Future Ready Dairy Systems

The Queensland Future Ready Dairy Systems (FRDS) project is part of a much larger national dairy industry project funded from the DAFF Climate Change Research Program (part of Australia’s Farming Future) and combines the activities of Dairy Australia (DA), Department of Primary Industries Victoria (DPIV) and the University of Melbourne. It is focussed on ensuring that there are viable, practical and profitable options for dairy farmers around climate change adaptation and mitigation so that the industry is fully prepared for whatever market or regulatory signals are sent to the dairy industry and/or to individual dairy farmers. The national project will run for 2 years (July 2010 to May 2012) and has the support of the Regional Development Programs, Milk Companies and State based extension staff.

· Demonstration sites showing adaptation and mitigation strategies in action, along with field days, workshops and bus trips. The Queensland Climate Projects Guidance Committee has provided strategic direction to ensure that the sites are focussed on high priority issues for Queensland. As such, the focus of demonstration sites will be to examine adaptation strategies for producing profitable milk in February.

· Case studies will be developed for each demonstration farm and disseminated to assist understanding and implementation of adaptation and mitigation strategies.

· Greenhouse gas emissions benchmarkswill be established across all demonstration farms in the projectusing DGAS (the Dairy Greenhouse Abatement Strategies calculator). This is both to build a more complete picture of greenhouse gas emissions across different farming systems, and to assess any impacts on emissions from changes in farming systems or practices that are the result of a changing or more variable climate.