Speaker
Dr Anika Molesworth
Thursday 13 November, 2025
Dr Anika Molesworth is an Agriculture and Environmental scientist who works on climate smart farming across Australia and the Asia Pacific. She is a Research Fellow at Australian National University and Charles Sturt University, with current projects spanning Indonesia, Cambodia and the Pacific Islands. With a passion for rural communities and healthy ecosystems, Anika is committed to help create sustainable and vibrant rural landscapes now and for the future.
Anika established Climate Wise Agriculture to focus on supercharging green initiatives, and is a founding Director of Farmers for Climate Action – a national network of nearly 8,000 Australian farmers undertaking climate change action. She has presented the TEDx talks Farmers are Key to a Better Future and Repairing the Broken Food System.
Anika is the author of her book, Our Sunburnt Country, which won the Royal Societies of Australia and New Zealand Writer’s Award for Outstanding Writing on Social Change. She is currently working on an illustrated children’s picture book.
Awards include Young Conservationist of the Year (2022), Young Australian of the Year, New South Wales Finalist (2017), and Young Farmer of the Year (2015).
Read about Dr Anika Molesworth’s keynote address to be presented during the lunchtime session at the TropAg conference on Thursday, 13 November 2025.
Building the capacity of farmers to create sustainable and vibrant farming landscapes
Plenary presentation
Building the capacity of farmers to create sustainable and vibrant farming landscapes for the future
Thursday 13 November, 2025
Building the capacity of farmers to create sustainable and vibrant farming landscapes for the future
Agriculture is at a critical turning point. Climate change, biodiversity loss, shifting markets, and social change are reshaping how we produce food and care for the land. Meeting these challenges requires more than technical solutions, it demands courage, hope, and strong community agency, grounded in sound science.
Climate anxiety is increasingly recognised as a challenge for farmers, evoking responses from worry to paralysis. Yet, when grounded in science and supported by strong community networks, it can become a catalyst for positive change. This presentation explores how courage and hope are essential psychological drivers that can transform climate anxiety into sustained engagement and regenerative action in farming landscapes.
Hope, when active rather than passive, motivates farmers to take ownership of their futures. It blends agency (the belief in one’s ability to act) with a commitment to bring about desired outcomes. Courage complements hope by enabling farmers to confront difficult climate realities, persist through uncertainty, and adapt in the face of potential setbacks.
Drawing on examples from regenerative agriculture, the presentation will illustrate key pathways for transformation: recognising crisis as an opening for change; shifting values and mindsets towards resilience thinking; expressing hope through everyday land stewardship; inspiring peers through visible success; and engaging in reciprocal care with other species. These practices not only regenerate landscapes but also strengthen community agency and resilience.
By fostering courage and active hope, farmers can move beyond reliance on external solutions, instead becoming agents of their own adaptation. The result is farming landscapes that are ecologically vibrant, socially cohesive, and capable of thriving in an uncertain future, grounded in both scientific understanding and the enduring human capacity to imagine and create better ways of living with the land.
