with extensive producer-support packages and the intensity of this competition is
escalating (Keogh 2011).
Agriculture and sustainable agricultural productivity are essential for the longterm welfare and economic security of rural QLD and NSW. It also provides
increased food (nutrient) security, both domestically and within the Asia-Pacific
area. Yet, Australia’s agricultural sector is showing indications of decreasing capacity and faltering productivity gains, threatening the resilience of some rural businesses. Surveying of rural agricultural businesses by the Climate Council (2016) has
shown that many businesses have drawn down on their financial reserves and, in
many cases, have taken on increased debt in response to extreme weather events. As
Australia’s climate becomes more variable and there are more extreme weather
events, adaptation (and cost) to those agricultural enterprises will become increasingly challenging. The ability for many agricultural businesses to dedicate funds for
practical and enduring on-farm resilience measures, such as technology or infrastructure, is being diminished by unsustainable input costs, most notably the price of
grid-supplied electricity. Research (Kiem et al. 2010; Kiem and Austin 2013) into
the indebtedness of farming enterprises (food and fibre) has highlighted the financial
unsustainability, acknowledging the impacts from rising input costs and the trends in
poor profitability over the past decade. This has been coupled with limited number of
options other than debt to finance farming activities (McGovern 2014; Moshin
2015). The Climate Council (2017) refers to climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’
in terms of its ability to exacerbate existing stresses on rural businesses and communities as well as adding new ones. Both QLD and NSW agricultural producers are
now having to manage legacies, such as salinity which has arisen from historical
poor farming management practices (e.g. in the Burdekin region), new land use
challenges such as their co-existence with the new coal seam gas (CSG) industry, a
legacy set of abandoned mines and resulting contamination issues. However, there
are also a range of emerging issues that both QLD and NSW agricultural producers
must adapt to. These include increasing regulatory burdens in water, energy and
natural resource management. Additionally, there have been rising costs which have
resulted from uncoordinated and often contradicting State and Federal policy development. The following sections provide a regulatory and policy overview of the two
input factors, water and energy (particularly electricity), that are influencing and
often constraining agricultural producers in QLD and NSW against the backdrop of
going climate change risk.
7.2.1 Climate Change: QLD and NSW
Within the water-energy-food nexus, climate change is increasingly impacting the
QLD and NSW agricultural sectors, not only on its own but through the increasing
interlinkage between agricultural input costs (namely, electricity and water) and the
regulatory and policy settings associated with natural resource planning and food
production. Both QLD and NSW benefit from a varied range of climatic zones and
microclimates. These facilitate a wide diversity of growing conditions and the
88
S. Schulte et al.
escalating (Keogh 2011).
Agriculture and sustainable agricultural productivity are essential for the longterm welfare and economic security of rural QLD and NSW. It also provides
increased food (nutrient) security, both domestically and within the Asia-Pacific
area. Yet, Australia’s agricultural sector is showing indications of decreasing capacity and faltering productivity gains, threatening the resilience of some rural businesses. Surveying of rural agricultural businesses by the Climate Council (2016) has
shown that many businesses have drawn down on their financial reserves and, in
many cases, have taken on increased debt in response to extreme weather events. As
Australia’s climate becomes more variable and there are more extreme weather
events, adaptation (and cost) to those agricultural enterprises will become increasingly challenging. The ability for many agricultural businesses to dedicate funds for
practical and enduring on-farm resilience measures, such as technology or infrastructure, is being diminished by unsustainable input costs, most notably the price of
grid-supplied electricity. Research (Kiem et al. 2010; Kiem and Austin 2013) into
the indebtedness of farming enterprises (food and fibre) has highlighted the financial
unsustainability, acknowledging the impacts from rising input costs and the trends in
poor profitability over the past decade. This has been coupled with limited number of
options other than debt to finance farming activities (McGovern 2014; Moshin
2015). The Climate Council (2017) refers to climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’
in terms of its ability to exacerbate existing stresses on rural businesses and communities as well as adding new ones. Both QLD and NSW agricultural producers are
now having to manage legacies, such as salinity which has arisen from historical
poor farming management practices (e.g. in the Burdekin region), new land use
challenges such as their co-existence with the new coal seam gas (CSG) industry, a
legacy set of abandoned mines and resulting contamination issues. However, there
are also a range of emerging issues that both QLD and NSW agricultural producers
must adapt to. These include increasing regulatory burdens in water, energy and
natural resource management. Additionally, there have been rising costs which have
resulted from uncoordinated and often contradicting State and Federal policy development. The following sections provide a regulatory and policy overview of the two
input factors, water and energy (particularly electricity), that are influencing and
often constraining agricultural producers in QLD and NSW against the backdrop of
going climate change risk.
7.2.1 Climate Change: QLD and NSW
Within the water-energy-food nexus, climate change is increasingly impacting the
QLD and NSW agricultural sectors, not only on its own but through the increasing
interlinkage between agricultural input costs (namely, electricity and water) and the
regulatory and policy settings associated with natural resource planning and food
production. Both QLD and NSW benefit from a varied range of climatic zones and
microclimates. These facilitate a wide diversity of growing conditions and the
88
S. Schulte et al.