IN an announcement made last week Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig made clear his plan to focus on solving long-term drought issues rather than the short-term challenges facing WA growers.
During his recent visit to WA, Mr Ludwig travelled to Mukinbudin, Lake Grace and Wagin with WA Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman to inspect crops and gauge how the drought pilot program was being received by growers throughout the Wheatbelt.
"It was a chance for Mr Ludwig to see some of the challenges out there but also to see some of the progress that we're making with the pilot," Mr Redman said.
"It was also a chance to see some of the things we need to look at in taking it forward beyond this year and some of the local issues that we're hearing about that we might be able to respond to in the future."
But some growers involved in the program weren't sure that seeing and understanding the challenges were enough to help get them through this season.
"The drought pilot program is unlikely to be of any assistance to farm businesses in the short term," Wagin grower Chris Piesse said.
"It was my understanding that this program was rolled out to improve the longer term resilience of the farm business."
Mr Ludwig agreed and said the pilot program looked at underpinning skills needed to face tomorrow's challenges.
"So it's not about today it's about tomorrow, what it's about is ensuring that the farming community build on the current skills that they have and also the skills that they have but haven't put down in a plan so they can look at management into the future.
"It's about drawing their skills out and putting them on paper so they can plan and manage their farming activities well into the future because it's a great activity, it supports Australia, supports our terms of trade and it's very important to the Australian economy."
Mr Ludwig described the WA dry season as "one event" and denied that providing skills to generational farmers who already had the capacity to run a successful business rather than immediate financial assistance wasn't enough to prevent some from growers from leaving the land.
"That's what the whole package of the trial is about," he said.
"It's about ensuring farm planning activities.
"In terms of addressing short term issues I'm here to listen, to look and to understand some of the challenges some of the farming communities have.
"The trial is about building a risk management approach, it's about ensuring that farming communities can look at social, climactic and economic issues and manage that well into the future.
"Yes farmers are doing it tough, what they are experiencing is a downturn over one year causing some economic challenges but what I want to do over the longer term through the trial is build that resilience, build that planning, build the ability for farmers to be able to respond to what is a variable climate and of course in addition to that what the trial will demonstrate is that it's multi-pronged, it doesn't just deal with building resilience and support for farmers but communities too.
"One complaint about the pilot is that immediate monetary assistance within the next 12 months hasn't been made available and that's something that will be taken back to Canberra and considered immediately.
"What we've always had in place is managed farm deposits, we've got a range of strategies in place currently and also Exceptional Circumstances (EC) has been in place to deal with these issues."
But according to Mr Redman the earliest EC could be declared in WA would be at the start of 2012.
"Clearly there are some financial benefits to the pilot program if growers are able to get through the hoops to support the plans they've got in place, so I'm very confident that's a step in the direction of perhaps looking at some new ways of dealing with drought, but again the EC arrangements haven't been replaced and the earliest we would be able to get an EC-declared area in WA would be the start of 2012," he said
"One of the issues has been that the program has been seen through the prism of a very challenging year and it was never designed to be that, but there are certainly responses within the pilot that I think will be very valuable.
"When I talked to the group in Wagin in particular who have been through five of the six modules they were quite encouraged by the focus it's putting on them in looking at the long-term things they can do as businesses to build resilience, things they can do to deal with the challenges they're going to face and some of the comments were very positive.
"When the first participants looked at it I think there was a focus on the $60,000 that they can get to support their plans, I think there might have been an early attitude of where do I need to go and who do I need to see to get my $60,000.
"Once people got engaged with the pilot they very quickly worked out that the planning session is a long-term strategic session around building resilience.
"The comments out of Wagin in particular after getting through a number of modules was strong on the planning part of it and some of the focus was actually taken away from the $60,000 that they might get down the track."
Mr Piesse agreed with Mr Redman but said if the funding was adequately and properly allocated there would be the potential for the program to make a significant difference to the resilience of many businesses.
"I cannot help but think that this program has been rapidly rolled out so that both Federal and State politicians have something to point to when asked about the deepening financial crisis facing many WA farm businesses," he said.
"The program consists of five day long workshops where farm businesses come up with an overall aim that encompasses improving the overall resilience of the business.
"The businesses then develop a series of goals from a production, NRM, financial and life balance perspective that meet that aim and then develop measurable strategies and actions that would obtain these goals.
"The program is a pilot and can certainly use some refining."
Mr Redman said most farmers were encouraged by the program's progress.
"I was very buoyed by a number of comments that came back from participants," he said.
"People who've just gone into it and are only at the first one or two modules might be a little bit cynical about whether this is something that will in fact help their bottom line, clearly it's not going to be someone writing out a cheque to put into their business."
Recent calls for drought declaration and multi-peril crop insurance were also discussed but both Mr Redman and Mr Ludwig held their cards very close to their chests.
"Again, drought declaration is a mechanical process and I support the appropriate declarations that we need to have in order to have those things dealt with," Mr Redman said.
"There's not a formal drought declaration in WA but there's a declaration of some kind and I'm advised that there's no issue with putting that in place to support those special measures.
"I haven't been advised whether it's in place at the moment but I've certainly directed staff at the Agriculture and Food Department to progress that.
"Current funding arrangements that have been in place for a long time are EC arrangements, they are still there, they haven't been dropped, clearly there's a need to look at that on a federal level and what we've been successful at doing in WA is to implement the drought pilot.
"As for multi-peril crop insurance I've directed the Agriculture and Food Department to put together the information, the yield data, the rain data that insurance companies need to assess the risk and to be able to put a commercial instrument in place.
"I'm supportive of us doing that jointly with those organisations but clearly I can't put a timeline on that because these are private and commercial groups and they need to work through those processes and we're simply supporting them by providing the information that they need in order to make those assessments.
"I have had a conversation with Mr Ludwig about the position that people are putting to me but my position is consistent, I still do not support Government underwriting a multi-peril crop insurance instrument, I think we can do a lot of work however to work with those insurance companies to try to encourage them to get an instrument in place."
Mr Ludwig plans to return to WA before summer to address a range of ongoing pilot program issues with growers throughout the State.
