Let’s talk about drought
Drought consultations underway again across the Mallee will continue to unearth community and industry concerns and ideas to enhance drought resilience and preparedness in the region.
Over the next six months, the Victoria Drought and Innovation Hub’s North-West Irrigated Horticulture Node, which is led by the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre, will be talking to a variety of stakeholders including horticulture growers, peak bodies and service providers, and health services. Consultations are planned for Mildura, Robinvale, Swan Hill and the Mallee Track.
Drought consultation with community members representing many sectors including tourism, environment, water and horticulture farming systems.
Centre CEO Rebecca Wells said the consultations would help to identify community priorities and inform the design of new projects.
“We had such a strong level of engagement for our initial round of consultations, which emphasised the importance of these conversations and the way drought affects different industries and organisations,” Rebecca said.
“Once we start sharing, that is where we find the commonalities, issues we weren’t aware of, and things that we can work on together to ensure preparedness for drought.
This time we are looking to hear from a wider range of people, including new voices that might not have been part of previous conversations, about their experiences and what they think could be done better during the good period and before drought hits, during drought and in the recovery period.
Online drought consultation with Mallee Regional Partnership and Regional Development Australia Loddon Mallee.
The Centre’s agriculture manager Alina Saeed said several project ideas had come from the first round of consultations, including two that have recently begun.
“Projects are truly successful when you talk to the community at a grassroots level to understand what their priority needs are and then work together on planning and delivery to ensure the project best meets local needs,” Alina said.
“Through the consultations, we learned it would be helpful for irrigators to have real-time water allocation information to reduce uncertainty during drought and enable them to better manage risks. That led to the development of our water forecasting project, which also involves the University of Melbourne, Goulburn-Murray Water, the Bureau of Meteorology, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
We are also starting work on a research project investigating blue-green algae. For that we have brought together a significant collective – Water Research Australia, Monash University, the University of Melbourne, Coliban Water, Goulburn-Murray Water, Lower Murray Water, and North East Water.
A report outlining observations from the first round of consultations will be released in November 2023 and will be made available publicly.
Individuals or organisations that want to be involved in the latest round can contact Alina Saeed on 0481 059 730 or at mric-agtech@unimelb.edu.au.