The On-farm Productivity and Riparian Recovery Program was a disaster recovery package for flood impacted areas following Ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald in early 2013 funded jointly by the Queensland and Australian Governments.

The Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG) received $8M as part of the On-farm Productivity and Riparian Recovery Program to assist landholders to reinstate agricultural productivity and to become more resilient to future flood events.

BCCA assisted BMRG in the delivery of this Flood Recovery Program in the North Burnett Regional Council area.

There were 4 key areas to the program that BCCA delivered in the North Burnett Regional Council area:

1. Riparian Stabilisation
2. Floodplain Restoration
3. Restoring Land Productivity
4. Weed Control

1. Riparian Stabilisation

The project provided cost effective and practical outcomes on rural lands that will benefit the rural community by:

• Enhancing riparian stability and resilience to reduce the risk of flood damage to the riparian natural assets and rural community infrastructure in the future;
• Supporting primary producers to accelerate recovery from flood impact by  remediating severe riparian land degradation and restoring  production values of agricultural land; and
• Providing priority technical on-ground support to control of bank scouring, bank slumping and gully erosion

On-ground works priority was firstly being given to intensive agricultural industries along the Burnett River from Grosvenor (south of Eidsvold) to Benyenda (north of Gayndah) who have steep and high banks.  Following from this was the less intensive industries such as grazing.  Approved projects in the priority area were finished by June 2015.

2.Floodplain Restoration

The Floodplain Restoration program will focus on stabilisation of flood damaged land and rehabilitation of soil fertility, coordination of flood overflow and drainage, reducing flood water concentration/diversion, and infrastructure placement.

The priority floodplain for this program in the North Burnett is the Three Moon floodplain.

The first stage of this program was for grants of up to $10,000 for farmers in the Three Moon Creek floodplain from Cania to just south of Mulgildie.  Activities that were eligible include the following:

• Laser levelling
• Irrigation efficiency design
• Soil health (including soil testing and soil amendments)
• Removal of sand and gravel deposition from cultivation areas
• Professional agronomic advice
• Farm and financial planning
• On-farm infrastructure repair (i.e. roads, irrigation pumps, fencing)
• Scour repairs and erosion control on floodplains

The next stage of this program was the development of the Three Moon and Monal Creeks Floodplain Land Management Plan which was developed by Floodplain specialists Clive Knowles-Jackson, Geoff Titmarsh and John McClatchy from the Darling Downs.  After consultation with Threemoon and Monal Floodplain landholders in December 2013, the Plan has been completed.

You can download a copy of the Three Moon & Monal Creeks Floodplain Land Management Plan here.

The next stage of the program is to start implementing priority actions from the plan.  This program and the priority actions approved from the plan were funded until June 2015.

3. Restoring Land Productivity

This program aimed to provide farmers and graziers affected by the flooding events of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald in early 2013 with technical advice and support to aid in restoring land productivity.  Such technical advice could have included, but were not limited to gully remediation advice, agronomic advice or irrigation repairing advice.  This program ran until December 2014.

BCCA has hosted two Irrigation Water and Energy Efficiency Workshops in Mundubbera and Monto during March 2014.  Over 40 irrigators attended the two workshops.

During April 2014, BCCA  hosted Soil Health workshops in Monto and Mundubbera.  Over 30 farmers attended the two days and from that 39 farmers were eligible to receive comprehensive soil testing on their flood affected properties.   This Soil Health Fact Sheet was developed to assist landholders.

4. Weed control

BCCA coordinated the delivery of weed control activities in the North Burnett Regional Council area.

Landholders located along creeks and riverbanks and associated floodplains within the North Burnett Council boundary area were invited to participate in a program that provided certain chemicals for weed control relating to flood recovery.  The weed species included (click on the name for more information from Biosecurity Queensland):

• Parthenium weed (more info: http://bit.ly/19Tu8on)
• Giant Rats Tail grass (more info: http://bit.ly/19Tu8on)
• Rubber Vine (more info: http://bit.ly/1aL3s5q)
• Hymenachne (more info: http://bit.ly/1a5sCfD)
• Cats Claw Creeper (more info: http://bit.ly/HiriMO)
• Madeira Vine (more info: http://bit.ly/HstaD0)

BCCA worked closely with the North Burnett Landcare Group and the North Burnett Regional Council to ensure a coordinated approach to weed control, and will be emphasising the importance of groundcover management and good grazing land management.