The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have completed a multi-year collaboration to unlock new insights and applications for Australian farms
ABARES said the Agricultural Data Integration Project (AgDIP) provided a new secure database of Australian farms and integrated several existing agricultural datasets.
Senior Economist and project lead at ABARES, Neal Hughes said the AgDIP report presented a range of new analysis undertaken with the database that explored fine scale trends in crop production, the effects of seasonal climate and drought on farm outcomes, and measurement trends in water productivity in the Murray-Darling Basin.
“The dataset can help us better understand, measure and potentially forecast the effects of drought and climate change across different types of farms,” Dr Hughes said.
“This database provides a clearer picture of long-term trends in the agriculture sector, allowing us to publish datasets at finer spatial scales and with more consistency over time, than has been possible in the past,” he said.
“There are some exciting future applications, including supporting new approaches to drought risk management for farmers and undertaking detailed evaluations of Government programs or farm management practices.”
Dr Hughes said the project combined ABS Agricultural Census and survey data since 2000-2001 to construct the Farm-level Longitudinal Agricultural Dataset (FLAD) which was then integrated with the ABS Business Longitudinal Agricultural Data Environment (BLADE).
Executive Director of ABARES, Steve Hatfield-Dodds said the database would provide Australia with a long-term asset that could be used to inform key issues ranging from the drivers of farm productivity to the effects of drought and climate change.
Dr Hatfield-Dodds said the database would also improve understanding of policy impacts in areas like water reform.
ABARES’ 48-page report The Agricultural Data Integration Project can be accessed at this PS News link.
