Farmers are tapping into the growing interest in expert advisory advice across the agriculture sector, with many already eager to tap into a wealth of knowledge on how to tackle the future months in the wake of recent flooding.
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Planfarm Advisory business advisor Dan Toohey believes there are a many questions farmers need to ask themselves right now to prepare for any sudden disasters.
He said the recent flooding event throughout Victoria can make a farmer "reflect on the risks they take and how [they] mitigate that" but was always important to understand how farmers can overcome those challenges in advance.
"Obviously, we can never predict when a disaster strikes... but one of the things we do... is an annual planning meeting where at the end of what we call 'a year of effort', we look at what's happened, but also actually plan for the year ahead.
"[We] look at the risks of in play, look at the opportunities and then 'stress test' is and understand if a farm had a complete wipeout, then ask 'what does that mean?'"
At those meetings, Mr Toohey outlined that many questions are brought dependent on whether things go "the right or the wrong way" and can include asking anything from what it may mean to service debts, pay off machinery, or even send kids to school.
But he also said most farmers look towards future growth of assets, succession, and maybe diversification, but there is no specific trends in need.
"No farming businesses are the same and... [there are] different complexities that sit within a business," he said.
"When you look into your broadacre cropping operations compared to your more intensive horticulture or dairy operations, there are differences... in terms of what they need to invest in."
"But those common themes, like succession, are actually common across the whole [agriculture] industry, and a lot of what we do is actually very transferable whether they run solely livestock, or do a mixture of multiple cropping, lifestyle, or horticulture."
Cam Nicholson, who is a partner in Geelong consulting business Nicon Rural Services, recently told an Agriculture Victoria webinar into decision making that farmers can develop it into a skill.
"And by a skill I mean that [decision making is] something that we can get better at," he said.
"We can be taught, and the more I've done work into this, I realised there are actually ways and processes to learn about decision making, and it can be practiced. And the more you practice it, the more you get better at it."
"It becomes second nature to you, and you do it better.
During the webinar, he said there are rigorous processes around decision making, and that there was distinct definitions on what is a "good" decision compared to a "right" decision.
"Everybody wants to make right decisions all the time," he said.
"The reality is they don't always turn out right, and it's particularly true in farming because we often have to make a decision.
"We have to make a call... and then there's a whole lot of somewhat unknowns that occur before we get to the end point.
"So, what's the difference between those two?
"A good decision is an informed one, a right decision you can only tell in hindsight."
