Could big data help farmers adapt to a changing climate?

Big data could help farmers understand and adapt to weather variability, shoring up the future of the family farm in Australia.

The future prosperity of the family farm may depend on farmers' willingness to take up new technologies, according to American scientist Dr John Corbett.

Dr Corbett has been in Australia to address growers at the 2015 National Horticulture Convention about the benefits of using geo-analytics and big data to access better and more agronomic weather information.

The term "big data" is used to describe a massive volume of data so large it is difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques.

"Some of the weather variability that earth is experiencing and that farmers experience in their specific locations are things that are a little bit outside their experience. So better and more agronomic weather information can really enhance profitability, using science to help address some of that uncertainty," Dr Corbett said.

He said drawing on big data was not about forecasting the weather but rather addressing what was happening.

"All too often growers are facing situations of higher temperatures, humidity, rainfall, maybe diseases and things they haven't seen before at that intensity perhaps and this information helps guide their next steps. So it's not so much forecasting as it is a way of managing the uncertainty that's happening today with the weather variability," he said.

The benefits of using big data are not limited to farmers.

Dr Corbett said the whole agricultural chain, including seed companies and herbicide manufacturers, would need to adapt to weather variability.

"The information infrastructure that farmers have access to has to also come to the realisation that things aren't the way they used to be, when adjusting for a future situation of even more uncertainty," he said.

"It's even a challenge for the buyers and the processers. They are very concerned for their supply chain.

"And so this information becomes something that allows them to plan their strategies for provision of goods back all the way to the consumer in the stores.

"So yeah, I think it is quite a challenge for farming into the future, but the technology and the willingness to adopt certain technology may make a big difference."