Agribusiness Impacted By Climate Volatility

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

When most people talk about the impacts of climate change in agriculture, they are of course talking about how that will impact farmers. But climate volatility also has big implications for agribusinesses like Gallagher Animal Management where Lisbeth Jacobs is the chief executive. She says changes in climate have already impacted their operations around the globe.

Jacobs… “First of all, the actual climatic changes make it a lot harder for us to predict when people will buy our product. Typically, like in Australia, we would know a lot better when we have a drought or when we're going to have El Niño, La Niña. It really has an effect on buying patterns and it used to be a little bit more predictable. These things are all a bit upset. We get floods when we don't expect them, droughts when we don't expect them, and so having the right product in the right place at the right time becomes a little bit more difficult. And then on the climate side as well, the increased regulation. So because of the climate change, um, conversations that are going on, we see countries putting in regulation, like keeping animals out of waterways, you know, all of that regulation coming in also has an impact on our end customers who are being increasingly challenged to keep up with that and they need to make big investments. So we can't control it, but we can make sure we're agile. We can again, try and get alongside our farmers and help them and provide solutions.”