The Scaling Success Program grants have been awarded.
The Program is enabling scaling of previous Future Drought Fund (FDF) projects to have impact beyond their initial scope, capitalising on existing success. The program is utilising existing momentum and networks to expand, extend, reinvigorate, adapt and or pivot FDF projects to new and different contexts for greater and sustained drought and climate resilience that will deliver enduring outcomes.
$27 million in funding is being provided through a targeted competitive grant process for applicants that have successfully delivered a project under past programs. There are 15 projects valued up to $3 million which are supported by over 140 consortia members.
Successful Projects
| Lead Organisation | Project description | Project locations | Number of consortia members |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Coast Natural Resource Management Inc | The South Coast Drought & Climate Resilience Consortium unites over 1,800 farmers across 4 million hectares, providing a region-wide mechanism for achieving drought and climate resilience. Through a bottom-up, co-designed approach and, building on previous successes, the project will - Enhance preparedness for drought and climate variability through informed planning & decision-making - Increase the adoption of sustainable, productive practices through demonstration, farmer-to-farmer learning & expert guidance - Strengthen regional capacity to accelerate climate resilience through collaboration & capability development. Integrating planning, demonstrations, coordinated extension and capacity-building across diverse farming systems will enable the consortium to scale innovation and adaptive capacity, strengthening productive and resilient agriculture while establishing lasting capability, enduring demonstration sites and a consistent extension network beyond the project's life. | WA | 10 |
| Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) | Oldman saltbush, native to Australia’s arid landscapes, is proven to close feed gaps and boost drought resilience. Building on our success with saltbush forage systems across six medium-rainfall zones, where industry uptake is continuing, this project pushes into low-rainfall regions with 18 commercial-scale demonstrations led by top producer groups. Reliance on nursery-raised shrubs constrains scale, so we will trial paddock-scale establishment of elite seed lines using advanced seed-coating technologies. Historic plantations and adjacent conventionally farmed paddocks will be leveraged to measure long-term changes in biodiversity, soil health, groundcover and landscape function. Engagement will be amplified through field walks and high-production video case studies. The project will deliver increased scale of adoption by showcasing best-practice establishment and early productivity, building producer networks to accelerate adoption, and quantifying long-term benefits. | WA, NSW, SA | 8 |
| AG Excellence Alliance Incorporated | This project will extend and amplify the demonstrated impact of the FDF Extension and Adoption project, De-risking the Seeding Program (4-IMX2CLR). The first project successfully increased the capacity of farmers across southern and western Australia to make informed, confident seeding decisions as seasonal variability intensifies, and the Autumn break becomes less reliable. Its final evaluation identified several persistent and emerging knowledge gaps that limit confidence in dry and early sowing practices. This project will address knowledge gaps by scaling proven approaches, refining content to meet producer needs, and expanding engagement through 20 Consortium members, into new regions and farming systems. By broadening the reach and strengthening adoption pathways, the project will enhance farmer capacity to implement effective early and dry sowing strategies to improve drought resilience through optimising productivity and profitability. | VIC, WA, NSW | 20 |
| Adelaide University | This project will scale 5 recently developed second generation hard-seeded annual legumes and implement 4 innovative pasture management practices appropriate to the regions and systems applied. These combinations have shown superior drought resilience in earlier work. Adoption of technologies will promote legume integration into farming systems using innovative rhizobial inoculation, grazing, weed control and dormant summer sowing techniques. Scaled through an extensive network of 22 farms in drought prone regions of WA, SA, VIC & NSW, it provides a real-world test to show drought-adaptive gains of these new systems. Knowledge generated will be widely shared through farmer workshops, peer-to-peer learning, field days, pasture walks and focus groups. Co-designed and delivered by a consortium of 10 farming system groups, 2 universities and a drought resilience innovation hub, the project will enhance natural capital and long-term drought resilience in mixed farming systems. | NSW, SA, VIC, WA | 12 |
| Adelaide University | Our goal is to facilitate community & economic resilience, by making sure that people in farming communities benefit from strong relationships & are in the right headspace, at the right time, to make the right decisions. We will do this by taking the successful Kick Off Ya Boots musical on the road to 30 regional communities. Screenings of the highly acclaimed, farmer-written musical will humorously & relatably demonstrate use of key psychological strategies & link the audience to ifarmwell's free, online, closely aligned resources. Strategies will also be reinforced via follow up text messages, local print media education campaigns & farmer-led workshops. This will scale proven practices & enhance climate resilience by 1. Equipping individuals with effective ways to strengthen relationships & make good decisions 2. Bringing communities together to learn, build capacity & strengthen social cohesion 3. Extending collaborations that help to scale up proven drought strategies | WA, VIC, TAS, SA, NSW | 7 |
| Stirlings to Coast Farmers Inc. | This project scales the success of the original FDF on-farm weather station and soil moisture probe initiative, expanding its proven practices nationally, and more directly, across grains, livestock, dairy, viticulture and mixed farming systems. By partnering with leading farming organisations, it will lift farmer capability, confidence and adoption of digital monitoring technologies through targeted extension, field events, practical resources and nationally coordinated learning. The project strengthens climate resilience by improving farmers ability to interpret local conditions, optimise decisions and maintain equipment for long-term data accuracy. A strong Theory of Change, project logic and MEL framework supported by KASA measurement and interactive survey tools will track real shifts in knowledge and adoption. Through collaboration, co-design and regionally tailored delivery, the project will improve on-farm productivity and climate-resilient outcomes across Australia. | WA, VIC, TAS, SA, NSW | 15 |
| Mallee Catchment Management Authority | This project will advance practical, evidence-based risk mitigation strategies that enable adaptive management of vulnerable Mallee soils and strengthen drought preparedness, response and recovery outcomes for low rainfall cropping and grazing systems. Utilising and building on capacity gains achieved through previous FDF projects, delivery will target landscapes that demonstrate high wind erosion risk (i.e. a combination of inherently susceptible soils and historically low ground cover) to accelerate transformational change in areas most impacted economically, environmentally, and socially by drought. | VIC | 4 |
| Wimmera Catchment Management Authority | This project will help farmers make better decisions during dry times by expanding and improving the soil moisture and weather station network and Community of Practice created under the successful Data-Driven Drought Resilience project. The project will add more stations and data feeds to improve coverage and density across areas of need, upgrade technology, and integrate purpose-built, easy-to-use tools like mobile dashboards, SMS alerts, and a farmer-focused chatbot. These tools will make soil moisture and climate information simple to access and understand, so farmers can plan ahead and manage risk. Since the original project ended, an independent evaluation with farmers highlighted the need for additional tools, customisation and greater coverage of vulnerable areas. This proposal directly responds to those findings and scales a proven approach, co-designed with farmer-led groups, to build knowledge, skills, and capability - strengthening economic, environmental, and social resilience. | VIC | 6 |
| Farmers2Founders Pty Ltd | Australian farmers are keen to adopt new technologies that build drought resilience but often struggle to find value propositions that fit their specific needs. With FDF support in 2023-25, F2F TEKFARM played a central role in solving this problem by offering a structured, practical and evidence-based method for adoption that is producer-led, advisor-enabled, and tech-integrated. Collaborating with seven Consortium partners, the project achieved significant traction. The expanded project will amplify impact by engaging over 700 farmers via regional farmer-led clusters to create collaborative peer learning environments, extending reach of over 100 advisors across an expanded National Advisor Network, increasing project footprint into new geographies and sectors to facilitate over 400 technology deployments matched to curated farmer problems, and continuing to build a strong data-driven evidence base to demonstrate the impact of technologies that deliver drought and climate resilience. | VIC, WA, NSW, QLD, SA, TAS | 10 |
| Sub-Tropical Dairy Programme Limited | The propagation of annual grain & forage crops on Australian dairy farms continues to grow as businesses mitigate their risk & exposure to drought. This transformation in systems now extends across eastern Australia with 50% of national milk production in 2030 predicted to originate from businesses growing these crops. By 2028, the Climate Smart Feedbase project will expand key practices delivered by the Dairy Grains Mentor project to an additional 1,000 dairy farms & 70 service providers operating beyond north-eastern Australia. It will also deliver new outcomes regarding mitigating business risk, increased profitability & reduced soil degradation by incorporating new knowledge from R&D, technology, agribusiness, & operational safeguards adapted from other industries & businesses. Strong community ownership across eastern Australia will drive success through shared lessons, clear understanding of these practices, and the confidence to implement new solutions. | NSW, QLD, VIC | 1 |
| Southern Regional Natural Resources Management Inc. (NRM South) | This project brings together producers, advisors, agencies, NGOs and peak bodies to expand adoption of drought decision support tools across NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. These tools enable producers to act early as seasonal conditions change, supporting informed decisions during drought as well as helping producers take advantage of favourable conditions to lift productivity, profitability and resilience. The project will expand the Farming Forecaster network to provide more robust insights into growing conditions and demonstrate the platforms full capability to increase user confidence and uptake. It will also develop and implement the myStockPlanner scenario-planning tool for Tasmania and Victoria to strengthen proactive responses to seasonal variability. A growing community of practice will support shared learning and consistent adoption of climate-resilient strategies, improving producers’ capability to manage feed resources, protect natural capital and enhance business resilience. | TAS, VIC, NSW | 11 |
| Grower Group Alliance Inc. | WaterSmart Dams 2 (WSD2) will build economic, environmental and social resilience across regional communities through an approach combining technical demonstrations, innovative digital decision support tools, targeted extension and capacity building to enhance on-farm and community water security. WSD2 expands proven innovations that increase the capacity of farm dams and community water supplies to capture, store and retain water. WSD2 scales from a WA focus to achieve widespread adoption across new end users from a broader area of WA, and drought impacted South Australia, increasing the number and diversity of project partners. WSD2 enhances the Water Evaluation Platform (WEP) with remote-sensing insights, extends on-farm demonstrations of new technologies and expands water quality benchmarking. It provides farmers, advisers and government with practical decision support tools, economic data and training that will directly increase drought resilience. | WA, SA | 11 |
| Up2Us Landcare Alliance | Up2Us Landcare Alliance and Gecko Clan Landcare Network will work with six Landcare networks to scale a proven training model across the Goulburn Broken Catchment and Ovens Murray drought plan regions. Building on a successful 2022- 2025 FDF project that trained 60 students and engaged 760 landholders, this program trains 150 tertiary students through ten intensive workshops, farm visits, and networking. Students gain practical skills in natural asset farming, and farmer engagement. Traditional Owner perspectives are integrated through Taungurung Land and Waters Council delivering cultural sessions at nine events on Taungurung Country, with local Traditional Owners engaged at the Wodonga event. Twenty-seven landholder field days (18 funded, 9 in-kind) demonstrate natural capital management and building climate resilience. The project scales proven practices to enhance drought and climate resilience, building capacity across Landcare, community and next generation extension staff. | VIC | 12 |
| Deakin University | Recent innovative irrigation and water management practices utilizing low cost, high tech irrigation automation have shown there is the potential to dramatically change how rice is grown in Australia. Practical implementation of aerobic rice growing techniques, where water is not ponded, have now been enabled. Trials have shown the productivity of aerobic rice can match or exceed ponded rice systems using significantly less water (20%). Rice growers and the industry see these benefits from aerobic rice growing and increasing impacts from reduced water availability and are actively seeking support to adopt these technologies and practices on a wide scale to ensure the resilience of the industry in a water constrained environment. This project brings together a consortium across RD&E providers, industry and farmers to assist rice growers adopt these new water management practices industry wide. This will ensure drought resilience capability for the Australian rice industry. | NSW | 8 |
| Soils for Life Pty Ltd ATF The Soils for Life Trust | Climate-Ready Cropping Communities will work at multiple levels to enable national uptake of profitable, climate-resilient cropping practices. At its centre is a 12 month on-farm peer learning program, delivered to a core cohort of 80 growers by regional groups in key cropping regions in QLD, NSW, VIC, SA and WA. This core group will be supported to implement evidence-based practices that improve soil and crop health and reduce pest and disease pressure, reducing input costs and enhancing drought and climate resilience. To build confidence, momentum and support adoption in the wider cropping industry, a national workstream will reach a further 2,000 plus growers by sharing the core cohorts experience through data-driven stories, equipping a subset of growers to mentor and champion change in their own communities, upskilling extension and industry professionals to better guide growers on soil health and resilience practices, and broader communications. | QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, WA, NT, TAS, NSW, ACT | 6 |