Future Drought Fund - Resilient Pastures

Creating landscape-scale change through drought resilient pasture systems

Central and Southern NSW was once dominated by deep-rooted, perennial-based grassy woodlands. Since European settlement, landscapes have transformed to highly annualised systems in both cropping and permanent grazing areas where annual grasses and weeds have had a major impact not only on farm production but on ecosystem health, function and resilience. This project empowers farmers to use the latest research on species and management to increase perenniality within farming landscapes via their pastures. When adapted to regional circumstances, these enhanced pastures have the capability to be carried out across over 80% of the land area, making potential scalability extremely high.

Creating landscape-scale change through drought resilient pasture systems is:

  • Funded by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s Future Drought Fund
  • Led by Holbrook Landcare Network
  • Administered by the Southern NSW Drought Resilient Adoption and Innovation Hub

The project has sub-contracted 5 farming systems groups to manage 10 demonstration sites across southern NSW (2 sites/group). One site will assess pasture species challenges and the other addresses a pasture management/enhancement challenge.

HLN has also sub-contracted the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Local Land Services and Dr Susan Robertson to achieve project objectives.

Timeframe

Current Project period: 30th June 2022- 30th June 2024.

Our Demonstration Sites

Mangoplah

Our Pasture Species Demonstration Site

Bookham

Our Pasture Practice Demonstration Site

Project Funding

This project received funding from the Australian Govenment’s Future Drought Fund, and is being undertaken in association with a range of partner organisations, with Holbrook Landcare Network as the project lead.

Our Partners

  • Charles Sturt University (SNSW Innovation Hub)
  • FarmLink
  • Central West Farming Systems
  • Riverine Plains
  • Monaro Farming Systems
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries
  • NSW Local Land Services
  • Dr Susan Robertson (Charles Sturt University)