558 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 4 | JULY 2014 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange A ction for climate change is not occurring as fast, widely or signiicantly as may be required to address major climate change impacts 1,2 . Recent reports 3–6 have the planet track- ing above the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s highest rate for emissions and a projected 4 °C global temperature rise is not out of the question if current rates continue 7 . he consequences of a 4 °C (or more) temperature rise over the next century will presum- ably afect ecosystem services so that the productivity of agricultural systems will be altered and dependent communities and industries will be signiicantly afected 8,9 . To adapt to this new world, multi- ple scales of action are required 10 . he focus of this Perspective is on adaptation that is occurring in the Australian agricultural sector due to climate change. Research in the ield of climate change adaptation has used vari- ous typologies to deine adaptation. One approach is to deine three levels of adaptation: (1) incremental — moderate changes are made to existing actions and behaviours; (2) systemic — changes are made at the system or structural level; (3) transformational — large scale, novel responses create a fundamentally new system or process 11,12 . So far, the adaptation programme has been dominated by incre- mental adaptation approaches — such as technological ixes, inten- siication of farming, improvements to crop varieties and breeds of livestock, or water and soil management practices — which can be seen as reactive responses to a variety of stressors including climate change impacts 13 . hese approaches can be inefective in the long term 14,15 and can even lead to adaptation that has harmful efects, known as maladaptation 16,17 . On the other hand, transformational adaptation is oten (but not always) seen to be anticipatory and focused on the long term 12 . At the transformational scale, changes are deined as major shits in goals and/or processes in response to risk and opportunities, for example, moving the location of produc- tion of speciic commodities, making signiicant business structure The role of networks in transforming Australian agriculture Anne-Maree Dowd 1 *, Nadine Marshall 2 , Aysha Fleming 3 , Emma Jakku 4 , Estelle Gaillard 5 and Mark Howden 6 It has been argued that major, purposeful action often resulting in signiicant changes in structure or function, known as transformational adaptation, is required in some areas of the agricultural sector to adapt to climate change and other driving factors. Yet there is limited understanding of what factors instigate and facilitate this scale of change. From a social science perspective, one key question remains: to what extent do agribusinesses need social capital to plan and implement large-scale, transformational adaptation options, compared with incremental-scale adaptations? Data drawn from Australian primary industries found that those undertaking transformational change had more far-reaching information and knowledge network connections yet less extensive social links to family, friends and colleagues. These indings demonstrate that strong access to knowledge and weak social ties increases the ability to facilitate action that difers from established social norms, hence empowering transformational adaptors to plan and implement novel strategies and options. or operational changes, or even choosing to leave an enterprise or industry altogether 12,18 . Investigating transformational adaptation is fairly new, com- pared with research conducted at the incremental level. herefore, unlike incremental adaptation, there is far less understanding of what factors instigate and facilitate transformational climate adap- tation. Researchers have suggested 19–21 that identifying the social mechanisms that can inluence anticipatory adaptation could lead to a better understanding of the role these mechanisms play, which is of particular interest to this newly forming ield due to the pos- sibly signiicant impacts this adaptation approach can have. For any agricultural system (regardless of the scale) to adjust to climate change, there needs to be a capacity for that system to do so. his ‘adaptive capacity’ is “a set of latent characteris- tics, or the potential, needed to adapt to climate change and the ability to be actively involved in the processes of change” 22–26 . Increasing the adaptive capacity of a system can improve its abil- ity to manage change by making it more lexible and responsive to a variety of climate impacts 21 . Recent research 26,27 has raised the question of how social concepts, such as social capital, assist in assessing adaptive capacity. herefore, the secondary aim of this Perspective is to report an investigation into adaptive capac- ity from a behavioural perspective, speciically in the context of transformational adaptation. Adaptive capacity and social capital Many researchers are now calling for an extension of the traditional economic evaluation of adaptive capacity and advocating a more holistic scope of elements that form adaptation options, including social factors such as behaviour 27–30 . he inclusion of concepts such as social capital meets this call 24,25 . he level of social capital within a community (or organization) provides some indication of its 1 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), PO Box 883, Kenmore, 4069, Queensland, Australia. 2 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), Private Mail Bag PO, Aitkenvale, 4814, Queensland, Australia. 3 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), GPO Box 1538, Hobart, 7001, Tasmania, Australia. 4 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), GPO Box 2583, Brisbane, 4001, Queensland, Australia. 5 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), PO Box 56, Highett, 3190, Victoria, Australia. 6 Commonwealth Scientiic and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO), GPO Box 664, Canberra 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. *e-mail: anne-maree.dowd@csiro.au PERSPECTIVE PUBLISHED ONLINE: 25 JUNE 2014 | DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2275 ©2014MacmillanPublishersLimited.AllRightsReserved.