Address to the opening of the
International Workshop on the Content, Communication and Use of Weather and Climate Products and Services for Sustainable Agriculture
Toowoomba, Queensland
18 May 2009
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, may I extend a warm welcome to you all on this very fine Autumn Toowoomba morning. At the outset of my remarks, I’d like to extend my thanks to Professor Roger Stone, Professor in Climatology and Water Resources and Director of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments, here at the University of Southern Queensland, for inviting me to open this workshop.
May I also acknowledge several other distinguished guests here this morning? From overseas: Mr Gary Foley , Permanent Representative of Australia at the World Meteorological Organisation, Dr Jim Salinger, President, World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Agricultural Meteorology and Dr M V K Sivakumar, Chief of the Agricultural Meteorology Division, Geneva. From the local community: Mrs Bobbie Brazil, USQ’s Chancellor, Cr Peter Taylor, Mayor of Toowoomba and Mr Mike Coughlan, Assistant Director, Bureau of Meteorology.
I understand that it is rare for a workshop of this character and significance to be held outside of Geneva, Switzerland. The fact that Toowoomba has been chosen as the venue is I imagine a reflection of a number of factors. Some who do not hold this city in particular affection and I am certainly not among them, might say that it is because Toowoomba is renowned for having four seasons in one day!
More seriously, one reason for having the meeting here is no doubt that as Australia itself experiences climate change, the farmers here on the Darling Downs and in the surrounding districts, are daily having to face up to the challenges of climate variability. In doing so they are precisely the people who might be expected to benefit from the results of the workshop.
The venue also recognises the excellent reputation and work of the University of Southern Queensland. The university has a strong tradition of research programs in areas such as sustainability and rural health and is a world leader in online learning technologies and pedagogy.
The value and importance of the Workshop is reflected as much in its wide ranging agenda as in the considerable diversity of its participants. There can be little doubt that drawing together scientists from different disciplinary backgrounds, national and international policy makers and practitioners from the farming and agricultural sectors will make for some fascinating debate and discussion.
You are gathered here at a critical time. There is no doubt that climate change is a reality, a reality that we as individuals face each day. Increases in temperatures, decreases in rainfall and extreme weather events, such as drought, floods and fire are not only a reality here in Australia but across the globe.
No group is likely to be more directly affected by the impacts than farmers. In what is already a sometimes uncertain existence, they are now forced to face-up to changing patterns of weather. This in turn brings increased risks of crop failure, new forms of disease and pestilence, and the need for new and more resilient varieties of crops, seeds and planting material among much else.
But climate change doesn’t just impact on the productivity of farmers. It will almost certainly affect food security for the broader community. It will impact on the quality, variety, nutrition and availability of food around the world.
While it may affect most deeply the people and food systems that are already vulnerable, overtime the risk shifts to those whom we might once have considered relatively safe from danger. According to Josette Shearan, the head of the UN Food Program, we will need to double global food production by 2050. As she noted recently, “If we have to produce twice as much food and we already have a situation where one out of six people can’t get access to adequate food, (we are compelled) to put (the issue) at the top of the agenda.”
This should be regarded as a call to arms by the international community. It dramatically highlights the reality that a progressively changing climate greatly increases the likelihood of food insecurity and the need for better management of the risks against the dangers of failure.
Here I think lies the importance of your Workshop. It give us the opportunity to promote dialogue about the likely impacts of climate change, to present options for reducing vulnerability and to provide farmers and their communities with “real” solutions at the farm level.
The work you do in reviewing and evaluating programs, case studies, weather and climate products and in making recommendations for change will be valuable. Equally, there is a need to evaluate new tools for communication and dissemination of weather and climate products for farmers both in the short and long-term. The publication and distribution of the proceedings by the WMO will further enhance the implementation of strategies for disaster reduction and mitigation of extreme events.
I know that I do not need to convince any one in this room of the righteous nature of these endeavours. But to highlight its significance in the Australian context let me draw your attention to one statistic. In the 2002-03 drought, when the gross value of agricultural production fell by 19 per cent, (to around $32 billion) Australia’s GDP was reduced by around 1 per cent. Not just in Australia, but as an international community we desperately need policy options to avoid these costs.
I have been asked by the organisers of the Workshop not to detain you for too long and I promised not to do so. Nevertheless in closing, I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of the WMO, the United Nations system’s authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.
As we all know, these phenomena know no political boundaries. Recognising this, the WMO has acted as a facilitator and catalyst in improving our understanding of weather, climate and water ever since its establishment in 1950/51. Its work has been dedicated to the application of information for the protection of life and property, socio-economic development, environmental protection and related policy formulation. Its leadership and expertise has contributed to the safety and well-being of people throughout the world and to the economic benefit of the international community. We now need the WMO’s expertise and dedication to confront a challenge that has the potential to affect the lives and futures of everyone on the planet, to say nothing of generations yet born.
The impact of climate change on agricultural is only part of the puzzle, part of the challenge. Even so, it is critically important that those involved in this part of the economy be presented with options which facilitate adjustment, promote productivity and encourage sustainability over the long term.
This is your challenge over the next few days. I wish you well in this important enterprise and it is with great pleasure that I now declare open the “International Workshop on the Content, Communication and Use of Weather and Climate Products and Services for Sustainable Agriculture.“ Thank you.