Deakin to help face droughts

DEAKIN University researchers will be involved in an $8m hub to investigate drought.

The hub, to be established at the University of Melbourne’s Dookie campus in coming weeks, is due to look into how agricultural businesses and communities can become more resilient to the impact of drought.

Southern Farming Systems (SFS), based at Inverleigh, will lead the hub’s southwest node.

SFS chief executive Scott Chirnside said the hub aimed to give information to enable informed choices about how to tackle drought “by making those critical decisions and creating well-documented plans now, not whilst in the sleep-deprived and highly stressed, anxious state that drought induces in rural populations”.

Deakin professor Rebecca Lester, based at the university’s Waurn Ponds campus, said the new drought hub offered an opportunity to “build upon the strengths of our regional and rural communities and to ensure a sustainable future for our agricultural regions economically, socially and environmentally”.

Four universities and five farming systems groups will be involved in the research at the hub.

Hub co-director and University of Melbourne professor Ruth Nettle said the funding would make a difference to managing future droughts on farms.