Improving grain grower business resilience before, during and post drought – ARM Online tools to assist on-farm decision making

Abstract

The Agricultural Risk Management (ARM) Online platform (www.armonline.com.au) provides growers and agronomists with digital tools that evaluate the drought resilience of alternative cropping strategies. The platform assists in choosing cropping systems that have both a high level of drought resilience and perform well across further target indicators, such as profitability. Recently, new functionality has been added to the CropARM decision-support tool that focuses on optimising tactical crop management decisions. Furthermore, the new RotationARM tool has been developed to assist in selecting resilient cropping systems. Over the coming months, a series of capacity-building workshops are being delivered to guide growers and their advisors in using these tools to build their drought resilience. Participants will learn to analyse their cropping systems and develop and refine their own rules of thumb.