At QFF, we have been working with our members for many years through the QFF Farm Business Resilience Program to help farmers manage risk and build resilience within their business. The purpose of the program is to build the strategic management capacity of farmers to prepare for, and manage, business and climate risks, while also supporting their businesses to improve their economic, environmental, and social resilience.
The program helps farmers identify gaps in their business strategy and strengthen their capacity in key areas including strategic business skills, risk management, family business, natural resource management and natural hazards management.
Farm businesses face many different types of risk, and these vary considerably based on a number of factors including their type of production and geographic location. Irrespective of the size or location of a farm, or the commodity it produces or grows, farmers are called upon every day to make decisions about the risks they face.
Insurance is an important tool for farmers in their risk management strategy. Unfortunately, industry-specific insurance for agriculture businesses remains largely underdeveloped in Queensland and often farmers find themselves in situations where appropriate insurance is either far too expensive or simply not available.
QFF and partners, UniSQ, Willis Towers Watson and CelsiusPro, are currently working to investigate parametric insurance as a risk management tool to protect and enhance yield potential and profitability to support the resilience of farmers to weather risks. This project has been funded through the Australian Government Future Drought Fund Innovation Grant.
From a policy perspective, QFF continues to call on the Queensland Government to remove stamp duty from crop insurance to assist farmers to be able to better manage their own risk.
Some of you may be aware of the valuable work QFF and our members are doing in the risk management space. As part of this work, we continued to host the QFF Farm Business Hour Webinar Series where members of our team bring in a range of experts to discuss a whole range of risk related topics relevant to Queensland farmers.
The focus for the May QFF Farm Business Hour will be how to manage farm financial and market risks with a great line up of speakers covering off on a range of topics including how best to analyse risk impact, managing volatility of prices and farm production, and what tools are available to farmers to build a resilient farm business.
To register to tune in to this upcoming QFF Farm Business Hour, or to listen to previous recordings, go to https://www.qff.org.au/projects/farm-business-resilience-program/.