The four-year program, Agri-Climate Outlooks, is AIA's first major initiative in the climate space and aims to improve and enhance seasonal outlook services provided to the Australian farming, fishing and forestry industries.
The BOM has estimated the initiative could generate up to $68 million annually in potential value for agriculture.
AIA has facilitated the cross-sectoral investment into Agri-Climate Outlooks via a collaboration of 10 of Australia's Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs).
The RDCs are Meat & Livestock Australia, Australian Eggs, Australian Wool Innovation, Dairy Australia, AgriFutures Australia, the Grains Research and Development Corporation, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Cotton Research and Development Corporation, Sugar Research Australia and Hort Innovation.
AIA chief executive officer, Sam Brown, said the collaboration was ground-breaking because the RDCs were working together on a large-scale project with common goals to help growers and mixed-production enterprises mitigate the impacts of climate on their enterprises.
"Climate variability is proving to have a significant and devastating impact on agricultural and food production, as we have seen with recent floods, extreme weather events and subsequent food shortages and supply chain challenges," Brown said.
Agri-Climate Outlooks will develop decision-specific digital forecast tools and products tailored to specific commodities. The investment also supports improvements to Australia's dedicated weather forecast modelling system.
The BOM's general manager, Agriculture and Water, Matthew Coulton, said: "This initiative will involve deep engagement across the industry to identify high-impact weather- and climate-dependent decisions growers make, and then design fit-for-purpose products and services to support those decisions."
The BOM will manage five Agri-Climate Outlooks workstreams, covering products, services, support and industry capability building. They are:
1/ Establishment of a dedicated team of agri-climate specialists to provide relevant insights to support decision-making.
2/ Upskilling and training for growers and their advisers to accurately interpret and utilise weather, climate and water products to inform agricultural decisions.
3/ Development of easy to understand, decision-specific forecast products delivered via appropriate digital channels.
4/ Development of methods to overlay skill on the BOM's seasonal outlook products and promote the methods as best practice to other seasonal outlook service providers.
5/ Improvements to Australia's high calibre sovereign seasonal forecasting, through improved accuracy of multi-week to seasonal forecasts.
