Learning from the past, acting 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 in the region.

The drought consultations were undertaken over the past eight months by the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre as the North-West Irrigated Horticulture Node of the Victoria Drought and Innovation Hub.

It was the second round of consultations conducted by the Centre. A report outlining the findings from the first round of consultations was launched in November 2023 and can be accessed here.

Mallee Regional Innovation Centre CEO Rebecca Wells and agriculture manager Alina Saeed in Swan Hill for drought consultations this week.

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.

“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,” Alina said.

“Just this week we concluded the second round of consultations with a visit to the Swan Hill area to talk 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.

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."

Drought consultation session with Mallee health service providers this month.

Tim said the second round of consultations, just like the first, 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 project received funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.