Chairman Mal says "Everyone thinks climate change is increasing droughts"
Tuesday, 07 August 2018
Meanwhile, the prime minister has been dragged back into debate over the impact of climate change on drought.
"I think everyone agrees that we're seeing rainfall that is, if you like, more erratic, droughts that are more frequent and seasons that are hotter," he told the ABC.
Mr Turnbull has dismissed suggestions Australia ought to abandon global emissions reduction targets because they won't immediately help farmers.
He reaffirmed Australia's commitment to reducing carbon emissions after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said the government's action would do nothing to stop droughts.
Mr Joyce, whose NSW electorate of New England has been badly affected by drought, believes reducing emissions in Australia won't change the climate.
"Any policy we do, it's more of a sense of a commitment to a wider purpose" he told Sky News.
"It will have no difference on the climate whatsoever - zero, zip, nothing."
But National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simpson pointed to a 45 per cent reduction in red meat industry emissions between 2005 and 2015.
Ms Simpson said Australia needed to understand the effects of climate change to continue as a world leader.
"The impacts of climate change will mean that (drought and rain) events could be more extreme but they could be more frequent," she said.
Farmers have meanwhile expressed concerns the media is too heavily focused on drought "disaster" stories, fearing it could damage the reputation of Australia's livestock industry.
Their concerns have been echoed by NSW agriculture minister Niall Blair, who is worried attention on farmers shooting animals or leaving them to starve will undermine Australia's standing as a meat-producing nation.