Storm and Flood Industry Recovery Program

About the project

1. Farmer emergency response

Outline: Farmer emergency response is aimed at developing a repository of best-practice emergency response resources and case studies to guide and assist farmers across dairy regions in NSW with decision-making during future emergency situations. While there is an anecdotal understanding of how dairy farmers have been responding and recovering from recent natural disaster events, there is little known about how dairy farmers may plan or prepare for natural disaster events, what decisions and priorities dairy farmers are making during and after natural disaster events, what supports they use to respond and recover, and what they have learned from these experiences. The overall research question is therefore, how can the NSW dairy industry better understand farmer experiences and decision-making strategies during response and recovery to natural disaster events, and use this understanding to support farmer response and recovery in the future?  This study was designed to engage with dairy farmers on farms about their natural disaster response, recovery decisions and actions and key supports to assist before, during and after such events.

2. Supporting excellence in service

Outline: This project is focused on supporting industry development in dairy. With a decline in overall dairy farm businesses in NSW, coupled with a vast geographical spread of farms, it is increasingly difficult to engage dairy-dedicated service providers, leading to a negative impact on dairy business viability and resilience. Service providers also play a key role in supporting farmers and industry during adverse events including storms and floods. There is a significant knowledge gap in the Australian literature about the experiences of service providers in:

• delivering services to the Australian dairy industry
• involvement in natural disaster response and recovery efforts
• dairy-specific barriers, and
• challenges for achieving service excellence.

This study was therefore designed to identify ways to improve the accessibility, services and networks available to both farmers and service providers across dairy regions in NSW, in both Business As Usual (BAU) and natural disaster contexts. The key question this project is responding to is: ‘What are the barriers and challenges to dairy service provision in NSW, and what actions or solutions can be actioned by the NSW dairy industry?’ This work presents an opportunity to learn from service providers about what they already know about working with dairy farmers.