Download a report outlining findings from the first drought consultation round in October 2023

North-West drought consultations learn from the past, act for the future

Ideas for new projects to help build drought resilience in the Mallee have sprouted from a series of conversations with growers, horticulture-industry organisations, financial counselling services and agriculture and health service providers.

Mallee Regional Innovation Centre (MRIC) as the North-West Irrigated Horticulture Node of the Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub, has undertaken the drought consultations over the past eight months, in its second round of consultations.

The Centre’s Agriculture Manager Alina Saeed and consultant Tim Cummins thanked the consultation participants for being so generous with their time and for their thoughtful contributions.

Alina said, “It is important to come together in the good times and talk about drought so we don’t forget what we learned during the hard times and can use people’s knowledge and experiences to prepare for future droughts.”

The second consultation round culminated with a visit to the Swan Hill area, talking to growers and industry.

“It was an opportunity to hear new voices, but also to come back to people who were involved in previous consultation sessions and speak to them about the outcomes of the first report.”

She said people’s willingness to share information during our group and one-on-one consultations, the extra notes they provided afterwards, and their questions about the development of the next report, really shows the interest and value in this activity.

“We will release a report that reflects the wisdom gathered from these conversations, but that won’t be the end of the process. Consultations are ongoing, so anyone else who is interested in participating can get in touch with us and we can bring them into future conversations.”

Tim Cummins said just like the first, the second round of consultations had uncovered some important learnings and strong project ideas that could be actioned to make an impact in the community.

“A few times now people have explained things they did in the last drought, and they are such good ideas that seem obvious when you hear it, but I would never have thought of them,” he said.

“Of particular importance in this round of consultations, we spoke to mental health professionals who gave us some great ideas about how we can better prepare for the next drought so that everyone exposed to its impacts can better look after themselves and each other.”

This is an edited version of an article first published on the MRIC website. 

You can read more about the first report, in the November 2023 edition of the Vic Hub newsletter; see item 7.