stakeholders in our food supply chains at the conference. Keith Pekin is the CEO of RegenWA, a grower group that supports farmers to identify and share innovative practices that restore beneficial natural capital to the farming landscape.