Birchip Cropping Group - Social and Community Development

Social and Community Development

The first of BCG's social research projects was undertaken in 2007 and 2008 with the social and community program continuing to develop. This has been the most recent of our programs, and builds on the ‘Critical Breaking Point?’ research. New partnership and opportunities are created as we evolve and scope this area.

Critical Breaking Point?

‘Critical Breaking Point? Understanding the impact of drought on farming families in the Wimmera Mallee’ aimed to gain a better understanding of how Australian producers and their families are responding to drought and other pressures. Based on in-depth interviews with farming families in the Wimmera Southern Mallee region of north-western Victoria, this research used an unprecedented longitudinal approach to track the experiences of farming families during a time of severe drought and - it was expected and hoped – a period of drought recovery.

The final report was published in May 2008 with support from the Tattersalls George Adams Foundation and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.

The research was in two phases. Part One interviewed sixty randomly selected farming families during severe drought in February 2007. Part Two involved two follow-up interviews at six-monthly intervals (September 2007 and February 2008) with a subset of twenty of the sixty farming families interviewed in Part One.

BCG has used the report to inform government, corporate partners and regional organizations of the issues and needs facing our community, and is working to implement the recommendations.

Training Needs Analysis of Meat Producers

The Meat and Livestock Australia and RMCG project ‘Training Needs Analysis of Australian Meat Producers’ was a participatory social research project focused on the training needs of meat producers in four case study areas of Australia. The four regions included North West Tasmania, Wimmera Southern Mallee region in Victoria, the South West Slopes region of NSW, and the Central Agricultural Region in Western Australia. A total of 40 meat producers were interviewed in relation to how interested they are in training, to what extent current training was meeting their needs, what training in the past had been beneficial and what they would want from future training.

Furafuel

Furafuel Regional Biowaste Onsite Processing project was a partnership with the Circa Group, CSIRO, Monash University and Regional Development Victoria to develop a business case for the adoption of Furafuel Technology to support onsite processing of bio-waste in regional communities and generation of bio-crude and other environmentally friendly products.

Rural Heartlands

Funded by the Australian Research Council, this project investigated the economic and social linkages between the farm sector and rural communities in a number of rural regions in south-eastern Australia. The project was lead by La Trobe University and worked with colleagues from the Universities of New England, Griffith, Sydney and Melbourne. A final report will be delivered in 2009.

The project sought to investigate the degree to which farmers purchase their business inputs and sell their produce locally and the extent to which local farmers use and contribute to the sporting and social services that local towns offer.

BCG undertook interviews in the southern Mallee and northern Wimmera. 20 interviews were conducted over a four month period. The two parts to the research were: 1) a questionnaire survey focussing on the farming unit (e.g. land area, type of farming) and the family (e.g. use of and satisfaction with local services); and 2) a farm financial questionnaire which collects information on farm input expenditures and sales for recent selected financial years.

Social Research on Cropping Practices

The Mallee Catchment Management Authority aimed to better understand how dryland farmers make decisions around the cropping system they operate. RM Consulting Group (RMCG) were engaged by the Mallee CMA to manage 90 interviews in the Mallee region of which 15 were completed by BCG.