Australia experiences significant temperature and rainfall variability due to seasonal weather changes, and more recently, human-induced climate change¹. Adapting to these challenges may require both incremental and transformative change by farmers, using knowledge gained from new research and updated or innovative practices.

Effective knowledge dissemination in an agricultural setting, however, is a complex communication process. Rogers asserted that farmers best learn about and adopt new technologies through their own peers², and that trust is very important to this process. A strong body of evidence supporting this comes from technology transfer in forestry workers, who look for information from trusted face-to-face sources^3,4,5.

An example of a program with strong peer-to-peer interactions is the national Climate Champion program⁷. The program aims to help farmers manage increasing climate risk in Australia through better on-farm decisions. Climate Champion farmers are given access to current research results, opportunities to take part in research projects and are presented as real-life examples of farmers enacting climate risk management practices and strategies.

The participants are Australian farmers who want to help improve communication between scientists and farmers about managing climate risk, particularly by talking to their peers. They communicate between farmers and researchers, in both 'directions', and were chosen (in part) as good communicators in their regions and industries. An independent evaluation of the program by AgTrans Research in 2012 indicated a cost-benefit ratio of 1:3.

Leith notes that "trust underpins successful engagement between the science and grazing communities"⁶. Because of the urgency of adapting to climate risk that will rely heavily on scientific information, it is useful to delve into communication research (theory) and practice (case studies, for example) to understand how trust and credibility is created and used in communicating climate risk to farming peers. I will present a case study that explores how trust in Climate Champion participants contributes to the program’s effectiveness, the elements of trust the Climate Champion participants create and how trust contributes to learning within their social networks.

This information and examples can contribute to our understanding of conveying climate risk knowledge, and may be useful for people who seek to identify communicators who will likely be effective in their "social systems", as Rogers would put it. Hujala points out that understanding "social and communicative patterns" could generate information that policymakers and service designers could apply in their work⁴ .