There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for achieving drought and climate resilience, which helps to ensure that Maddison McNeil’s job as SW WA Hub Adoption Officer is always interesting and challenging.
“I like the diversity of my role as drought resilience really is all about business resilience – it’s every single thing that makes a farming business better and for every farmer that is different,” she said.
Originally from a mixed farming enterprise at Kellerberrin and with broad industry experience, Ms McNeil is part of the SW WA Hub’s Extension and Adoption (E&A) team which aims to support the industry in a drying climate.
“This means translating research and complex issues into information that is useful and meaningful,” Ms McNeil said.
“To achieve this, we work with interested researchers and grower groups to ensure they have best practice extension and adoption factored into their projects.
“We are also identifying the drought resilience learnings from those projects – including projects funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund – that people need to know about.
“In addition, the team is building the extension and adoption capacity of the GGA grower group network and SW WA Hub Partner organisations – so that they are even more empowered to do what they do best.”
This capacity building has commenced in earnest with a highly subscribed six-part extension and adoption training program being delivered by the E&A team between May 18 to June 29.
Ms McNeil says the E&A role being undertaken by her team will remain important into the future as farming systems evolve and new research and insights are needed.
“We won’t ‘solve’ drought resilience or climate change, but if we can help somebody’s business or farm to be in a better spot than it was, then we have achieved something,” she said.
