ABSTRACT
Farm Appraisals were effective in the provision of advice to formers, making a positive contribution to the improvement of long-term viability for the farms concerned. New Start Grants were seen to provide humanitarian assistance to those in an untenable financial position. However, they were not particu larly effective in changing marginal farming oper ations. Most of the recipients believed that they would have sold regardless of the grants, many of those farmers who sold their properties remained on them as farm managers, and only an estimated 30 per cent of the farms underwent subsequent changes in land use or scale of operations. The Technology Transfer Programme was considered to be successful in increasing awareness of the range of strategies for managing drought. The effectiveness of such pro grammes, though, would be increased greatly if they were continued over a longer period of time, so that long-term dryland farming strategies could be encouraged during nondrought years.
