Agriculture ministers, industry in Rockhampton for National Drought Forum

Rockhampton played host to the biennial event, bringing together around 180 commonwealth, state, industry, community, and finance representatives to chat ag, with the recent El Nino declaration on everyone's mind.

Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt's opening statement to the forum was that farmers and rural communities were "on the frontline of climate change" and encouraged "preparedness" in the face of uncertainty.

He said changing seasonal conditions over the last twenty years had hurt the profitability of farmers, with annual average farm profits having dropped 23 per cent or around $29,000 per farm.

"We do need to see droughts a part of a wider pattern of climate change, so when we talk about drought resilience we also need to be talking about climate resilience," he said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers also spoke at the forum and said modelling demonstrated natural disasters and climate change were set to have significant economic impacts on the nation.

He said disaster recovery spending had ballooned from $335 million to about $2.5 billion in the past five financial years, and indicated yields would be impacted significantly by climate change.

"If further action isn't taken, Australia crop yields could be four per cent lower by 2063 - costing us about $1.8bn in GDP in today's dollars," he said.

Senator Watt boasted the government's Future Drought Fund, seeing $38 million invested assist the agriculture sector's resilience to climate change and upcoming dry conditions.

As part of the strategy, regional tailored drought resilience plans were unveiled at the forum.

Plans for five Queensalnd regions had been announced so far - Fitzroy and Capricornia, Darling Downs, Burdekin and Charters Towers, Torres Strait and Cape York, and South West Queensland.

Each region would be given $300,000 to start implementing their plans, with an additional $150,000 available for an implementation officer.

While senator Watt recognised emission reductions efforts in the industry, he warned that as the energy sector decarbonised, ag's contribution of around 17pc of Australia's emissions would rise and the sector would come under increased scrutiny.

He said the government was working with industry, climate experts, and the community through consultation to develop an agriculture and land sectoral plan to chart agriculture's contribution to Australia's 2035 emissions reduction targets and net zero 2050 goal.

"As we're preparing this plan, farm profitability and productivity is absolutely central to it," he said.

He highlighted there were economic incentives available to farmers open to embracing change and said new income streams from carbon credit schemes were great way for farmers to diversify.