Climate and agricultural risk: Assessing the impacts of major climate drivers on Australian cotton production

Climate variability and extremes adversely impacts Australian cotton crop production and imposes a major constraint on farm planning, industry supply chains and resource allocation. This study reviews time-series yield and crop production methods to account for climate, as well as perform a cotton yield and climate time series analysis using rainfall and temperature data. This study demonstrates that dryland lint yield gains during average-to-moderate rain/temperature years while irrigated lint yields have improved during more frequent average rain/hot growing seasons (1997-2018). Results also discovered climate in central cotton growing areas is impacted by El Nin similar to o Modoki and Nin similar to o4 indices and the various phases of ENSO. These findings translate into meaningful actions for industry adaptation and in turn provide a valuable step in accounting for climate vari-ability and yield related inputs such as fertiliser and water resources.