Farmers are some of the most innovative Australians – since 1970
they have lost 7.5% of arable land, but they’ve found ways to
increase production by 220%. They’re also some of the most
conservative, expressed in their reluctance to accept the
science of climate change. So what will win as they face a
changing climate: innovation or conservatism? The agriculture
industry has been developing for the past 10,000 years, but it
could be argued that the biggest advances have come in the last
50 to 60 years. Since 1970, the world population has doubled,
yet farming area has stayed the same. Essentially farmers and
the research that has supported them have been fantastic. A
recent Conversation article highlighted this. But now
agriculture faces, possibly, its biggest challenge: climate
change. Research in Western Australia found that over half (52%)
were uncertain whether human-induced climate change was
occurring. This is in sharp contrast to the 97% of climate
scientists who agree that humans are causing global wa