Pastoralists and land managers across Australia’s Southern Rangelands will soon benefit from a major new initiative designed to improve grazing management and ecosystem health, with the launch of the Smart Grazing, Stronger Lands project.
This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust. It will assist pastoral enterprises to adopt proven climate-smart decision support tools and technologies.
South Australian Drought Hub (SA Drought Hub) Knowledge Broker and Project Coordinator Tony Randall said the initiative is built on the success of a pilot program that helped pastoralists integrate grazing management decision-support tools and technologies into their businesses.
“This project brings together a range of experienced and trusted natural resource management organisations, grower groups and service providers from across Australia’s Southern Rangelands,” he said.
“It offers pastoral businesses locally driven support through demonstration sites, training, peer-to-peer learning and expert guidance.
“We will be establishing demonstration sites strategically across 1.5 million square kilometres of Australia’s Southern Rangelands and will be working with pastoralists to trial and adopt decision-support tools and technologies to improve grazing management and ecosystem health.”
The project will offer participating pastoral businesses with a range of options to best meet their operational and business needs.
Gascoyne Catchments Group Executive Officer Krystie Bremer said the project would allow land managers to trial and compare monitoring options relevant to their properties.
“By working closely with representative groups from sub-regions across the WA Southern Rangelands, we can ensure a tailored approach that reflects the specific needs and conditions of local land managers,” Ms Bremer said.
Although many grazing management tools have been developed in the past, uptake has been slow due to barriers such as time pressures, a lack of confidence in technology, and the need for hands-on support. The project seeks to overcome those barriers by providing direct training and extension.
A key strength of the project is the involvement and support from partners and collaborators, who have seen benefits from the pilot and are now keen for the next stages of extension and adoption.
South-West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (SW WA Hub) Knowledge Broker Tanya Kilminster said pastoral groups had been eager to continue cross-regional collaborations since the 2022 pilot.
“There has been a strong desire for Southern Rangelands grower groups to keep working on place-based projects that test tools and innovations to guide decision-making in pastoral businesses,” Ms Kilminster said.
The Smart Grazing, Stronger Lands project will be led by the University of Adelaide through the SA Drought Hub, in partnership with Southern NSW Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub, Grower Group Alliance through the SW WA Hub, South Australian Arid Lands Landscape Board, DustWatch, CSIRO, Western Local Land Services, Riverina Local Land Services, Rangelands NRM, Gascoyne Catchments Group, Southern Rangelands Pastoral Alliance, and the Goldfields Nullarbor Rangelands Biosecurity Association (GNRBA).
GNRBA Chief Executive Officer Amanda Day said the program would be instrumental in driving the next stage of pastoral business development.
“Pastoralists within the unique ecosystems of the Goldfields and Nullarbor will be lining up to be involved with this project that brings modern technology to their future business models,” Ms Day said.
Grower Group Alliance Chief Executive Officer Rikki Foss said the project comes at a pivotal time for the pastoral sector.
“This project brings proven resilience tools and technologies to help pastoral enterprises strengthen their businesses,” Ms Foss said.
“It’s particularly timely as we approach the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026, which shines a global spotlight on the vital role our rangelands and pastoral communities play.”
Local service providers with grazing management expertise will also play a role in delivery.
Partner quotes for media to use where relevant
South Australian Arid Landscape Board
General Manager of the South Australian Arid Lands Landscape Board Jodie Gregg-Smith said the project is a great enhancement of the Board’s work in the Building Pastoral Sustainability program with landholders and community in the rangelands of South Australia.
“The connection across the Southern Rangelands with this project will lead to some valuable shared learning and management tools that will lead to a broader understanding of the challenges and solutions across state lines,” she said.
“With the context for southern rangelands management being unique, this program will enable a tailored suite of options to support grazing management and continued collaboration across landscapes and industry.
“It is the perfect example of how the Drought Hub model can work at scale and embed applied learning and adoption more broadly.
Contour Environmental and Agricultural Consulting (a project delivery provider)
Landscape ecologist Richard Marver of Contour Environmental and Agricultural Consulting said the adoption and integration of tools that provide meaningful business metrics and give landholders confidence to plan and respond to drought and dry times will be a particular focus.
“Droughts can be less scary when you have a plan, you follow that plan, and when that plan is backed by practical and meaningful metrics,” Mr Marver said.
DustWatch
DustWatch founder Dr John Leys said land degradation in Australian rangelands is primarily caused by erosion and dust storms that occur during droughts.
“Predicting four to six months ahead of when vegetation cover will fall below the soil erosion protection level is a critical task to help reduce land degradation and the stress on land managers going into drought,” he said.
“Destocking before the onset of drought is a critical management action that can maintain cover and reduce soil erosion.”
CSIRO
CSIRO’s Matt Paget said he is excited to contribute CSIRO’s large data analytics and science capabilities to help address drought and land management in Australian rangelands.
“CSIRO has a strong history of providing consistent long-term vegetation cover and related land condition products derived from Earth observation satellites with ABARES and DAFF,” he said.
“This project will see us deploy automated data processing and online tools that provide land managers with near-real time and seasonal information to aid in their decision making.”
Southern NSW Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub
Southern NSW Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub Director Cindy Cassidy said the project will focus on making it easy for Western NSW pastoralists to use the CSIRO’s GEOGLAM Rangeland and Pasture Productivity (RaPP) mapping tool to predict dry times up to six months ahead.
“It’s an expansion of a successful past project that we delivered in the Western Riverina which showed how satellite mapping tools could be used to predict groundcover changes on farm and trigger management decisions like feeding, selling stock and adjusting stocking rates,” she said.
“We’re excited to have the opportunity to make this technology more accessible and user friendly for farmers so they can plan ahead with confidence and make decisions that are good for their businesses, even when they’re facing dry times.”
