Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs Review

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Submission to the Future Drought Fund Drought Resilience Adoption and
Innovation Hubs review
The Ag Excellence Alliance has considered feedback from the SA grower group network in formulating this response. The network is in agreeance that the SA Drought Hub has been a significant investment in engaging farmers and industry stakeholders in developing practical and innovative solutions to drought preparedness and resilience. The formation of the Drought Hubs, with a focus on extension and adoption of research outcomes and innovative technologies, has filled an important gap in the RD&E complex. The importance of the Hubs in being the connectors in the regions and driving a collaborative approach to RD&E will only improve and become more effective as relationships and trust develops further.

Hub performance in South Australia

The SA Hub has made a significant impact in the region through identifying the key issues and opportunities relating to drought resilience and supporting and implementing investment that have assisted rural communities in building their resilience to drought. The Hub has successfully co- designed and delivered high quality projects and activities across SA and with other Hubs across the nation.

In South Australia, the State Government largely withdrew from extension in the mid-1990s, with private industry largely filling this gap since then. Extension has since become very compartmentalised with many separate players involved. The Hub plays an important role in breaking down this compartmentalisation.

The proponents of SA Hub made a strategic move at the beginning of the Hub to engage Ag
Excellence Alliance (Ag Ex) to provide the Knowledge Broker and Farming Systems Adoption Officer roles. This provided the Hub with an immediate network of the 19 grower groups that Ag Ex supports. These are the key farmer led organisations (often referred to as Farming Systems Groups) that have been consulted and engaged by the SA Drought Hub to deliver drought resilient initiatives across the state. Since 2005, Ag Ex has provided leadership, brokered knowledge and facilitated collaborations for the benefit of grower groups and farming industry networks around South
Australia. Ag Ex is an independent, for-purpose organisation led by representatives of the grower groups it exists to serve, providing a valuable network hub for grower groups in support of validation, extension and adoption of agricultural innovations and research.

A Grower Group Snapshot conducted by Ag Ex in 2024 found that there are 4,532 farmers, 340 independent consultants, 662 agri-business personnel and 277 RD&E partners that identify as members of the group network. In addition, the groups reach another 4,630 industry players through social media and electronic communications. The Hub has effectively engaged with this network in project development and delivery.

Grower groups play a critical role in the development of sustainable and profitable broadacre farm practices through their strong relationships with RDC’s, research providers, State and

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Commonwealth government agencies, NRM regional organisations and industry. They are the
‘innovation brokers’, bringing farm advisors, researchers, regional NRM organisations, resellers and farmers together. They provide much of the local/on-ground information and support “soft- infrastructure” that farmers seek, and this helps industry and government achieve their goals.

These groups have several common features that aid them in collaborating to improve their collective effectiveness:
• Farmer owned and driven
• Driving local innovation through the validation of research findings and extending these
findings to their farmer members and non-members
• Are employers of local expertise to manage and operate the groups and conduct locally
relevant research and extension.
• They have critical structures and capacity to facilitate group discussion, engage experts and
validate research at the local level with demonstrations and trialing
• They can demonstrate their impact and have a continuous improvement philosophy.

In addition to the two Ag Ex Hub positions, the University of Adelaide has two livestock Adoption
Officers, a Regional Soils Coordinator and an Innovation Broker. These positions have been very effective as well, as the incumbents have the industry experience, networks and skills to engage effectively with key researchers, industry leaders, and stakeholders both regionally and nationally.
They are able identify issues and opportunities, leverage investment and drive the delivery of effective on-ground projects. This model could be expanded to include other primary industry sectors including horticulture, viticulture and the rangelands.

The University of Adelaide has proven to be a very effective lead organisation for the SA Drought
Hub. Where change needs to occur is in the Hub design, governance, transparency and strategic planning. This can and should happen with the University of Adelaide remaining as the lead organisation for the SA Drought Hub. Sharing of administrative resources with the University provides a massive cost saving and improved efficiency for the Hubs (e.g. legal, finance, administration, HR, office space etc). Other benefits of the university lead are:
• Proximity to research so they can easily see what could be extended/adopted.
• Ability to more readily engage and influence researchers in project design and delivery.
• Provide feedback to researchers.
• Better connects the university on-ground in the regions with grower groups and farmers.
• Applied learning approach through universities.
• University of Adelaide has a long tradition of Agriculture research and development and a
broad range of agricultural research infrastructure to support SA Drought Hub and other
drought resilience projects and initiatives.

A further strength of the Hub has been improving linkage between researchers and what is happening in the regions. Historically there are researchers who have worked well in the regions and have good connections, but there’s those who haven’t had those networks. The Hub has opened a lot of opportunities for researchers to connect into the regions that weren't there previously. The Hub has also been instrumental in leading collaborative projects with other Hubs across the nation.

Future enhancements

Regional Engagement Model

A redesign of the regional node engagement model will be important to better support and leverage the existing networks of organisations that are working on ground and/or doing similar or complementary work. Aligning regional engagement with regionally based organisations (e.g.
Landscape Boards, RDAs or Farming Systems Groups) will enable improved activation of established networks, programs and regionally influential people. A strong regional connection is critical for the

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success of the SA Hub. The current ‘node’ areas in SA do not reflect how people, networks and communities are organised in SA and therefore they are not maximizing where the ‘people are’.
Adopting Landscape SA boundaries will enable better connection and better leveraging of people, resources and skills. This would also improve complimentary program delivery with other Federally funded initiatives including the Climate Smart Agriculture Program.

Decision Making

Processes for stakeholders developing and delivering projects and getting proposals through the system need to be made more transparent and clearer. Currently the process of project assessment, and approval, and allocation of budget expenditure is undertaken solely by two representatives, one from the University of Adelaide and the other from the Department of Primary industry and Regions
SA. This offers very little transparency and is a less than an ideal governance model given that these organisations are also project deliverers and beneficiaries of Hub projects. An advisory committee that can provide independent advice to the Hub on investments in projects that it is making would add significantly to the transparency of the Hub, provide Hub member organisations with greater confidence in the decision making process and significantly reduce the opportunity for collusion and resource allocation bias. Project assessment criteria need to be clear, more transparent, focused on impact and which best align with the agreed upon strategic goals. In addition there needs to be consideration given to the timing of project approvals so that they do not compromise the start of projects that rely on seasonal timelines.

It should now be possible to consolidate on what investments will contribute to drought resilience, what is going to make farming businesses more resilient to drought, so that when drought occurs, they're able to work through those periods and come out the other end with their natural resources intact and are able continue in business.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Monitoring, evaluation and learning processes need to be an everyday part of delivering effective projects on ground. Having effective and continuous improvement loops is critical in project delivery.
This needs to be built into projects and funded appropriately, not something that is done at the beginning and end so that what is being delivered continues to be relevant and delivers impact. If something's not working during a project then you can change course or stop or do whatever you need to do.

MEL data could be better utilised to create an ongoing improvement culture in the Hubs. Data needs to support the measuring of impact / outcomes on farm and the improvement in drought preparedness and resilience that growers have implemented and observed. The FDF investments should now have enough data that can begin to demonstrate how drought resilience has been improved, providing a baseline for measuring the impact of future investments and to assist in directing future investment. Being able to demonstrate how farm businesses and communities have become more resilient to drought impacts in the future will be defensible evidence of the impact of the FDF investments. Commented [NS1]: MEL requirements should have
support/be resourced
Partnerships and Collaboration Commented [TR2R1]: Absolutely

Effective collaboration is mostly underestimated when considering the effort that needs to be put in to make it work effectively. People and organisations should work to their strengths and be clear about what they can bring to the table when considering project involvement. Partners should take on project roles on the premise that they have the capability to deliver effective outcomes in the areas required for a given project or initiative.

More resource are required at the front-end of developing project initiatives, giving more lead time to identify what are the issues / opportunities are that need to be addressed, how best to address

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them, and what resources are required to address them? This planning needs to occur well before the funding becomes available. The Adoption Officers and Knowledge Broker have contributed to filling this role.

Whilst developing and supporting strategic initiative with multiple partners is a priority, providing small grants that are easily access and can be approved quickly have proven to be highly beneficial in addressing short term needs for running events that leverage other funding sources and can provide significant drought resilience outcomes.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to this review.

Yours sincerely

Mark Stanley
Executive Officer

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PO Box 138 Burra SA 5417
admin@agex.org.au
www.agex.org.au
+61 427 831 151

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