FED: Aussie farmers turn into nomads to cope with climate change

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-2009
FED: Aussie farmers turn into nomads to cope with climate change

CANBERRA, Aug 20 AAP - Australian farmers are turning into nomads to cope with climate
change and its effect on the world's deserts and pasture lands, researchers say.

And scientists are predicting an even greater shift as global warming continues to
heat the earth.

Researchers from the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre say farmers around
the world, including Australia, have been forced to revert to the ancient art of nomadic
grazing.

Climate change has sped up instances of overgrazing, prompting pastoralists to travel
hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres away for more suitable grazing, CSIRO's Ryan
McAllister said.

"This is a form of nomadism that is good for the stock and good for the landscape," he said.

"But in many countries, sadly, the trend is still the other way, towards fragmenting
(land), which creates economic pressure to overgraze the dry country."

Dr McAllister says he believes more should be done to accommodate the increasingly
nomadic lifestyles of Australia's farmers to preserve the health of the land.

"We need a new system which enables nomads to enjoy the benefits of a settled community,
while at the same time being able to keep their livestock on the move to avoid overgrazing,
and to manage the arid country so it can flourish again," he said.

"It needs to be encouraged, along with those (measures) that allow ... the pastoralist
to store money or conserve fodder in the good times for use in the bad."

It means farmers could also end up contributing to the climate change challenge.

"If nomadism is done properly, the country recovers," he said.

"It flourishes and that allows more carbon to be stored in the soils.

AAP cj/sb/dep/cdh

KEYWORD: NOMAD

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