The Future Drought Fund (FDF) has published its second annual report. It shows how progress is being made across all the FDF programs and outlines learnings that will contribute to the direction of its funding cycle. It’s good to see recognition of the foundations being set by the programs and the establishment of networking and collaborations which are necessary for their growth and success. Through our work with a number of the FDF programs, we’ve seen that these first couple of years have really been establishment phases, with groundwork being undertaken to facilitate growing momentum over the coming years. Most of these programs are playing the long game, and we’re looking forward to seeing their hard work pay off.
Call for abstracts for the 26th European Seminar on Extension Education (ESEE)
ESEE is a biennial conference about agricultural advice and education and aims to support discussions between science and practice. The 2023 conference is being held in Toulouse, France July 10-13, and is now calling for abstracts. The theme of the 2023 conference is “Sustainability transitions of agriculture and the transformation of education and advisory services: convergence or divergence?” The deadline for submission is 17 February 2023.
To find out more visit the conference website.
AES 2023 conference call for proposals
The 2023 Australasian Evaluation Society’s conference is being held in Brisbane between 27-29 September. Calls for papers are out and if you are interested, make sure you check out the the AES website. The conference theme is: Through the lens.
2022 was a big year!
It’s been a really busy year at Coutts J&R and probably one of the main reasons I didn’t meet my goal of writing at least one blog post a month. So to make up for it (in a very small way) I thought I’d share some of our highlights over the last year.
Growing our work in the agricultural climate change space, particularly with our projects in the Future Drought Fund (FDF) including Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA), Regional Drought Resilience Planning (RDRP), Farm Business Resilience Planning (FBRP) and the Southern NSW Drought Hub.
Setting up and embedding data collection and management systems into a range of projects to ensure the right data can be collected for reporting against objectives. A shout out to the SNSW Drought Hub, FBRP, and CSA projects in particular for their hard work with us on this. MEL reporting will be that much easier as a result!
Presenting at the Australasian Evaluation Society conference in August/September was a highlight for me. I was able to use some emerging findings from my PhD and apply these to evaluation. My presentation was called: Social media as an evaluation, listening and monitoring tool case study: Instagram, Australian farming women, social media and climate change.
Our ongoing work with the Queensland Drought and Climate Adaptation Program. This has independently been recognised as a standout program and through a robust MEL approach it has been shown to be achieving a high level of impact in northern Australia.
As part of our work with the Resilient EP (soil moisture) project in South Australia, Jeff and Ben attended the March 2022 Regional Innovator Group workshop in Port Lincoln. The project was entering its final year and attending in person provided valuable insights into the project and its progress, as well as an opportunity to interact with the project team. Jeff facilitated a session focused on reviewing the M&E framework targets and key project outcomes, while Ben presented the findings of the most recent M&E report – both receiving positive feedback by those attending.
We were very pleased attend the 2022 Australian Pacific Extension Network (APEN) conference and sponsor the Amabel Fulton award for Excellence in Extension by a Young Professional. The two very worthy joint winners were Sarah Thompson (Dairy Australia) and Jodie Ward (Dept Agriculture and Fisheries, Qld).
And that just about wraps it up for 2022. Hope you have a restful and rejuvenating holiday season and we wish you all the best for 2023!
Record crops deliver big agriculture gains
The five yearly Agricultural census undertaken by the ABS showed that 2020-21 was an exceptional year for Australian Agriculture. According to the article in the West Australian, Australian farmers made a 17 percent increase in profits in that year. Wheat and cotton were big winners thanks to drought-breaking rains and increased availability and use of irrigation. It was reported that the livestock situation stayed mostly constant. This has implications for the ability of RDCs to use extra levy funds to work with the Future Drought Fund initiatives to improve drought preparedness in the future.
https://thewest.com.au/business/agriculture/record-crops-deliver-big-agriculture-gains-c-7646578