IF LAH, north of Warracknabeal, farmer David Drage had his way, the Federal Government's drought resilience funding plan would be extended and current drought support scrapped.
Speaking at the Horsham consultation meeting for the drought resilience funding plan, Mr Drage said he hoped the $100 million fund could play a role in setting up rural Australia to better withstand dry periods and have less reliance on stop-gap measures handed out at times of extreme difficulty.
"I'd love it to get to a stage where this fund, specifically for resilience, rather than band-aid drought support handed out when people are in the middle of drought, which I would say has led to some rather puzzling decisions, is our major intervention in terms of managing dry times," Mr Drage said.
"We can't keep having drought policy made up on the run and I'd love to see this sort of thing, which has a long term focus on resilience, not support, as the primary focus of our national drought strategy."
The drought resilience fund is funded to the tune of $100 million each year, external to the Federal budget, from interest from the $3.9 billion Future Drought Fund, which will be slowly boosted until it reaches the government target of $5 billion.
Those at the Horsham meeting discussed how the money could be spent, which included concepts from research and innovation right through to infrastructure and community initiatives.
However, while infrastructure was on the list, consultative committee member and former Birchip Cropping Group chair Caroline Welsh warned that big ticket items such as roads and rail would not be a target for the plan's administrators.
"$100 million sounds like a lot of money but once it is spread over all of Australia it will not be enough for those sort of investments."
Ms Welsh, together with fellow committee member Kate Andrews, a director of Agrifutures, urged all in attendance at the meeting to put in a submission to the committee as to how to spend the money.
Public submissions can be put through up until December 13.
In regards to getting submissions in some at the meeting questioned the amoung of publicity surrounding such an important consultation process and asked whether rank and file farmers and rural community members knew the meetings were on or how to put a submission on the plan in.
Drought plan officials acknowledged it had been a whirlwind process.
Tim Fisher, assistant secretary for water policy with Department of Agriculture, assisting the consultative committee at the meeting, said the team had been forced to act quickly to get things moving, as the relevant legislation to bring in the fund was delayed.
"It didn't get through until later so we have had to move quickly to get the round of meetings and the consultation period through with our deadline for the final plan in February next year."
There was only a small crowd at the Horsham meeting, including just two farmers, but Ms Welsh said she hoped to ramp up publicity in coming weeks.
"The really important thing is that people get to know what the fund is about and have their say as to how it will work and we're really looking to push that message," she said.
A key message to come out of the Horsham meeting was the need to focus on rural communities as a whole and not just farmers.
Wimmera Development Association executive director Chris Sounness said capacity building within communities was critical.
"You don't want to see the funds just going to those communities that are travelling fairly well and have people that know how to write a grant well."
Natimuk farmer Brian Klowss agreed, saying a key part of any final plan for the drought resilience fund needed to be that it was user friendly for all to use.
Mr Fisher, however, said while the drought fund was designed to help kickstart innovation and build stronger rural communities it would not be something that could prop up a struggling community for a sustained period of time.