Dealing with the drought
Seeking support for farming communities
THE prolonged and severe nature of the drought has taken an enormous financial, emotional and environmental toll on many regional communities, particularly in the south-west.
There are some areas that are now in their sixth year of drought and missed out on the rain that provided some relief in other parts of Queensland.
That’s why in recent weeks AgForce has been raising the issue in urban media and seeking additional support from the Federal and State Governments for regional communities doing it tough.
The ongoing nature of this drought has overwhelmed even the best efforts of producers to prepare and left many considering the future of their farming business.
The mental wellbeing of communities is greatly affected by the lack of rainfall, for as farms suffer, shops can’t continue, and schools reduce in size as families leave when combined jeopardises the stability of Queensland’s regions.
While current government assistance measures are very welcome, they are really only designed for droughts that last two to three years and offer little for affected farm-dependant communities.
AgForce recently established the Queensland Emergency Drought Taskforce with 24 western Queensland Mayors and we’ve written to state and federal politicians to outline a series of priorities to provide immediate relief to affected communities.
The priorities include:
■ Capital works investment, such as roads, bridges, stock routes and on-farm water investments to provide job opportunities and help build and revitalise regions;
■ Review of the Farm Household Allowance income support, including streamlining the application process and excluding essential farm assets from asset tests so more people are eligible. We’d also like to see the time frames for support extended as once a producer accesses three years or 1095 days of support, they are no longer eligible for assistance even if still in drought;
■ Relief from council rates and leasehold land rents for primary producers to help reduce cost-of-living pressures;
■ Education support for children from remote areas,
including continuing and lifting the Living Away from Home Allowance Scheme;
■ Secure three-year funding for mental health support
services, including that provided by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This is important to ensure staff in these services continue in their roles and long- term contracts are more attractive to potential recruits in remote areas.
These measures could be adopted in the short term to keep people employed in drought affected communities and assist farmers put food on the table and meet household expenses.
AgForce is seeking a commitment to ensure drought affected Queensland producers have both the immediate support they need as well as long term policy certainty to promote better planning and long-term risk management.
We’ve previously worked on identifying a long term-solution that recognises the Agricultural Business Cycle and encourages the proactive efforts of producers to minimise the business risks associated with rainfall deficiencies.
The short term priorities we’ve outlined would help alleviate the burden of drought and help farming communities recover from the impacts of the last six years.