Future Ready Dairy Systems
Background
This project funded by Dairy Australia & the Federal Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF), is focussed on ensuring that there are viable, practical and profitable options for dairy farmers around climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Objective: demonstration and validation of climate change mitigation and adaptation options, strategies, and technologies.
Intended impact: the dairy supply chain, including farmers, service providers and policy makers, has confidence and capacity to capture the opportunities and to deal with the uncertainties of climate change, increased seasonal variability and emissions reduction plans.
Outputs
A national network of 15 on-farm demonstration sites showing adaptation and mitigation strategies in action. These demonstration sites will be selected and ‘managed’ by a Regional Reference Group in each region to ensure that the sites are focussed on issues that are locally relevant. Many demonstration sites are likely to involve activities across more than one farm, for example where several farms might be trialling different forage options, but no one farm would be trialling them all. Gippsland will have two ‘Future Ready sites’.
Information resources to assist understanding and implementation of adaptation and mitigation strategies. These resources will be disseminated widely through the national, State and local partners.
Information sheet for download :
Greenhouse gas emissions benchmarks and reporting processes for the dairy industry
The dairy industry has made a major commitment to understanding and reporting on greenhouse gas emissions across the whole supply chain. DGAS (the Dairy Greenhouse Abatement Strategies calculator) will be used across all demonstration and validation farms in this project. This is both to build a more complete picture of greenhouse gas emissions across different farming systems, and to assess any impacts on emissions from changes in farming systems or practices that are the result of a changing or more variable climate.
Enhanced capacity of farmers to adapt and innovate in response to climate change and mitigation policies
Making proactive management decisions to adapt to and prosper in a dynamic and uncertain environment requires personal resilience to changing conditions, and new ways of learning and thinking about the complexities of the real world. Increasing farmer readiness is about strengthening the sense-making process of individuals and groups to increase their confidence to act despite the inevitable uncertainty surrounding climate change and greenhouse gas mitigation.
What does this mean for Gippsland?
The RDP, GippsDairy will manage the finances and the Dairying for Tomorrow coordinator is the responsible project manager. $103 400 is available for 2 Future Ready sites within Gippsland over a two year period, the expectations are as follows;
- Establishment & coordination of a Regional Reference Group to steer the project
- Assessment & benchmarking of the demonstration sites (choosing activities & sites)
- Ongoing technical support for demonstration sites (monitoring costs to ensure rigour of data)
- Demonstration site extension activities - field days, workshops, bus trips - 5 activities per site over 2 years
- Professional development workshops – for service providers/farmers
- Communication activities & materials (media, fact sheets, material for web sites, webinars)
- Technical support for YDDP and farmer discussion groups, a minimum of 3 activities
NB: There are other activities taking place in the region that are linked to the intentions of this project. Eg. the Green Cleaning project, Adaptive Forage Management. Every effort will be made to reduce duplication and work together providing the best output for the region’s farmers.
For further information contact Gillian Hayman, Dairying for Tomorrow Coordinator, Gippsland 0428 345493