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The Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub leads a regional, collaborative approach with northern Queensland stakeholders to support the agricultural sector and communities to become more drought and climate resilient.
We have funded nearly $350,000 for projects through our Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience grants scheme that will demonstrate tangible benefits to one or more of the TNQ Drought Hub Priority Issues within the themes of:
Projects will be completed by June 2024.
Congratulations to the successful recipients!
Lead Organisation: Gulf Savannah NRM
Project Title: Exploring perceptions and best practice adoption of silvopastoral systems as a strategy for drought resilience in the Northern Gulf
Location: Far North Queensland
Funding Amount: $100,000 gst excl
Summary: This project in collaboration with Gulf Savannah NRM and North Queensland Forestry Hub will explore perceptions and best practice adoption of silvopastoral systems as a strategy for drought resilience in the Northern Gulf. Silvopasture is an agricultural system combining forestry with livestock grazing. The project aims to:
Lead Organisation: Southern Gulf NRM
Project Title: Satellite based water analysis and drought planning in northwest Qld
Location: North West Queensland
Funding Amount: $79,000 gst excl
Summary: The project aims to accurately map water bodies, analyse water holding capacity and identify the risky dams, small dams that landholders may plan the decommission and replace with more reliable reticulated (piped and trough) water to improve productivity, reliability and contribute to improved calf survival.
Lead Organisation: Terrain Natural Resource Management
Project Title: Building drought resilience and feed capacity of pastures in North Queensland
Location: Far North Queensland
Funding Amount: $50,669 gst excl
Summary: This project is a collaboration between Terrain Natural Resource Management (Terrain NRM), Soilkee and a local Atherton Tablelands dairy farmer. It aims at demonstrating the use of an innovative technology, the Soilkee Renovator, to pasture growing farmers in the Wet Tropics through a field demonstration day and video.
The Soilkee Renovator is new technology for soil-based agriculture that builds topsoil, activates regenerative soil functions and fertility, increases drought resilience by increasing water holding capacity and builds stable soil carbon in pasture, while eliminating paddock down time traditionally associated with pasture renovation.
Lead Organisation: James Cook University
Project Title: Evaluating the drivers of persistent bare soil in the Southern Gulf to inform rehabilitation and build drought resilience
Location: North Queensland
Funding Amount: $99,967 gst excl
Summary: This project will investigate the drivers of persistent bare soil development in parts of the Southern Gulf region of north-west Queensland in order to inform bare soil rehabilitation efforts and build drought resilience.
The project will combine satellite imagery analysis of land cover change, with long-term rainfall analysis, and on-ground field data collection, including drone mapping, soil sampling and land condition assessment at selected sites.
Importantly, the project will leverage and add value to an existing project focused on the demonstration of bare soil rehabilitation techniques for building drought resilience.
The Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (the TNQ Drought Hub) leads a regional, collaborative approach with northern Queensland stakeholders to support the agricultural sector and communities to become more drought and climate resilient. We are looking for great ideas from community groups, not-for-profits, primary producers, agribusinesses, and others which can contribute to building drought resilience across our region.
We will fund up to $100,000 for each project that can demonstrate tangible benefits to one or more of the TNQ Drought Hub Priority Issues within the themes of:
Grant applications will need to demonstrate tangible benefits to one or more of the TNQ Drought Hub Priority Issues, which can be viewed here.
To be kept informed of any changes, or updates please register your interest here (this does not commit you to submitting a grant application).
Applicants are encouraged to contact their local Drought Resilience Coordinator (DRC) to support the development of their application, click here for contact details.
This funding aims to improve drought resilience for farms and agribusinesses, and towns and communities where agriculture is a strong contributor to the economy and society. The TNQ Drought Hub is already working with many groups and organisations, but we know there are many more with great ideas. We want to ensure that everyone involved in agriculture across the TNQ region has the opportunity to showcase their ideas and approaches ready for the next drought.
The grants scheme will fund projects that contribute to improved drought resilience and/or preparedness on-the-ground through any of the following means:
A set of grant guidelines, which contain information about the grants including eligibility requirements, how to apply and your obligations as an applicant can be downloaded here. Please read these guidelines before applying.
Applicants must be capable of entering into a legally binding agreement with James Cook University.
Projects must be completed and reported on by the end of June 2024.
For questions or issues with the application portal contact Rachel Hay, Knowledge Broker 0402 289 724 between 9:00am and 5:00pm Monday to Friday.
Grant applications will need to demonstrate tangible benefits to one or more of the TNQ Drought Hub Priority Issues. Please download the extended Priority Issues document to read and select appropriate regional priority/s to included in the grant application.
Please download the grant Guidelines, which contain information about the grants including eligibility requirements, how to apply and your obligations as an applicant. Please read these guidelines before applying.
Please submit your question here prior to 5pm on Wednesday 28th June 2023. Questions received after this time will not be responded to. Submit each question and then click the link again to ask another question. Responses will be updated Monday – Friday by 10:00am.
