Queensland Drought Situation and Assistance

The Queensland drought situation is ever changing. You’ve come to the right place to find practical information to help you manage your way through dry seasons.

Primary producers can adopt many different risk management strategies to minimise the impacts of drought.

Your best bet is to be informed of what support, tools and information is available.

The map below shows currently drought declared shires in Queensland (from The Long Paddock website). The areas that are shaded represent those that are fully drought declared up to the date displayed. It also calculates the total area within Queensland that is fully drought declared and has statistics of individual drought declared properties. Click on the map to enlarge the image.

Queensland Government Services

Department of Primary Industries

The Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI) helps primary producers manage their businesses through a range of services from livestock nutrition to business management strategies. In particular, the Grazing Futures – Prepare & Prosper project supports regional livestock extension teams to provide whole-of-business services to producers.

This includes assisting with:

business planning
identifying key business risks
assessing management options
implementing practices to cope with drought and other business challenges
accessing new drought support packages (grants and loans).

You can find contact details for your local extension officer here.

Drought assistance in Queensland has been broadened and is open to eligible primary producers to better manage future droughts WITHOUT needing a drought declaration.

For more information on what financial and business support the Queensland Government offers head over to the Drought grants and assistance page.

Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority

The Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA) delivers the Queensland Government’s drought grants and loans including Drought Preparedness Grants. These are focused on fostering greater preparedness and business resilience for a broader range of eligible Queensland primary producers.

Australian Government Services

Australian Government programs and services to help primary producers plan for, manage and recover from drought include:

Help during hard times: Farm Household Allowance, Rural financial counsellors (Southern Queensland | North Queensland), concessional loans and support from the ATO – including tax concessions.

Help to prepare and grow: Farm Business Resilience Program, My Climate View, Farm Management Deposit Scheme, tax deductions and income tax leveraging, and concessional loans.

These fact sheets have great summaries of the types of support available:

Climate and Water Outlooks

Having an idea of climatic outlooks and weather conditions may assist you in planning ahead.

Bureau of Meteorology

BOM releases a quarterly climate and long range forecast video which covers rainfall, streamflow and temperature for the next three months.

See the latest outlook from BOM here.

More detailed climate information can be found at the BOM climate website.

The Long Paddock

The Long Paddock website provides climate risk information for rural Queensland and has tools to assist in managing your feedbase and land condition.

Here, you are able to access FORAGE reports specific to your property, FORAGE is an online system that generates and distributes, in customised PDF reports, information for rural Lots on Plan greater than 1 hectare in area.

They include:

Indicative Soil Phosphorus
Long-Term Carrying Capacity
Rainfall and Pasture by Land Type
Ground Cover and Regional Comparison Ground Cover reports
Indicative Land Type
Foliage Projective Cover
Fire Scar
Rainfall and Pasture Growth Outlook
Regional Climate Projections
Drought Assessment
Erodible Soils.

Australian CliMate website app

The CliMate website app has eight analyses that interrogate long-term climate records to ask questions relating to rainfall, temperature, radiation, and derived variables such as heat sum, soil water, nitrate accumulation, yield potential, drought, seasonal forecasts and time trend analyses. It is designed for decision makers, such as primary producers, to help manage risk.

For more information and to use CliMate visit climateapp.net.au

Other Information and Factsheets

FutureBeef

The FutureBeef website gives you access to the latest practical tools, scientific insights and relevant, timely advice. You can search for any topic on our website at the top of this page.

A great resource for a beef producers to have is the following publication: Dry season management of a beef business. This is a guide to planning, managing and supplementary feeding cattle. Click on the image below to download a digital copy or alternatively your local DPI extension officer can get you a hard copy.

Some other examples of some dry season and drought-related resources on FutureBeef are:

Also, keep and eye on the FutureBeef calendar for dry season and drought-related events near you.

Educational videos and webinars

The FutureBeef YouTube channel has informative webinars and videos on topics such as:

Learnings from the Wambiana grazing trial
Paddock Power a new planning tool for planning paddock development
Using decision dates in grazing management
How to make an informed decision in changing conditions

Meat & Livestock Australia

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) have a range of tools and resources to help you navigate through dry times, click on the image below to have a look at these.

MLA also has a checklist for drought preparedness, which you can work through at your own pace.