What is Accelerating Change?

 

The Accelerating Change project aims to support farmers to develop profitable and resilient businesses through driving feedbase and irrigation management efficiencies. The project is comprised of three components that, together, are designed to provide information that supports the development of resilient and profitable feedbase systems in the Murray Dairy region: 

1. The project has a monitoring and measurement program which collects and analyses data to measure on-farm performance of different forage types, irrigation or water efficiency strategies and feedbase management. To do this the project works with two Partner Farms to understand and analyse different feedbase management strategies and how they contribute to overall business performance. 

2. It has an extension arm which develops and pilots new extension and learning activities to assist farmers to identify and implement changes to their feedbase to drive efficiency and profitability. We work with participating farmers, the service sector, other RD&E organisations and the wider industry to identify what these regional changes are. 

 

The extension arm focuses on the key areas the project has identified that drive resilience and profitability in the region's feedbases. These are forages, soils, irrigation, cropping, nutrition, future dairy systems and service provider capability. 

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3. The project also undertakes significant analysis on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of the operating environment for farmers in the Murray Dairy region (many that also are relevant to other dairy regions). The project looks at the operating environment from an industry perspective, but also from a farm-to-farm perspective, recognising the variability in resources, climate and market conditions and farm systems across the region or in different seasons. 

 

For more information on the project including activities delivered click here or download our project update flyer

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