THE National Centre for Farmer Health will shut its doors if the state and federal governments fail to throw it a lifeline.

Funding for the centre - launched in 2008, and headed by Sue Brumby, sister of former Victorian premier John Brumby - was gutted in this year's state budget.

Its future - and work it does improving the health of farming families and others in the sector - is now in peril as both governments pass the buck.

Jim Fletcher, chief executive of Western District Health Service - the centre's parent organisation - said he had not heard back from either government over how discussions about a joint funding partnership were progressing.

"We haven't had a response from the state on any funding to help us get through to the end of the year, either," he said.

Various NCFH programs are not due to expire until next year or 2014, but Mr Fletcher said it was core funding that was now desperately needed.

"We need to keep this centre going because of the difference it makes to the health and well-being of farming families, which has been demonstrated by evaluation after evaluation," he said.

The Victorian Government was "extremely short-sighted" in launching a goal to double food and fibre production by 2030 while not looking after the other component that will drive this, the health and well-being of the workforce, he said.

The NCFH delivered the Sustainable Farming Families programs during recent droughts, which supported farm communities to remain farming. But work also includes the hazards of farm chemicals, and mental health.

Last week a petition - the third on the topic - calling for the Government to immediately reinstate the $1 million of axed NCFH funding was tabled in State Parliament.

And both the Victorian Farmers Federation and National Farmers' Federation renewed calls this week for both levels of government to fund the centre.

A spokesman for Victorian Health Minister David Davis said the Minister had written again last week to the federal minister proposing to share the core funding.

A spokesman for the Federal Department of Health and Ageing said the funding was a matter for states.