Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce will compile the National Party's wishlist for extra farm drought assistance and take a comprehensive package to cabinet.
Nationals MPs met in Bundaberg on Thursday to discuss their position, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott flagged some drought assistance measures would be brought forward to the first half of this year.
A new assistance system to start from July 1 had been agreed to by the federal and state governments last year.
But Mr Abbott said the problem needed addressing quicker.
The system would be based on income support for farmers and the cabinet was looking at logistics and the legal framework.
A spokesman for Nationals leader Warren Truss said Mr Joyce would take the options discussed at the meeting and put together a comprehensive package to take to cabinet.
He declined to divulge what the options included.
Mr Joyce was tight lipped on whether bringing the assistance forward would be sufficient.
"I'll leave those discussions for cabinet," he told ABC TV.
Labor's agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon dismissed the government's plan as a token gesture.
He urged the government to slash the concessional interest rate offered to farmers under Labor's farm finance loan scheme and resurrect the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process to complete drought reform agreements.
National Farmers' Federation president Brent Finlay said a comprehensive package was needed, including a boost to rural mental health services and ways to keep the rural workforce strong.
In a climate where companies like SPC and Holden have been denied government assistance, Mr Joyce argued that farmers were a special case for government support because they had to rely on the vagaries of the weather.
It's important Australia maintains a capacity to feed itself, he said.
"These are mums and dads ... living out in the heat and the dust and the flies with cattle dying around them," he said.
