Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs Review

Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub public submission to the Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs review

The Tropical North Queensland region contributes $7.34b GVP across three main agricultural industries: livestock, cropping and horticulture. Livestock is the largest contributor (52%) and land use footprint, cropping (including sugar cane) at 27% GVP and horticulture 21% GVP. Approximately one-third of Queensland’s agricultural workforce (20,600FTE) work in the TNQ region.

Drought is a major disruptor for agriculture and the TNQ region is exposed to future drought risks. Grazing and cropping farms heavily rely on rain, and irrigation farms (horticulture and cane) have potential risks to water security in a drought event. Current modelling shows that drought duration and frequency is likely to increase across eastern Queensland by 2030. However, areas of the interior from the Gulf south through Longreach and to the NSW border may have no change to an easing of drought frequency and duration by 2030.

The Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (TNQ Hub) is a partnership between James Cook University (JCU), six Natural Resource Management (NRM) groups (The Hub Nodes) and Torres Cape Indigenous Council Alliance (TCICA) as a strategic partner to contribute to improved preparedness and resilience for future droughts. Hub activities are delivered through the NRM-based Nodes (Fitzroy Basin Association, Reef Catchments, NQ Dry Tropics, Cape York NRM, Gulf Savannah NRM and Southern Gulf NRM), and through the Hub Programs: Transformational Agricultural Systems (TAS); Sustainable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Enterprise (SATSIE); Innovation and Commercialisation (I&C); and Building Human Capacity (BHC).

Question 1: What do you see as the hub’s role?

The purpose of the Hubs is to invest in collaborative research, development, extension, adoption and commercialisation activities aimed at helping primary producers and rural and regional communities to become more prepared for, and resilient to, future droughts.

The TNQ Hub purpose and role can be summarized as “contributing to resilience through strong socio-economic networks that generate new knowledge, embed innovation, increase adaptation to future risks, and transform agricultural businesses and communities”.

This is underpinned by the TNQ Hub’s Vision and Mission statements:

Vision: Northern Queensland becomes drought resilient through an innovative, profitable and sustainable agricultural sector and resourceful and adaptable communities.

Mission: The Hub leads a regional, collaborative approach with northern Queensland stakeholders to support the agricultural sector and communities to become more drought and climate resilient.

The TNQ Hub is a strategic enabler within the region, providing direct outcomes through FDF funding, enabling further outcomes through strategic partnerships and additional investment, and influencing investment into the TNQ region through communicating regional priorities to investors and building the capacity of TNQ based organisations to attract investment.

The hub has built strong networks, bridging previously untapped investment and resources between national and state organisations into the TNQ region, linking networks and organisations to form new collaborations and partnerships, and supporting businesses, organisations and community to enhance the bonds that underpin their social networks. In a very real sense, the hub is contributing to resilience by strengthening the three key social capitals that underpin resilience; bridging, linking and bonding social capitals.

Question 2: How would you describe the local or regional awareness of the hub?

Awareness of the TNQ Hub across the region is high. Since its inception in 2021, the TNQ Hub has raised awareness and reached an audience of close to two million people through strategic promotion and knowledge sharing across multiple platforms and channels including media (television and radio), social media, and newsletters. This has established the TNQ Hub as a key delivery and enabling institution within the TNQ region. The hub’s continual focus is concentrating the messages out to the audiences in a way that has impact and keeps awareness heightened with future drought initiatives, priorities and opportunities for support.

A Social Network Analysis (SNA), conducted through the Queensland Connects regional entrepreneurship acceleration program (refer to Q5 for further information), demonstrates the local and regional connectedness of the hub. The SNA provides a visual representation of the drought and heatwave social networks applicable to the TNQ region, revealing patterns and structures of relationships among stakeholders of the hub, potential gaps and opportunities to better build resilience, achieving the hub’s purpose.

Question 3: What have been the main benefits of the hub?

The TNQ Hub influences and enables direct initiatives to build resilience and ensure Tropical North Queensland is better prepared for future drought. It delivers benefits across the region through three spheres of influence: Direct, Enabling and Influencing:

Direct on-ground impact, delivering a range of regionally co-designed activities funded through the Future Drought Fund

Creating an Enabling Environment for the hub, partners, primary producers, agricultural businesses, communities, and key institutions to access and leverage additional resources to deliver drought resilience services and activities

Influencing investment into the region to enhance drought resilience.

Examples of Direct impact include:

Developing new place-based climate analysis tools and publications to promote local co-design of drought resilience approaches;

Contributing to the establishment of new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory groups, alliances and boards to foster self-directed resilience (e.g. the Queensland Indigenous Business Network);

Developing world-first framework and educational materials to assist landholders in adopting and integrating ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) practices on their farms to improve economic resilience (e.g. by accessing new market opportunities or reducing finance costs);

Developing and delivering the Influential Women community leadership program to improve community adaptive capacity and resilience;

Creating more work placement opportunities for students by partnering with AgForce to deliver the School to Industry Partnership Program, Ag Inspirations event to remote schools;

Initiating a Regional Drought Resilience Grants Program to empower local resilience solutions by local groups, farmers or communities; and

Building regional capacity through a drought resilience focussed University scholarship program.

Examples of Enabled impact include:

Additional funding through the Ag Innovation Hub Program to accelerate the uptake of technology for better informed drought decisions through on-farm demonstration sites, and sponsoring farmer direct engagement with agtech companies;

Creating a new agtech commercialisation pathway through JCU and the Ag Innovation Hub Program which is developing new methods to assess landscape resilience, to establish new opportunities for lab-based fish production, and improved ways to detect and control pest (e.g. Fall Army Worm) and weed (e.g. Prickly Acacia) incursions; and

Hosting the Regional Soils Coordinator to improve soil health linked to resilience outcomes.

Examples of Influenced impact include:

Linking the FDF funded Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) program with industry in the TNQ region to ensure relevance and value to northern Australian production systems (e.g. development of a sugar cane analysis within MyClimateView);

Improving FDF investment into regional solutions by ensuring regional priorities were considered for the Extension and Adoption grants; and

Introducing industry groups to the Queensland Climate Dashboard for use within their strategic investment planning.

The TNQ Hub provides opportunities to enhance collaboration between universities, industry and government to address known land condition issues in the region. Data, as provided in question 6, shows strong and increasing measures of engagement and user base for our communication channels and knowledge sharing platforms both internal and external.

New connections have been established between JCU researchers, government and industry by leveraging the TNQ Hub’s networks. This has enabled the successful awarding of non-FDF funding into projects focused on rehabilitating degraded rangelands through the Southern Gulf region of North-west Queensland. A key researcher is quoted as attributing this opportunity directly to the TNQ Hub as it helped “build new connections with landholders, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and other key stakeholder in the region”. This is direct evidence of the strength of utilising the foundational, enhanced and emerging networks that the TNQ Hub has built upon to deliver resilience in the region.

Question 4: What challenges has the hub experienced?

Uncertainty of funding and longevity have been key challenges for the TNQ Hub. Stakeholders prefer to engage with, and invest in, organisations that are likely to remain in place for the long-term. The initial short-term nature of the hubs and year-on-year extensions has made it challenging to gain deep engagement and commitment from existing well-established organisations. The Commonwealth Government’s announcement for continuation of the hubs through to 2032 has already improved engagement with key stakeholders (e.g. the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries has now committed as a full Member of the TNQ Hub).

The TNQ Hub is based on a dispersed Hub and Spoke model with regional Nodes housed within NRM groups across the region as the connectors to local issues and solutions. Strategically, this is a successful model for North Queensland, which has a low number of groups which can provide on-ground representation of primary producers and their communities (e.g. Landcare or grower groups). Operationally, this spreads staff across multiple organisations and takes time to mature the capacity to co-delivery of services as a single united entity. The lack of certainty around funding and longevity of FDF investment into the hub has also hampered this process. The announcement of funding to 2032 now provides the confidence needed to achieve large scale transformation, which can take many years to see proven results due to the extensive time required to build strong, trustful, collaborative networks.

The public continue to express confusion over the large number of FDF programs and providers, as this creates disjointed service delivery at local and regional scales. The TNQ Hub has sought to improve the coordination of service delivery for the public through building networks and relationships with other FDF funded programs (i.e. through the hub’s Enabling and Influencing networks), but there is still a challenge in reducing the confusion around regionally delivered FDF programs that are separated from the hub.

Question 5: How effectively has the hub worked with other agencies and organisations?

The hub has connected grower groups with researchers, producers with innovation experts and academics with NRM groups. During the past annual reporting period the hub documented some 80+ organisations engaged in collaboration with the TNQ Hub.

Evidence of the hubs' effectiveness to work with other agencies and organisations can be found in the Social Network Analysis (SNA) which demonstrates linkages between the TNQ Hub and multiple agencies and organisations across the region. Development of the SNA by institutional experts (through the Queensland Connects program) listed drought preparedness and resilience related projects, programs and organisations. Beneficiaries and Future Drought resilience pillars were identified, and the data were analysed to identify linkages, gaps and opportunities. The result from this analysis identified the TNQ Hub as integral to the network, highly connected and linked to many projects. The diagrams below display the beneficiary networks of the drought and heatwave social network applicable to the hub, and the key networks applied across Queensland. The diagram demonstrates TNQ Hub is highly connected and effectively working with multiple agencies across many projects.

The effective engagement between the TNQ Hub and other organisations and industry has led to new investment, service delivery and outcomes. For example, the TAS Program collaborations with industry to investigate suitable sites for an irrigation water trial which resulted in an automation plan for the selected site in Dimbulah, Node collaboration with industry partners to produce draft Regional Drought Resilience Plans, collaboration with Queensland DAF to discuss links to the Advancing Beef Leaders Program, the SATSIE Program worked with TCICA to implement the Regional Drought Resilience Plan by assessing community water needs and facilitating connections with Griffith University on a project looking at water security in remote communities. Engagement with horticulture industry via the Farm Business Resilience Program to run an online workshop to test the AgValuate Program.

Skills and capacity of TNQ producers and communities have been enhanced through the Building Human Capacity program delivery of programs and workshops by partnering with organisations and other agencies to achieve place based direct initiatives. For example, partnering with AgForce to deliver the Ag Inspirations event to remote schools, through succession planning, sharing the knowledge of extension, providing a hub-funded scholarships program for student led research in areas aligned with regional priorities, and upskilling regional capacity of communities through activities that build governance and financial literacy.

Question 6: How does the hub engage with producers? How effective is this?

Significant achievements have been made through engagement via the hubs Programs (Transformational Agricultural Systems, Sustainable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Enterprise, Innovation and Commercialisation, and Building Human Capacity). Hub industry engagement has proven to be effective economically, socially and environmentally. For example; the TAS ESG program is supporting farmers and the industry to develop practical understandings of the imperative for the sugar industry to collaborate and integrate ESG practices to demonstrate sustainability credentials, create carbon and biodiversity credit opportunities, improve return on investment and reduce financing costs.

The data received through the TNQ Hub annual survey shows strong and increasing measures of engagement and user base for our communication channels and knowledge sharing platforms both internal and external.

Left Figure: Stakeholders who plan to make changes because of TNQ Hub activities. Right Figure: likeliness to make planned changes because of TNQ Hub activities

The TNQ Hub has effectively engaged with primary producers to build economic, social and environmental resilience. In the past year, the TNQ Hub attended over 140 farm visits, seminars, workshops, meetings, forums and industry events. The hub has engaged through influence, by enabling, and by providing direct support to industry (see details in Q3) via our regional Nodes and Programs, leading to economic, social and environmental outcomes. The TNQ Hub has developed regional focused priorities to help guide investment into the key challenges and opportunities for agricultural businesses, their towns and communities and regions within Tropical North Queensland to build drought resilience and preparedness. These priorities are aligned with industry and developed in conjunction with NRM Node members and TNQ Hub Program Leads.

Direct engagement has included presentations and support at industry events. For example, at Beef Australia 2024, the hub hosted three presentations covering succession planning, university students’ journeys in agriculture and updates on the hub’s work (https://www.tnqdroughthub.com.au/tnq-droughthub-spotlights-north-queenslands-drought-resilience-efforts-at-beef-australia-2024/ ). This event allowed the hub to discuss challenges and opportunities with producers to understand some of the challenges and opportunities the beef sector is currently facing.

The TNQ Hub engages directly with producers via hub programs and more regularly the regional Nodes. The hubs Nodes play a vital role in driving drought resilience of agricultural systems and communities on ground across the TNQ region. For example:

Gulf Savannah NRM node engaged with producers through a workshop on herd profitability, providing industry with access to the latest research on herd management and access to resources to enable them to respond to challenges in the region.

The North Queensland Dry Tropics Node (NQ Dry Tropics), Drought Resilience Coordinator (DRC) successfully applied for a LTT grant to demonstrate the effectiveness of virtual fencing, tailoring technology to solve issues faced by producers and through a farm trial, run by NQ Dry Tropics demonstrating how traditional cultural practices can improve land condition and biodiversity outcomes.

Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA) Node ran a future proofing forum in Taroom and Emerald, collaborating with TNQ Hub Program BHC, QRIDA, Royal Flying Doctor Service, Rural Financial Counselling Service and Alternate Business Strategies, to raise awareness of the variety of support services available in the region. Participants described it as a “terrific broad day of education”. The FBA Drought Resilience and Soil Health workshop, a collaborative effort with the NHT funded Regional Soils Coordinator and the TNQ Hub, developed industry ability to improve soil health on multiple levels. The multi-topic workshop left farmers inspired to implement changes on their farms: 28% of producers said they would implement changes straight away; and a further 55% said they planned to make changes as a result of these workshops within a year.

A Property Management workshop run by the Cape York NRM Node in conjunction with Bush Agribusiness and the TNQ Hub BHC program, provided graziers in the remote Lakeland region of Cape York a specialised workshop focused on strengthening their understanding of financial systems and enhancing their business efficiency. Attendees praised the workshop for being “helpful towards building a sustainable business”.

In summary, the hub engagement with producers has been effective in:

Increasing knowledge, skills, and capability, leading to increased flexibility and adaptability – both commodity and regionally-based.

Supporting people to make use of new information about viable options to adapt, reorganise or transform to changing conditions of climate-based resilience, based on education, awareness and extension in partnership with industry and commodity groups.

Building connections (social networks and relationships) to assist with information sharing, coordination, and collaboration.

Strengthening the resources or ‘capitals’ available to individuals and communities helps them to plan, respond and adapt.

Question 7: How does the hub engage with First Nations people? How effective is this?

The TNQ Hub engages with First Nations people through the Steering Committee, Node activities, regular program delivery and specifically through the SATSIE Program. The SATSIE Program has established strong and diverse relationships through networks with First Nations leaders and organisations on country throughout Northern and Western Queensland. The hub acknowledges that First Nations peoples’ knowledge is essential in building regional resilience to drought. The key mode of operation of the Relationships are central to supporting these groups to build resilience to deal with drought and climate change. To provide additional context for just one region and network within Northern and Western Queensland, we highlight the Torres and Cape Indigenous Councils Alliance Inc (TCICA) which is an alliance of 17 local councils in the Cape York and Torres Strait. The SATSIE Program stands alongside and behind these three primary client groups, to invest support and resources directly into lifting their own Indigenous-led capacity. This has enabled the program to grow quickly and effectively to service a wide range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, first nations, enterprises, and individuals across the region and more widely.

The co-designed activities for the SATSIE Program focus on: (i) Indigenous national building support; (ii) Indigenous water planning support; (iii) Indigenous local government area and community resilience building; and (iv) building Indigenous business networks and the resilience of individual businesses through extension and outreach activities.

Building partnerships with Traditional Owners requires a respectful approach, as with any partnership. The hub tailors collaborations and partnerships to meet the different needs and aspirations of key stakeholders who may have varying working styles, communication preferences, and operational methods.

As a result of the hub’s SATSIE program, 20 organisations categorised as indigenous councils, indigenous nations and institutions; and business networks are actively collaborating in and with the hub. Evidence that these collaborations and partnerships are functioning well and driving the achievement of outcomes for the work in each of these areas includes testimonials provided by partners (note that some personal information has been redacted):

“[redacted] highly values the partnership it has developed with the Cairns Institute, James Cook University supported through the TNQ Drought Hub. We look forward to continuing to work with Sustainable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program together on implementation of our Regional Drought Resilience Plan.”

"Working with [redacted] the Development in the Tropics team has been great. Alan recognised our commitment and dedication over the years and wanted to help make sure we are in a good position when we applied for funding. By dedicating a team member to us for advice and for any help we need, it has allowed us to continue moving forward... We look forward to a long lasting relationship”

“I am extending this message to you to underline the value of your engagement of services to the Fitzroy Catchment Traditional Owner Alliance: Dr. Allan Dale has had a close association with First Nations of the Fitzroy Catchment over many years and importantly has been integral recently with providing advice and facilitation of workshops and meetings at the very start of our journey with our First Nation representatives of the Fitzroy River Catchments who have agreed to form an independent and regularised Traditional Owner Alliance and Forum that advocates for action, knowledge sharing and collective decision making on whole-of-Basin issues….It is essentially important that Dr. Dale continues and via the support of the TNQ Drought Hub be associated with this historically and culturally important body of work that will add value to the gaps in natural and cultural resource management matters in the Fitzroy basin region.”

Question 8: What are the most important skills and capacities the hubs require for success in advancing regional drought resilience?

Strong socioeconomic networks enhance adaptive capacity. Ability to influence communities and producers to support them so they are better equipped to make better informed decisions into the future, rather than focusing on just here and now requires effective communication, networks and extension skills and capacity to provide place-based solutions within the region. This requires skilling our Drought Resilience Coordinators (DRC’s), connected service providers and stakeholders and empowering communities to learn from their own and others’ experience. The hubs Building Human Capacity Program has been partnering with Nodes to explore opportunities for program initiatives and delivering direct programs in partnership with industry and community using industry experts such as BlueWren Connections, ConnectAg and Bush Agribusiness to influence and enable, as well as design initiatives to provide services where gaps are recognised. The hub engaged specifically with companies embedded in agriculture, servicing agriculture within TNQ region to boost peer to peer learning. Part of this work has included the Professional Extension Capability Pathways project, working in collaboration with Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (QDAF). The hubs need the Node Drought Resilience Coordinators (DRC’s) to have the skills to identify relevant and effective initiatives, to co-design with other agencies and organisations programs that include extension. Which is why we have partnered with QDAF to build extension skills and why the hub continues to build capacity to achieve place-based solutions, working with communities to identify, plan and build resilience and future drought preparedness initiatives.

The hub is committed to continue to build the capacity of DRC’s, industry and community so that we can effectively influence direction to enhance resilience and future drought preparedness, enable pathways to resilience and deliver direct initiatives, co-designed with community and industry, thereby connecting with industry and making the right connections so that as the program continues we can be on the forefront. To achieve this, we will continue to collaboratively broker knowledge and build capacity of DRC’s.

Question 9: How effectively do the hubs collaborate with each other to share products, information and knowledge?

The eight Hubs collaborate closely at a National level across Director, Knowledge Broker, Operations Manager, Communications, Regional Soils Coordinator, and Monitoring and Evaluation through formal mechanisms, informal communication, and information sharing. This has built collegiality, mutual respect and trust across multiple levels such as the Directors Steering Committee and various Communities of Practice. For example, the hub Directors provided a joint public submission to the Productivity Commission review and have initiated strategic collaboration on multiple grant applications. Hub teams regularly discuss project, activity and governance successes, challenges, and opportunities to improve their contribution to drought resilience locally, regionally, and nationally.

Hub Communities of Practice are established for the national Knowledge Broker, Communications, MEL and Operational networks which provides regular opportunities to share knowledge and regionally-specific information and learnings across a national platform. These communities share products, knowledge and opportunities to leverage from one another, including having a joint presence at key agricultural events to engage with industry as a connected national hub network. The TNQ Hub has built strong networks, bridging previously untapped investment and resources between national and state organisations into the TNQ region, linking networks and organisations to form new collaborations and partnerships, and supporting businesses, organisations and community to enhance the bonds that underpin their social networks. The hub Directors meet fortnightly to share information, initiatives and lead opportunities to collaborate on cross-hub projects.

Question 10: How effective has the hub been in building drought resilience across your region?

The embedded hub network of seven Node Members (six NRM groups and JCU) and more than 50 Network Partners and Supporters has created new partnerships, linkages, collaboration and co-design opportunities for the region. This has been achieved by leveraging off, consolidating and strengthening existing networks, as well as creating new networks. This builds social capital by linking existing and new networks across localities, industries, towns and communities.

Another example of the TNQ Hub working effectively with other agencies and organisations is the TAS program which has continued work on place-based climate modelling, with the project bringing together farmers, researchers and NRM Agriculture Extension Officers to develop climate modelling that communicates local conditions. It integrates trusted local sources of climate data with scientific knowledge of climate change patterns with practical on ground application is aiming to increase sustainability and productivity in TNQ. The modelling represents a proactive approach that responds to local end-user needs and equips them with a localised solution which can build capacity to prepare for drought. The TNQ Hub has spearheaded national research on the integration of ESG practices into Australian agriculture. A pioneering framework and educational materials have been developed to assist landholders in adopting and integrating ESG practices on their farms, with direct impact evidenced by a quote below from a sugar cane farmer:

“The ESG analysis provided us with the opportunity to pinpoint areas for improvement. Through this process, we recognised that our primary focus for long-term change needed to be on environmental factors.

We were able to identify that improving environmental outcomes not only benefits the soil but also leads to better long-term yields, which translates to a better financial outcome.

The process forced us to examine what we do and why we do it. With that knowledge comes the opportunity to explore how to ‘do it better’ both ethically and financially.”

Through consultation, co-design, and coupling real-world drought experience with science, the TNQ Hub has developed a set of regional priorities to guide future investment over the next 10-15 years to make a real and lasting improvement to climate resilience. The development of these priorities has led targeted investment into the region, with examples being the requirement to address regional priorities in the Extension and Adoption of Drought Resilience Farming Practices Grants and the release of the TNQ Hub’s Drought Resilience Grants. These investments directly aligned to the co-designed regional priorities which has delivered projects directly addressing drought resilience needs in the region.

The TNQ Hub has successfully supported capacity building with producers through sponsoring attendance at key agricultural events to gain exposure to, and learn from, current and emerging innovative approaches to enhancing business operations. For example, one producer quoted “the insights that I learned from the farm tour, presentations and networking allowed me to re-write my business plan onto a page and achieve support from my bank to expand my business”. This is a direct impact at the farm operations scale and captures how the TNQ Hub’s identification of opportunities relates to building resilience for the region’s producers. Data shows that 51% of stakeholders intend to make changes because of the TNQ hub activities and 76% are likely or very likely to make planned changes (refer to the figure provided in question 6).

Question 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?

Evidence-based decision making, and strong socio-economic networks are critical in improving drought resilience. To ensure knowledge, products and tools are effectively extended to primary producers in the region, delivery of activities need to consider three scales:

00Individual property, farm and agribusiness

Town and community

Regional

Resilience is then enhanced through three capitals:

Social

Linking knowledge, resources, opportunities through new networks

Enabler of coordination & integration across FDF Strategic Priorities

Strengthening bridging and bonding capitals through NRM nodes, partnerships and collaboration

New networks & collaborations for drought planning & resilience.

Economic (financial)

Collaboration with Rural Financial Counselling Service to identify and fill industry training gaps

Opportunities for new income streams e.g. ESG

Increased investment into the region: agtech; commercialisation; grants

New collaboration to leverage opportunities e.g. additional $3.5M for Long-term Trials of Drought Resilient Farming Practices Grant l project.

Environmental (natural)

Collaborations and new investment e.g. integrating Southern Gulf FDF Drought Resilient Soils and Landscapes grant project with the TNQ Hub collaborative FDF Managing Rangelands for Drought Resilience project

Regional Soils Coordinator: increasing awareness of the management of soil health

Grant long-term trial application to enhance soil health.

The TNQ Hub embeds these scales and capitals in all strategic planning to ensure a focus remains on achieving on-ground outcomes. Decision making has been enhanced through delivery of activities focused on delivering localized information and ensuring primary producers have access to readily available tools and products suited to the needs of community and industry in that location. Application of the resilience framework positions TNQ Hub’s planning and delivery focus and provides a simple process to identify where investment can have the greatest impact by influencing practice change for primary producers when making decisions in preparation for future droughts. The TNQ Hub has delivered various projects providing primary producers with historical local data sets across multiple facets (rain, heat etc), as well as delivering a digital readiness assessment tool to support decision around engaging with technology on farm.

The TNQ Hub aims to directly achieve six resilience outcomes by 2032:

Improved water security (e.g. through the implementation of water efficiency saving practices)

Enhanced agricultural productivity (e.g. through improved soil and landscape health)

Strong socioeconomic networks to enhance adaptive capacity (e.g. empowering communities to learn from their own and others experience)

Evidence based decision-making underpins climate adaptation by primary producers, NRM, Indigenous groups and agribusiness

Increased economic investment and growth (e.g. through place-based agricultural, resource, and community advantages)

Increased economic contribution (e.g. through sustainable, profitable and diversified agriculture and natural resource-based enterprises).

Question 12: Which gaps in drought resilience services have the hubs program helped to fill?

The hubs program developed regional drought resilience priorities for each region. These priorities were developed through co-design with industry, government and key stakeholder groups to determine regional-scale focus areas to build drought resilience. The priorities provide a framework to influence, enable and directly deliver funding support via on-ground activities that link to an identified need of the region.

The hubs program supports delivery of resilience building services in areas where service providers have not yet been. The TNQ Hub identified gaps in capacity building service delivery in certain parts of the TNQ region. To fill this gap, the hub partnered with reputable organisations to bring their shelf-ready programs into areas of TNQ they had not yet been and deliver workshops that enhanced the knowledge of the region’s agricultural community, for example through Influential Women community leadership programs and the AgForce School to Industry Partnership Program. By utilising the strong network of agricultural organisations in the region, the hub was able to identify a gap and fill it, without duplicating any existing service delivery options in the region.

By bringing together reputable providers of climate forecasting tools (e.g. Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, CSA, QDAF, Northern Australia Climate Program) the hub has influenced and facilitated industry engagement with providers to better support on farm industry risk analysis and planning decisions.

Question 13: Has the hubs program duplicated other available services or supports? If so, how?

When the hubs were first announced, there was speculation around duplication given a number of organisations (NRM groups, government, industry etc) were delivering projects and information around the impact of drought. Since inception, the TNQ Hub has driven the message of ensuring the hubs are adding value and filling gaps, not duplicating the existing work being done. The TNQ Hub has not duplicated other available services but plays a critical part in linking and leveraging the existing work in the region through strategic stakeholder engagement and strengthening of networks, whilst identifying where the hub can add value or directly address a knowledge gap. The hubs are now firmly placed as a key collaborator in drought resilience initiatives in the region and are seen as standing behind and beside existing service providers, whilst delivering direct, enabled and influencing impact as demonstrated in Q3.

Question 14: How effective has the governance and management of the hubs program been?

The strategic governance of the hubs program has been effective, balancing oversight at a national level with flexibility to be adaptive to regional and place-based needs in response to changing drought conditions. Each hub has been provided an opportunity to identify locally relevant drought resilience priorities to address ensuring that investment into the region goes towards identified needs that aim to have transformational impact.

The establishment of hub and DAFF committees and Communities of Practice has facilitated co-design and strong collaboration, helping to improve efficiency of service delivery whilst maintaining probity and ensuring effective investment of public funds.

Some operational processes have been delayed, which has hampered collaboration with industry members and start-ups who are governed by business regulations and driven by market imperatives. This was identified in the Productivity Commission report, which highlighted the need to reduce the time and resources required to implement change, to ensure the FDF program overall can be adaptive to needs across the nation.

Question 15: How effective has the hubs program been in building drought resilience across regional Australia?

The hubs national approach, grounded in local and regional solutions and services through a connected network has been effective in building drought resilience across Australia. The hubs program has built a highly effective collaborative platform to build drought resilience across the nation’s regions. An example of this was through a collaborative cross-hub project focusing on managing rangelands for drought resilience. This collaboration brought together six hubs to establish demonstration sites across Australia to showcase technologies and techniques that use mapping to improve rangeland management. The project established six demonstration sites in South Australia, four in Tropical North Queensland and one in each of the other five hubs, and a community of practice provided the opportunity to share cross-region findings. The diversity of approaches addressed ground cover and/or available forage with a view to better managing rangeland condition across seasons. This was one of the most important topics for managing pastoral enterprises sustainably over the long term.

Many impacts are at local and pilot scales and are in the process of being scaled and tested in different environments. The best estimate of impact across regions would be derived from consolidating the MEL and reporting data from all eight hubs, in conjunction with reporting on collaborative projects.

Question 16: How effective has the hubs program been in building drought resilience across sections or cohorts in regional communities?

Within the TNQ region, industries and communities are benefiting from the hubs program through the co-design of activities that directly relate to gaps in knowledge and understanding of building resilience to future drought. The hubs program provides a mechanism to bring together various sectors and industry representatives at a regional scale to identify local opportunities that address priority areas. The development of regional priorities in collaboration with industry, government and community clearly articulates where the focus for building resilience in the region requires attention.

An example of this is the delivery of human capacity programs and workshops in areas of TNQ where this training had never been provided before. Through identification of this need in partnership with NRM groups, sections of the community have upskilled in areas of their operations, providing additional skills to help support drought preparedness decision making into the future .

Further examples are the TAS Irrigation Trial and Climate Data Analysis activities; SATSIE contribution across Cape York and FBA; I&C exploring innovation across multiple industries; and BHC filling gaps for smaller communities and enhancing community resilience.

The TNQ Hub has contributed to NRM and JCU capacity (e.g. the Southern Gulf landscape recovery activities identified in previous questions); NRM capacity through employing DRCs; and has renewed the focus of industry on drought resilience and climate adaptation.

The strong collaboration between Hubs nationally contributes to building drought resilience across regional communities. For example, the positive contributions of the South Australian Hub and the Tasmanian Hub to improve resilience during the 2024 winter drought conditions (e.g. on King Island) provide lessons for the other hubs. This sharing of successes and learnings will benefit other regional communities as drought conditions return to each region.

Question 17: How could the hubs program be enhanced?

The FDF Funding Plan 2024-2028 details a funding principle at section 6(3)(e) to “foster collaboration to improve integration, coordination, communication, planning and implementation of drought resilience activities, and avoid unnecessary duplication”.

The Explanatory Statement issued by the Authority of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, FDF Act 2019, FDF Drought Resilience Funding Plan 2024 to 2028 Determination 2024 outlines the Implementation of the plan, with page 3 stating; ‘The Future Drought Fund is an enduring commitment to support drought resilience in the short, medium, and long-term. The vision, aim and strategic objectives of the Plan, are intended to facilitate funding decisions which produce enduring outcomes, including beyond the 4-year funding period.’ In addition, on age 7, with regard to the Aim for Drought Resilience, ‘recognising drought resilience is a complex and long-term endeavour’ and ‘This is reflected in the secure and continuous funding made available each year for drought resilience activities, under the Future Drought Fund.’

In reality, the funding of the hubs has been shorter term, limited by the length of successive contracts, which in turn limits program design, engagement and resilience outcomes. The effective design of short, medium and long term initiatives requires certainty of funding for planning, staff training and retention, and for building strong collaborative partnerships and stakeholder co-design. The ability of hubs to seek additional resources can also be constrained through shorter-term contracts. In light of the above, the Future Drought fund Drought Resilience Funding Plan 2024 – 2028 Funding Principle (2) (d) has not been consistent with current short-term contract extensions. The hubs look forward to contractual certainty for the 2026-2032 period to enable the design and implementation of longer term programs and initiatives.

There is still work to be done in the two-way flow of information between the FDF Programs to avoid duplication and enhance on ground impact. The hubs, through significant strategic engagement, enablement and influencing of networks, provide an opportunity to continuously improve the coordinated delivery of resilience activities in the agricultural industries across the nation. By improving the communication between FDF programs and applying a consistent approach to funneling activity delivery and information into a region, it will build stakeholder trust and benefit each region’s agriculture sector, landscape, and communities.

To progress outcomes, the hubs require longevity in capacity to engage and resource researchers, community, and industry within and beyond the region. Further efficiencies in cross collaboration and co-design across FDF funded programs are needed, as well as across the hub network, State Government programs and Industry organisations. Service delivery gaps occurred due to factors such as distance, but also a lack of skilled and qualified service deliverers in Nodes and Hub Partners and stakeholders. The hubs need stakeholders to have confidence that there is long term commitment to investment in the hubs and delivery programs. To affect on ground, place-based solutions, the hubs require longer term resourcing to effectively meet demand for long term gain across the region.

The hub program is strategically positioned to collaborate and coordinate drought resilience services across agricultural industries at local, regional, and national levels. With core investment provided through the FDF, there is flexibility to work with mixed farms, to investigate emerging crops, or to address local solutions at a pilot scale for potential scaling-up. This provides the opportunity to add value to the services provided by RDEA&C organisations (such as Research Development Corporations, Agricultural Innovation Australia, Universities, and State Agencies) by connecting and sharing information and knowledge, participating in joint projects, and contributing to identifying local and regional priorities. Additional investment into formal arrangements such as round-tables and Communities of Practice is needed to effectively facilitate opportunities across the RDEA&C network.

Question 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.

To ensure effective and efficient delivery of programs that meet regional needs, the hubs can be used as a point of reference and strategic co-design and delivery of programs to ensure maximum benefits to the region through place-based initiatives.

The TNQ Hub has established a foundation as a strategic enabler and regional contact for a number of initiatives and opportunities, but this can be further enhanced for all other FDF programs. The hubs can play a key role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of FDF program delivery by linking to relevant within-region organisations that could enhance the impact of program. Through the TNQ Hub’s established networks (refer to Q5), there can be a more direct delivery of FDF programs to the desired end user/groups by tapping into the TNQ Hub’s extensive stakeholder network.

The FDF range of initiatives remain unclear to industry and communities, there appears to be no consideration of regional needs or connectivity or strategy for regional, industry and community engagement across the range of National offerings. For example, DRSAT was not applied by industry and did not leverage existing tools and programs. The FRRR programs are not communicated with the hubs and activities are independent of other regional activities, in effect promoting competition between regional groups to receive funding for initiatives. The Regional Drought Resilient Plans have had some connectedness due to the process applied in Qld, however, it is unclear how and who’s responsible for enacting recommendations provided through the plans. There is an opportunity for the regionally embedded Hubs program and their established networks (refer to Q5) to be further utilised in the strategic development, and facilitation of, other national programs.

Question 19: What support should the hubs program provide to help producers prepare for and recover from drought?

The hubs are positioned to provide regionally relevant new and existing information, knowledge, innovations, tools and systems to extend support to TNQ producers in preparation for future droughts. By aligning with universities and partnering with industry, government and community organisations, the hubs combine science with local knowledge and innovation, providing information and linkages to support products and programs that are grounded with regionally relevant materials. The hubs can also identify gaps and co-design materials, products and tools to further help build resilience for producers leading up to, and post, a drought event. This enables innovation and strategic design of initiatives to achieve incremental, transitional and transformational change needed to strengthen drought resilience.

Question 20: Should the hubs program support drought response and, if so, what form could that take?

Section 6 (3) (c) of the FDF Funding Plan specifically defines that funds should “not provide in-drought assistance to directly address hardship”. The hubs program should not provide direct in-drought support, but it should have a positive presence during drought by partnering with other organisations (service clubs and charities) to enhance and maintain social capital and assist with drought resilience programs (including preventing the erosion of resilience).

Question 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?

As identified in the Explanatory Statement issued by the Authority of the Minister for Agriculture, fisheries and Forestry, 2024, ‘Drought and climate resilience activities and outcomes are often interconnected. Building resilience in one area can often have multiple benefits of building resilience for managing other risks.’ The Hubs could promote support for where multiple outcomes can be achieved, building climate resilience across the three inter-connected strategic objectives of economic, environmental and social resilience. The hubs’ significant networks can help promote the acceptance of climate uncertainty in the context of changing weather patterns more broadly – in areas of TNQ where frequent drought has never really been experienced, climate uncertainty resonates better than ‘drought’. For example, the 2019 floods severely reduced both land condition and financial reserves, reducing resilience substantially. The context of climate resilience is better placed during such times. The full drought cycle, and floods, cyclones, etc should be considered in the resilience outcomes that are sought – ensuring there are no perverse outcomes. Within this place-based context, climate resilience as part of the full drought cycle, including floods, cyclones etc needs to be communicated in the TNQ region.

Question 22: Is there value in retaining a flexible local approach to hubs activities across each region, or:

a) Should greater nationally consistency be sought?

b) Would more consistency across hubs be desirable for some hub functions but not others?

The flexible place-based-approach is a unique defining strength of the hubs. Trying to impose singular governance or operational structures would reduce the capacity for regionality and impede the adaptative capacity of the hubs.

The FDF Funding Plan, at 6(2)(a) calls out the need for a place-based approach: “support a range of activities across Australia at different scales, including farm, community, regional and national levels and consider the unique place-based circumstances and needs of each”. There is a rich diverseness in environment across the country which clearly demonstrates a need for a place-based structure to address localised needs. However, there should be a common strategic purpose to build resilience in the face of future droughts. There is a need for consistency of strategic focus for the hubs, but delivery against these strategies must be bound in a place-based delivery methodology.

The hubs can facilitate the localised collaboration between the FDF programs/initiatives to ensure improved integration with aligned programs such as National Heritage Trust, Regional Soils Coordinators, Sustainable Agricultural Facilitators, Regional Drought Resilience Plans, Farm Business Resilience Plans, Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. It is highly recommended that a flexible local approach remains as it also allows for cross-hub collaboration.

As per the TNQ Hub Response to the Productivity Commission, 2023, we appreciate the findings of the Commission, that initial programs could have been improved through better coordination, a more considered delivery time frame and increased focus beyond short term objectives. Therefore, the Commissioner’s findings for a clear, detailed strategy for long term investment priorities that address a changing climate and ensure that future programs reinforce each other is welcomed.

Closing comments

The TNQ Hub appreciates the opportunity to provide public feedback on the Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs Review.