Lesson Overview

This section identifies industry-specific issues, challenges and approaches to building a resilient farm business in relation to flood.

• Specific flood risks for your industry.
• An understanding of potential challenges in building flood resilience on-farm.
• Pathway for flood preparation and resilience activities.

Plan For a Disaster

You cannot trust yourself to make a good decision while stressed or in a post traumatic state of mind. Its important to have your plan written down and stored in a place that is readily accessible to anyone on farm.

Results of Decision Making When Stressed

• Poorer problem solving skills
• Less verbal, more visual
• Reduced flexibility and lateral thinking.
• Simplified emotional associations, rather than logical.
• Judgemental – jumping to conclusions.

Stress can be good for emergency survival although its not so good when it comes to planning long term for business resilience to natural disasters. 

Reduce Stress by:

• Taking some time out from the cleanup. Set a time each day to finish and walk away from the job.
• Spend time with family, friends and colleagues to take your mind off the event.
• Turn of all media when your winding down for the day. Take some time off to do the things that you enjoy. This will allow you to think clearly when planning for the future.

Have a disaster plan for during and after the event itself. Make sure that your plan has been written down and incorporates what you have learnt from past disaster events. Once completed store your plan in a safe place and make it available to everyone on farm. The Growcom disaster tool kit mentioned in the video can be found in the right hand column.

Project Overview

The Natural Disaster Resilience Program  is proudly funded by the Australian and Queensland Governments through the 2017 – 18 Natural Disaster Resilience Program.

The project enabled a joint collaboration between the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland Farmers’ Federation and its member groups, Growcom and Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation.

Ten primary producers were identified to participate in the project, selected from a range of tree crop producers, vegetable growers and dairy farmers.

Industry extension officers assisted producers to develop mitigation and resilience management plans for their individual properties; and consultants featured in this online course, provided technical advice to further develop flood mitigation strategies for the property and farm business.

The project outcomes being improved understanding of the impact of flood on farm properties, and prioritised risk mitigation strategies for farm businesses.

The online course is designed to deliver these learnings across industry sectors to assist primary producers better manage the business risks associated with flood, and provide practical management options to mitigate risk and better manage future responses to natural disasters.

Key Resources

• Plan your recovery process with the Growcom recovery plan.
• A handy emergency contact list during times of natural disaster.
• A list of key recovery contacts to help with the recovery process.
• Look after yourself, family and colleagues with a mental health toolkit.