Aid for Drought-Ready Leaders in South Australia

Video duration: 7 mins 41 secs

Introduction

This is the transcript of a video case study produced by the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund (FDF). The South Australian Drought Hub received funding, under the FDF's Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs program, for their project Early to Mid-Career Farmers Program, highlighting how peer-to-peer learning and practical decision-making frameworks are supporting producers to build drought resilience across South Australia.

Learn more about the Future Drought Fund.

[Recording begins]

Music plays.

Felicity Turner [00:40]

Drought in the region's really taken its toll on people, especially livestock producers. There's been constant feeding, constant fatigue and what I've really noticed is a lot of decision fatigue, where people have been constantly having to make decisions all the time. A lot of them around financial decisions as well.

Tony Randall [00:57]

The Early to Mid-Career Farmers Program is a peer-to-peer learning set of workshops that we're running across South Australia. The SA Drought Hub created the program because we identified that there was a gap, as we were in a very dire drought in South Australia, and we wanted to assist producers to make short term, tactical and long term strategic decisions that would lift them or help their businesses as they're coming out of drought.

The key gaps that producers face with regards to drought and decision making are fairly variable across the state, depending on, the climate and farming systems and the location. One thing that is consistent is, is the timing of decisions and having the confidence that they're making the right decision. The Early to Mid-Career Farmers Program allows producers to identify the areas that's important to them, and where they really want to work on improving drought resilience within their businesses, and then to focus in on those particular issues that they have identified and to get some assistance in a supported, locally relevant and trusted environment.

Felicity Turner [02:05]

Programs like this are really important to try and build the capacity of our future farmers. We've got a lot of farmers that are eventually going to step into their own farm businesses, and we've got others that are going to step into higher managerial roles and try to build their skills and capacity and allow them to become leaders is really important.

Tony Randall [02:23]

We use the DRINKS framework in the Early to Mid-Career Farmer Program, which stands for Drought Resilience, Information and Knowledge Sharing. The DRINKS framework allows producers to identify key trigger points and key actions that they'd undertake on farm, within their farming system, across a drought cycle. That allows producers then to identify which areas they feel they're working well in, and which areas they would like to sharpen up on.

Felicity Turner [02:50]

When we went through the DRINKS process, we actually really tried to tease out what their needs were, and each group was a little bit different in what they wanted to look at going forward. I think what the DRINKS process does is make them really think about those decisions, at different times, what their needs are.

Tony Randall [03:06]

The DRINKS framework was developed by the Victorian Drought Hub in conjunction with Cam Nicholson and from Southern Farming Systems, the Vic Hub and Nicon Rural Services. In South Australia we had a look over the border and thought, gee, that's a really good model. We'd like to employ that here, and the Vic Hub and Cam have been fantastic in assisting us to do that.

Felicity Turner [03:28]

The past two years in South Australia, we've had some really dry times, acknowledging there are a lot of areas that are still in drought. Having a framework like the DRINKS program actually helps us to identify those trigger points and where to start making those decisions.

Michelle Desmazures [03:42]

Here at Newton Pastoral, we run a mixed enterprise. We have Angus cattle that we breed. We also have our flock of sheep. So, we have Merino ewes that we put to our white Suffolk rams to grow our fat lambs, and we also do dryland loose and seed cropping and hay production.

Drought for us is a time to really lean on our prior planning and our prior strategic planning alongside the financial planning.

Both Adam and I agreed that it was really important for our team to be involved with the Early to Mid-Career Farmers Program. We're both very passionate about lifelong learning. We are involved in that ourselves as we speak at a management level, and to have an opportunity like this in our local area for our staff to be involved with and lean on others in a shared learning experience that's both on farm, off farm, in a collective way with others we thought was just too good of an opportunity to not support them to be involved.

When Courtney and Seb first came back after one of the first sessions, they were really excited to share what they had learnt. They were quite passionate about the possibility of further developing our confinement feeding pens that we have on property. It is something that we have used at times, but we now know through some of the learnings they've brought back, that there's ways to do that on a far more practical and beneficial scale, both financially and for our livestock.

Seb Desmazures [05:12]

Being drought resilient is important for us. It costs a lot of money to maintain and grow those pastures during drought times. That's compromised, so if we can maintain that pastures in and improve them in dry conditions, it's a benefit for everybody.

Courtney Holbourn [05:40]

The value for me being part of the program, is learning strategies, being part of a community-based program where we all come together, where we're all going through the same thing. The program has made me better at my job, by making better decisions that can be applied here on the farm.

Tony Randall [05:56]

It's really important to strengthen that decision making framework and the confidence around decision making early in a farmer's career. We know that if we can work with those people at an early stage and help and support those people to make decisions that are better for their business, that will have a lasting effect over many decades, through droughts and climate variability.

When farm businesses are strong and resilient rural communities in South Australia, that provides more resilience to drought and climate variability across the whole community because farmers are key economic drivers, and so when farmers are profitable, that bodes well for the local community.

Michelle Desmazures [06:35]

These training networks are really important in South Australia. We need to foster young people not only coming into our career and our industry, but to maintain that and to stay in as long as possible, if not lifelong. The more that we can support them in that early to mid-phase of their career with some really sound, highly skilful information and learning is only going to benefit us as a whole, not only on our scale as farmers, but across the state as well.

Tony Randall [07:07]

Resilience isn't just about what you do. Leading into all within a drought, it's also very important to have good decision making in the good times, in between droughts, so that you set yourself up properly for drought, and that you've got the processes and the resources to manage through that drought and come out the back of it in good shape.

Recording ends [07:41]

A screen displays the logos for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Future Drought Fund.

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the continuous connection of First Nations Traditional Owners and Custodians to the lands, seas and waters of Australia. We recognise their care for and cultivation of Country. We pay respect to Elders past and present, and recognise their knowledge and contribution to the productivity, innovation and sustainability of Australia's agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

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