A GROUP of nations participating in the international Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate, a program dedicated to increasing climate smart agriculture, have increased their investment in the assembly's portfolio to over $A10 billion.
Talks were held last month as part of the United Nations' Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt.
Australia, along with a range of nations from all continents globally, is a participant in the AIM for Climate scheme.
Locally, Australian officials are working on drought mitigation through initiatives such as the Australian Future Drought Fund, with a view to providing better climate information, support better planning and encouraging practice change through innovation.
Within the overarching program there are also Drought Resilience Innovation Grants to support projects that will drive the development and adoption of new and innovative technologies and practices to improve the drought resilience of Australian farmers and agriculture-dependent communities.
Officials said there were a diverse range of projects getting funding as a result, ranging from potentially transformational concepts such as harvesting atmospheric moisture through to practical work investigating better irrigation management technology and trialling diversified vegetation cover
One of these, the WaterSmart Dams Project, has been developed to helpfarmers better understand how their dams can function in dry years.
The project is a partnership with regional grower groups and researchers in the south-west of Western Australia and is codesigning new farm water planning tools to help farm businesses.
Elsewhere across the globe there are a number of exciting projects in both the developed and developing world under the AIM for Climate umbrella.
The US Department of Agriculture is working on fertiliser-based projects to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce reliance on synthetic fertiliser, with research into nitrogen producing microbes and how they could provide more of a plant's N needs.
In Africa, countries in both eastern and western Africa are collaborating to help provide the millions of small scale and subsidence farmers there with better weather information.
During the conference AIM leaders announced an ambitious 'call to action' where they plan to attract further venture capital into agricultural projects improving climate resilience.
The idea is to attract investment to fund start-ups, early-stage and emerging companies that help to advance climate solutions.
The COP talks also had a strong focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, with AIM for Climate partners participating in a multi-round challenge.
The winner will receive a year of Kove Software Defined Memory to enable computing capabilities beyond the limitations of physical memory and servers, as well as one-on-one access to the Enterprise Neurosystem team of experts and volunteers who will provide
assistance on their AI, data science, software, and hardware projects.