With hotter and drier conditions expected, farmers will need the skills, knowledge, and capacity to adapt their farming practices to mitigate climate related pressures and better manage future drought risks. Farming on marginal land with practices that are unsuitable for drought resilience means that this landscape will continue to be degraded. Eventually the cost of remedial action will outweigh the productive capacity of the land and it has the potential to develop long term land management problems such as salinity, soil erosion, weed infestation or pest animal issues. 

The project will introduce farmers in the Werribee and Maribyrnong catchments, farming on marginal, drought-prone land, to the benefits of integrating native forage shrubs to build their farms resilience to frequent dry conditions. Native forage shrubs can help fill seasonal feed gaps and allow deferred grazing of annual pastures and cereals in times of climate uncertainty. The shrubs can support both livestock and natural resource management gains across the whole farm system by protecting and sheltering soils, crops, pastures, and livestock, and providing habitat for birds, reptiles, and insects.

Through this project, six native fodder demonstration sites will be established, and to compliment the demonstration sites, workshops will be held to promote decision making tools which helps farmers with sound decision making during times of stress.