The Trundle farmer, and Monique Worsley from March (north of Orange), took the stage at the National Drought Forum in Toowoomba last week and had some powerful words for the powers that be.

The forum was a bringing together of ideas for how Australia can better deal with was termed its 'creeping natural disaster' - drought.

Sally and Monique were speaking as the UNICEF youth representatives for drought and when talking about her experience at the forum from back home in Trundle, Sally was typically forthright.

"At the end of the day, we can't stop drought," she said.

"What we can do though, is be constantly preparing - we need to be thinking about drought all the time, not waiting for it to hit before we do something.

"It's going to come around again so we need to be prepared, there needs to be full time services dedicated to helping rural and regional Australia deal with drought."

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Sustainable farming methods are of course an incredibly important part of this - to make sure we can all farm for generations to come - and Sally said her generation had a big role to play.

"Our generation can make a difference, that was our whole aim from speaking at the conference.

"We weren't saying something that they hadn't heard before, it was more about giving them a different perspective.

"Because how we grew up, we see a lot of the innovation - we don't accept that something just happens.

"Today's youth tend to be a bit more open to see opportunities. We can have a lot more passion as well because we aren't talking about the future of our industry, we're talking about OUR future," Sally said.

Sadly, rural Australia, drought and poor mental health often all go hand in hand, and Sally's personal experience with all three permeated through every level of her speech in Toowoomba.

"I spoke a lot about my experience of the last drought and how and what I was learning about throughout that period.

"Some of those impacts can be quite devastating including mental health...I found it quite difficult to get treatment and looking back I think so many things could have been prevented," Sally said.

Read more about Sally's journey: 'I was three days from death'

She also spoke out mental health in the same breath as drought in terms of always needing to think about it.

Let's not wait until tragedy strikes to do something - let's not wait until the drought takes hold to worry about what that means for someone's mental health.

Let's think about it in good times and bad so we can prevent the worst from happening.

Given the sad state of affairs that have been highlighted in the state parliamentary inquiry into rural healthcare, it's obvious we need to do something to get out of this vicious cycle.

It's the same old tired 21^st century story; mainstream sensationalist media in the city tries to boost their bottom line and standing by showing support for some kind of rural issue.

Once the issue falls out of 'style' though, their support vanishes and the politicians seem to follow; and it's starting to fire Sally up.

"Anytime we have an issue, be it drought or the current mouse plague it's the same kind of cycle.

"We have to start campaigning about how bad it is, you get it a bit of money and support and then all of a sudden it ends.

"People don't understand the issue doesn't end for us out here," said Sally.

A lot of people overlook youth in farming - no longer.

You can't overlook Sally Downie.