A partnership between the Australian Government and CSIRO will support drought resilience in regional Australia.
Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia David Littleproud said the partnership with our national science agency will apply the best available science, research and evidence to drought resilience planning in the regions.
“The program helps governments, communities, industry and farmers work together to develop regional drought resilience plans to prepare for, and recover from, future droughts,” Minister Littleproud said.
“The program kicks off with 23 regions now, with more to follow, as part of the Future Drought Fund’s $40.85 million Regional Drought Resilience Planning program, being delivered through state and territory governments.
“We’re going to tap into local knowledge, and pair that with the best available data, to identify pathways to resilience across agriculture and allied industries in each region.
“CSIRO will provide expert feedback on every plan to ensure regions are well-placed to tackle the risk of future droughts.”
CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said Australia is one of the driest continents on Earth, but science can help adapt our approach from dealing with drought as a crisis, to being prepared.
“Using breakthrough science to build resilience with practical regional plans, we can better prepare our regions and communities to anticipate and mitigate the severity of future drought,” Dr Marshall said.
This program contributes to the CSIRO-led Drought Resilience Mission goal of reducing the impacts of drought in Australia by 30 per cent by 2030.
“Building drought resilience across our agriculture-dependent regional communities benefits the entire Australian agriculture sector. The stronger individual communities are, the more robust our industry becomes as we back the industry to reach its $100 billion agricultural sector by 2030,” Minister Littleproud said.
