Climate risk management in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) is one of the major
challenges to achieving food security and development in India and large parts of
sub-Saharan Africa and also in the case of Australia. Climate-induced production
risk associated with the current season-to-season variability of rainfall is a major
barrier in making rainfed agriculture sustainable and viable farm business. Since
season outcomes are uncertain, even with the best climate information, farmers
have limited flexibility in applying management with confidence. In fact in risky
environments, farmers most often respond by adapting a risk averse strategy and
are reluctant to invest in even risk reducing measures (Leathers and Quiggin
1991). In the SAT agro-ecologies, there are a limited range of enterprise or crop
options to consider which may be further restricted by cultural traditions, food
preferences or market opportunities.While there are fundamental differences
between large scale commercial farms in Australia compared to the predominantly
smallholder resource poor farms found in India, when it comes to climate risk
management in the SAT, there are many commonalities. The purpose of this
paper is therefore to (i) establish a framework for managing climate variability
and transforming farming systems to be more resilient and sustainable for future
climates; and (ii) provide some case study examples from climate risk management
in low rainfall cropping system in Australia and consider how they may be applied
in smallholder systems of the SAT..