Livestock to save growers' bacon

Australian farmers who get all of their income from growing crops will have to diversify and farm livestock as well as crops, or they will be forced out of business by climate change over the next 20 to 30 years.

That is the warning made in Melbourne yesterday by a leading thinker in sustainable agriculture, Kevin Goss, to a packed lunch of Victorian agricultural industry leaders.

But Mr Goss predicted that crops-only farmers would be reluctant to make the change because of the high costs associated with the change, such as purchasing livestock and installing fences, and the less regular financial payments.

Mr Goss, the chief executive officer of the Future Farm Industries' co-operative research centre based at the University of Western Australia, also called for an overhaul of the climate change debate, which he said was too focused on setting emissions targets years ahead, at the expense of more immediate, practical help for farmers.

"If you take on board the statistics that surround the climate change debate, you quickly realise the impact it will have on Australian agriculture, but current climate change thinking is failing to consider practical options for farmers who need solutions in the shorter term," he said.

Mr Goss said that if large-scale crops-only farmers did not take on livestock, their options were either retirement, part-time farming, leasing their property, share farming or going out of business.