#Climate Change

Climate change is no longer a theoretical risk to Australian agriculture. It’s an economic and operational challenge for today’s producers. Across farming systems, the effects of climate variability are already shaping productivity, land values, and long-term viability. Climate change inaction compounds these pressures, increasing exposure to the impacts of a changing climate (such as water scarcity, heat stress, and extreme weather) while narrowing the window for effective adaptation.

Climate change is already reshaping the conditions under which food is grown, and the risks of inaction are becoming increasingly clear. Rising temperatures, more frequent extreme weather events, and shifting rainfall patterns are placing sustained pressure on yields, farm profitability, and long-term land productivity.

Climate change is transforming the way we farm. Unpredictable changes in rainfall and temperature patterns are bringing drought, heatwaves and flooding. And as extreme weather becomes more frequent across Australia and around the world, crop failure from climate change is emerging as a real food security threat.

No longer tomorrow’s problem, climate change is already impacting farming and agriculture across the globe. With the global temperature averaging 1.6 °C higher across 2024, surpassing the Paris Agreement's target for the first time, warmer land and sea temperatures, more frequent extreme weather events, and shifting growing seasons are affecting food production at every level – from small family farms to large-scale commercial operations.

Heechung Sung from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation shares insights on what investors want to see when it comes to supporting AgTech innovation.

In the race to net zero, The University of Sydney has developed an exciting new soil carbon assessment system called MelaniC.

As 2030 looms, our climate is in crisis, the sustainability targets set by big business seem a mile away – and food producers are being pressured to make up the shortfall. But is on-farm action enough? Or do we need to rethink the entire system that funds agriculture? Here, thought leaders in sustainability and finance unpack the path to a new climate economy, and why – in the defining race of our time – we can’t leave primary producers behind.

Plant breeders are in a race against time to deliver crop varieties that can survive more frequent, prolonged, and severe heat events. A new research project by The Agrifood Innovation Institute is helping plant breeders accelerate the development of heat tolerant wheat – and insure the global food system against climate-induced harvest failures.

Four interwoven challenges: climate, COVID-19, conflict, and cost have disrupted agrifood supply chains and led to skyrocketing costs for farm inputs, all set amongst fears for global food security and the transition to a decarbonised economy.

A quick disclosure — I love M.J. Bale suits. I was married in one, and most items in my wardrobe that aren’t workwear bear its label. The popularity of the Australian menswear brand shouldn't mean that it needs to worry about things like ethical clothing or sustainability, which have become selling points with consumers. It speaks to the morality of the clothier that it does. After becoming Australia’s first carbon-neutral fashion brand in 2021, the tailors to farmers, footballers and the top end of town have partnered with Sea Forest, an environmental technology company based in Tasmania, to further decarbonise their business by attacking the gassiest part – the sheep that produce the wool.

As the MC for evoke^AG.’s second Investor Pitch Dinner, Tenacious Ventures’ Sarah Nolet remarked on how much things had changed since the previous evoke^AG. in 2020 and its first Investor Pitch Dinner. Australian agritech has gone from aspiring to be a global player, Sarah says, to ‘fully established, proving to the world that we’ve arrived and we’re here to stay’. So where are Australia’s areas of global advantage, and what’s the key to maximising the future for the agrifood tech ecosystem?

In this Food Futurists x evokeAG podcast, Andy Lowe chats with Peter Wren-Hilton, Convenor of the 2035 Oceania Summit, on the power of collaboration.