Jacqui Bell leads The Next Economy’s land sector work. In this Q&A, she shares her reflections on a pivotal year for agriculture and land use change, how climate risk, investment and policy began to converge in 2025, and what this means for building fair, resilient and regenerative landbased economies.   

Why is the land sector important to Australia’s economic transition?  

The land sector sits right at the intersection of Australia’s biggest transitions. It’s where climate risk is already being felt most acutely, where adaptation and mitigation must happen together, and where decisions about land use directly shape regional economies, food systems, biodiversity, and community wellbeing.  

Unlike energy or industry, the land sector isn’t one thing. It’s a bundle of economic activities – agriculture, forestry, conservation, carbon, water, mining, infrastructure – all competing for the same finite resources. How land is owned, valued, used and governed determines what’s possible economically, socially, culturally and environmentally.  

As climate impacts intensify and global markets shift, how we use land, as well as value and manage the ecosystem services it provides will increasingly inform whether Australia builds resilience and shared value – or locks in deeper inequities and long-term risk.  

Looking back on 2025, what were the defining points for Australia’s land sector?  

2025 felt like a year where multiple threads finally came together. There was a sense of catch‑up across policy, investment and public conversation about the role the land sector plays in Australia’s transition to net zero and nature‑positive outcomes. Long‑awaited strategies and initiatives began to land, and programs like the CRC for Net Zero Agriculture started to gain more traction, signalling that agriculture and land use were no longer being treated as peripheral to the transition.  

One of the most significant shifts we have seen through our work, is a growing readiness to mainstream more regenerative and climate‑resilient approaches into farming. Twenty years ago, farmers experimenting with regenerative practices were often working against the system. In 2025, we saw the enabling conditions begin to stack up: policy drivers, market signals, climate realities and finance are pointing in the same direction. That alignment as well as other broader socioeconomic factors is creating a real tipping point in willingness to rethink how production systems work across different landscapes.  

At the same time, the year exposed just how slow and fragmented our economic systems still are. There is a lot of innovation happening on farms, in communities and in pockets of investment, but it’s uneven and difficult to scale. Capabilities, ownership structures, planning frameworks and institutional inertia continue to lock in existing patterns of land use, even as the need for change becomes more urgent.  

Climate risk also became much harder to ignore. The National Climate Risk Assessment brought sharper visibility to the conditions landholders and regions will need to endure in coming decades – and, in some parts of Australia, where certain land uses and farming systems may not even be viable long-term.  

Overall, 2025 wasn’t a year of resolution, but it was a year of these shifts (and many others) coming to the surface. The challenges facing the land sector became more visible, the stakes more explicit, and the imperative for coordinated, place‑based and just approaches to land use change much harder to push aside.  

What are the biggest challenges facing Australia’s land sector right now?  

Complexity and cumulative pressure are the defining challenges.  

Landholders and regional communities are dealing with climate impacts, market volatility, policy uncertainty, workforce shortages, rising costs, and rapid land use change – all at the same time. These pressures aren’t additive; they’re compounding.  

Climate risk is no longer theoretical. We’re seeing clearer projections of extreme heat, water scarcity, flood and drought cycles that fundamentally question the long-term viability of some farming systems and, in some places, human habitation. In northern Australia, for example, the growing number of extreme heat days raises real questions about labour, productivity, liveability and safety.  

At the same time, investment and ownership structures are shifting. Institutional investors are becoming more sophisticated about climate risk and land value, enabled by digital technologies and data. That has the potential to drive innovation – but it can also accelerate consolidation, change land use rapidly, and create unintended consequences for regional economies and communities.  

What does a climate-safe, regenerative and socially-just land sector look like in practice?  

In practice, it’s not a single model – it’s place specific.  

A climate safe land sector integrates mitigation and adaptation, rather than treating them as separate goals. It supports farming systems that are resilient to heat, water variability and extreme events, while restoring soils, biodiversity and natural capital over time. In practice, that looks like more diverse and resilient farm systems, healthier landscapes, and multiple income streams that reward stewardship as well as production.  

A regenerative approach becomes mainstream not just because it’s ‘better’, but because the conditions finally stack up: policy settings, market signals, climate realities and finance are aligning in ways they weren’t 20 years ago. Back then, early adopters were pushing uphill. Today, there’s a genuine tipping point in readiness and willingness to do things differently.  

This isn’t just a shift at the farm level – it’s a broader system transition across supply chains, finance and policy that makes different choices viable at scale.  

Social justice means recognising power and equity: who owns land, who benefits from new markets, who carries risk, and who gets left behind. In the Australian context, it also means recognising and partnering with First Nations land stewards and cultural knowledge. It means designing transitions that support producers to continue producing good food – rather than pushing risk down the supply chain or hollowing out regional communities.  

There are real trade-offs and tensions to navigate, but the direction of travel is now much clearer (albeit still looking very messy)!  

How are farmers, landholders and Traditional Owners already leading this transition?  

A lot of leadership is already happening on the ground, often ahead of policy.  

Farmers have been experimenting with regenerative practices, climate smart production, on-farm business diversification and new business models for decades. What’s changed is the visibility and validation of that work – as well as the growing recognition that adaptation is an economic necessity, not just an environmental choice, and that there are some challenges that are better addressed at a region or landscape scale than at the farm level.  

Traditional Owners are also leading innovation, particularly where land management, cultural knowledge and economic development intersect. Land and Country are the foundations for First Nations economic sovereignty, and there’s huge potential for Indigenousled approaches to land stewardship to deliver economic, cultural and ecological outcomes – if the right structures and capital are in place.  

What we often see, though, is fragmentation: great practice, limited coordination, and insufficient system level support to scale what’s working.  

What policy changes would help speed up the shift to fair and sustainable land use?  

One of the biggest gaps is in planning and coordination.  

Our land use planning systems are no longer fit for purpose. They weren’t designed to manage cumulative impacts, rapid transitions, or competing demands like renewable energy, conservation, food production, infrastructure and critical minerals – all at once.  

The EPBC Act reforms late last year signalled a stronger role for environmental protection and nature positive outcomes through development, which is important. A big question will be how these changes interact with land use, regional economies and cumulative development pressures.  

On their own, regulatory reforms won’t deliver good outcomes. Without integrated planning, clear pathways for development, and genuine engagement with communities, we risk creating more friction and uncertainty on the ground.  

Integrated regional planning could be transformative if done well – bringing these competing uses together in a coordinated way, identifying clear priorities, managing trade-offs deliberately, and setting upfront rules about where development should and shouldn’t occur. Done poorly, it risks entrenching conflict or shifting impacts onto communities without their input. The decisions made – from zoning and go/no go areas to approval pathways – will determine who benefits and who bears the cost of transition.  

More broadly, we need policy that recognises climate adaptation as a core economic function, not an afterthought which aligns investment, land use and community outcomes over the long term. Good policy will require this work to happen with communities, not to them – with early and meaningful involvement in shaping land use decisions.  

Finally, what excites you about this work?  

What excites me is that we’re at a moment where the questions are finally shifting.  

There’s growing recognition that climate risk is a socio-economic issue, that adaptation matters as much as transition, that technology and innovation on farm is just one part of the Ag sectors transition, and that finance and climate investment decisions are driving change across Australia.    

All of these and more are creating greater opportunity and imperative to explore and demonstrate what good economic transitions looks like – and how getting it right in regions and on the ground can support the land sector to shift in a way that helps Australia navigate uncertainty, restores nature, and builds an economy that genuinely serve communities – not just markets.