What is the Future Drought Fund?

Announced in 2018, the Future Drought Fund (FDF) is a $5 billion drought resilience initiative of the Australian Government to support Australian farms and communities to prepare for and build resilience to the impacts of drought.

There is $100 million per year allocated to drought resilience programs through the FDF, with Phase One kicking off in 2020 through the Drought Resilience Funding Plan 2020 to 2024. There are 3 inter-connected key strategic priorities of the FDF:

Economic resilience – for an innovative and profitable agriculture sector
Environmental resilience – for sustainable and improved functioning of farming landscapes
Social resilience – for resourceful and adaptable communities.

There has been a range of programs under Phase One of the FDF, with some delivered by state and territory governments through co-funded arrangements. The Victorian Government has co-funded and delivered two key FDF programs – Regional Drought Resilience Planning (RDRP) and Farm Business Resilience (FBR).

The RDRP program is what brings us to this extensionAUS platform – to share all the effort and outcomes that have been achieved and are underway to build drought resilience and preparedness across Victoria.

There have been 19 programs delivered under the FDF to date, with a number of those programs continuing under Phase Two! The Drought Resilience Funding Plan 2024 to 2028 is providing over $561 million over 8 years from the Australian Government, including a national $67 million to continue the RDRP program.

There are some new programs under the new funding plan too. These are outlined in the Future Drought Fund’s Investment Strategy and include $15 million to partner on First Nations initiatives.

The FDF offers a lot of opportunity for Victoria’s farming communities and regions to be prepared for, and resilient to, future droughts and other impacts of climate change.