Better management of climate variability within the agribusiness service sector

Carberry, P. Dr; ph: (07) 4688 1200; fax: (07) 4688 1193; Peter.Carberry@tag.csiro.au

Sponsor: LWRRDC, Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation.

Aims:

In this project APSRU will collaborate with agribusiness partners to:

• explore the role for climate forecasts and simulation models in the development and implementation of marketing, lending and insurance policies;
• undertake action research with managers to identify the opportunities for and constraints against implementation of improved agribusiness operations based on climate forecasts and simulation; and
• evaluate the success of and report learning from innovative application of improved information and tools in agribusiness.

Methodology:

This project intends to adopt an action research approach, where APSRU researchers work alongside the staff of an agribusiness firm (IAMA) employing agronomists, in order to test the feasibility of an agribusiness firm, if it did have the in-house capability, utilising climate forecasts and APSIM simulations in designing and implementing improved marketing, finance and insurance packages. These packages, after being tested within IAMA's business operations, will be offered for trial to IAMA's banking and insurance clients and contacts (e.g. NAB, ANZ, RABO). APSRU's role will be to provide the technical support for using APSIM and climate forecasts and to undertake the on-going evaluation activities. IAMA's role is to design the financial and insurance packages and to interface with allied banking and insurance companies. A key component of the research is to explore the legal issues in using simulation and climate forecasts in providing financial advice or in settling insurance claims - an explicit task to be tackled using legal resources of both IAMA and CSIRO. While the intention is to explore opportunities initially for the northern grain and cotton regions, the project will also assess the likely benefits in other cropping regions and cropping systems throughout Australia.

Progress: Negotiations with IAMA, National Australia Bank, Australian Loss Management and RaboBank have progressed towards the establishment of a number of case studies where APSRU tools are applied to real business situations. Several case studies have already been completed using APSIM in crop loss assessment. Further case studies will be developed and evaluated over the course of the project.

Period: starting date 1998-10; completion date 2001-09

Status: ongoing

Keywords: agribusiness, simulation models, seasonal forecasts

Publications: None as yet