Which of the following best describes your situation?
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Hub performance in your region
1) What do you see as the hub’s role? To engage and partner with regional organisations to
coordinate the dissemination of knowledge and extension services to farmers and
community to enhance resilience to drought.
2) How would you describe the local or regional awareness of the hub? There is no
awareness of the hub in my part of the region. It appears the node responsible for covering
my region is only actively engaging with their own paid up farmer members. I am also not
aware of any urban engagement outside of the node’s main locality.
3) What have been the main benefits of the hub? Access to scientific and practice
knowledge
4) What challenges has the hub experienced? Lack of community engagement experience.
5) How effectively has the hub worked with other agencies and organisations?
Completely ineffective.
6) How does the hub engage with producers? How effective is this? Engages through the
Farming Systems Groups (Nodes). This is not effective as these groups are responsible to
their own members and are not connected with the broader community. Our Node has
traditionally only serviced farmers engaged in cropping and has no connection to the
grazing or dairy industries. This could have been resolved with a greater willingness to
partner with organisations that are well connected to farmers in other industries, but has
not bothered to reach out.
7) How does the hub engage with First Nations people? How effective is this? Don’t know
8) What are the most important skills and capacities the hubs require for success in
advancing regional drought resilience? Community engagement skills and the ability to
tap into the already established networks to reach more farmers and community
members.
9) How effectively do the hubs collaborate with each other to share products,
information and knowledge? Don’t know
10) How effective has the hub been in building drought resilience across your region? Not
aware of any projects that have contributed to drought resilience. Support has come
through the Landcare networks, Catchment Management Authorities and Agriculture
Victoria.
11) Which factors do you think most improve drought resilience? For example, changed
practices, or investments in new infrastructure, equipment and technology.
a) How has the hub focused on these factors to achieve effective change in your
region? A combination of actions is required to improve drought resilience.
Investment in new infrastructure, equipment and technology requires confidence in
the outcome and trust in the source recommending the changes. Capacity is a
limiting factor, the size of the farming operation and whether the changes will deliver a
return on investment. For some farmers, it might be better to down tools and reduce
expenditure rather than increasing debt which may add further stress.
OFFICIAL
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Regionality is important, what works in one area may not in another. Local
organisations and service providers understand this.
FDF drought hubs program
If your organisation interacts with the hubs program as a whole, you may wish to consider the following questions:
12) Which gaps in drought resilience services have the hubs program helped to fill? Not
sure they have helped fill any gaps!
13) Has the hubs program duplicated other available services or supports? If so, how?
Between Agriculture Victoria, Landcare and the CMA, these services and supports were
available but delivery has been unfunded. It would have been more effective to use the
available organisations with experience, strong networks and the trust of the community.
14) How effective has the governance and management of the hubs program been? Can’t
comment
15) How effective has the hubs program been in building drought resilience across
regional Australia? Can’t comment outside my region.
16) How effective has the hubs program been in building drought resilience across
sections or cohorts in regional communities? Very poor in my region.
Future enhancements
How could the hubs program be enhanced? Dispense with the Hubs. Go back to existing recognised models that farmers and the communities understand and trust. The drought resilience program should fund the coordination of activities through a range of existing organisations and partnerships to ensure greatest coverage without overlapping. Farmers are busy and do not need to be bombarded with events run by different organisations covering similar topics. Well-coordinated events that cover a range of topics and provide ongoing and consistent support for farmers and community.
17)
18) How could the hubs program work more effectively with other government programs,
including the FDF? A list of FDF programs can be found at Appendix B, and further
information is available on the department’s website.
19) What support should the hubs program provide to help producers prepare for and recover
from drought?
20) Should the hubs program support drought response and, if so, what form could that take?
21) The Productivity Commission Inquiry recommended the FDF and hubs program
encompass climate change adaptation needs. This might include adapting to higher
temperatures and changed rainfall patterns in some regions but exclude natural disasters
such as floods and bushfires. How could the hubs best promote climate resilience in
addition to drought resilience?
22) Is there value in retaining a flexible local approach to hubs activities across each region,
or:
a) Should greater nationally consistency be sought?
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL b) Would more consistency across hubs be desirable for some hub functions but not
others?
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