iscover
Drought bites hard
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National drought policy needed
For many aerial applicators, drought has already had a significant impact on their business, but facing another summer with no rain, no cropping and consequently no work is challenging at both a business and personal level.
Our farmers and our farm contractors – including aerial applicators – are an incredibly resilient group, but long droughts such as this one challenge even the most optimistic people.
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Mental health impacts and loss are being felt across communities. Initiatives like ‘Are You Bogged Mate’ are heartfelt and practical but can’t be everywhere.
Other initiatives such as ‘#buyfromthebush’ are very welcome attempts to bridge the city-country divide, providing a simple means of giving those less affected by drought a very tangible and rewarding way of helping regional and rural businesses.
A key challenge for post-drought recovery is getting to work quickly. In aviation terms, this includes finding pilots and other staff, getting aircraft maintenance completed in readiness and spending money on fuel, chemicals and spares.
It appears governments seem to think rural contractors just magically appear after rain – regardless of policy neglect. The lack of a coherent and settled national drought policy – especially one that considers the broader damage wreaked by drought on contractors, businesses and communities – is simply a disgrace. Every drought, rural Australia starts from scratch to get a policy response that always seems to come too late because of the policy inertia to be overcome.
Most effective drought resilience measures are long-term – especially for aviation. It is difficult to be resilient when government still has their foot on your throat during the occasional good times. Putting resources aside to drought proof a business is only possible if there are years when a significant surplus is available.
In Australia, that would require policies to improve industry’s capability to self-manage highly volatile seasonal variations by addressing issues including aviation fuel tax (exempt in the US), depreciation and expense write offs (now up to 100% in the first year in the US), fleet renewal incentives and support, training and recency costs, access to income equalisation deposits, stamp duty, payroll and other taxes and a range of cost reductions and unnecessary time delays across CASA regulations and requirements.
Another day passes and we are another day closer to rain. But probably no closer to well-thought out policies for the longer term.
‘A key challenge for post-drought recovery is getting to work quickly’
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