AT last the district is starting to look normal thanks to slightly above-average rainfall for September.
However, last month was cool, and so crops and pastures are probably not as advanced as they would be in an average season.
Spirits have improved significantly, and the Victorian Government delivered some welcome news this week with the announcement of a $13.53 million grant for south-west Victoria.
Premier Jacinta Allan and agriculture minister, Ros Spence have announced a package to help farmers in 11 south-west Local Government Areas: Glenelg, Southern Grampians, Warrnambool, Moyne, Corangamite, Colac Otway, Surf Coast, West Wimmera, Ararat, Pyrenees, and Golden Plains.
Farmers in Victoria’s south-west have experienced a record autumn and early winter rainfall deficit, which has impacted stock numbers and harvest forecasts.
There is pressure on feed/fodder and stock water – $12.1 million of the grant is earmarked to help farmers prepare their properties for increasingly dry conditions in the future.
Eligible farmers will receive up to $5000 as a co-contribution grant to support water infrastructure upgrades to pipes, tanks, troughs, dams, stock containment areas, and grain and fodder storage.
The package also includes a $1.43 million investment in counselling and advice for farmers experiencing financial and emotional distress, to help them make informed financial decisions and safeguard their wellbeing.
A dedicated Drought Regional Coordinator will also be appointed to ensure support is reaching people effectively.
The package builds on the existing support available for farmers to prepare for and respond to drought, including services provided by bodies such as the National Centre for Farmer Health, farmer workshops and field days, as well as a database of practical information available on the Agriculture Victoria website.
Victorian agriculture minister, Ros Spence, said: “I’ve heard directly from farmers in the south-west about the impact drought conditions are having on our communities, and this package will drive the long-term resilience the south-west needs.”
The need for stock containment areas with reliable trough watering became a focus during the dry period, and many farmers will be working on having this infrastructure in place ahead of the next difficult season.
The aid is welcome after elevated rainfall in July, when Hamilton recorded 95 millimetres against a long-term average of 75mm.
Although August rainfall was about 39 per cent below average, September was, mercifully, slightly above the average of 71mm, with 78mm recorded at Hamilton.
The rains over the last three months have had a significant impact on available moisture, especially on lighter and medium soils.
The data for Hamilton comes from the Lake Bullrush area probe, which is in clay soil where there has been less penetration to 30 centimetres compared to the lighter soils at Harrow and Bessiebelle.
Unfortunately, there is no data for the 10 and 20 centimetres horizons at the Hamilton site.
With a return to more normal weather patterns, the impact of the dry months can now, at least in part, be appraised.
Regarding the general state of pastures in the district, Meridian Agriculture director and Carapook farmer Andrew Speirs told The Spectator, “Pastures have recovered pretty well, especially when they have been well fertilised. In particular, the survival of perennial species is better than expected.”
On the subject of stock water, Mr Speirs went on to say, “Surface (run-off) water is a major issue. South of Hamilton, it is wet and you could get bogged, but to the north it’s a different story.”
As for the outlook, Andrew Speirs said, “If we get a dry October, things could fold. A (forecast rainy) La Niña could bring a wet December, but that would be too late for pasture growth.”
On the subject of crops, he said there had been “...variation in germination rates, especially where crops had been sown dry.”
Another farm consultant, who did not wish to be named, said that good October rainfall could produce a really satisfactory outcome for the year, but an issue over the next year would be maintaining breeding ewe numbers in self-replacing flocks, where there was cash-flow pressure to sell female lambs for slaughter.
The farm finance outlook has been a topic on the tip of many tongues.
Farmers’ need for credit during the dry period has been discussed in a number of forums.
Those producers who needed to purchase feed often drew down on lending facilities with their banks to buy hay and grain at very high prices.
As one might anticipate, in several cases, this has necessitated closer involvement from the banks.
An agribusiness manager from one of the ‘big four’ banks told The Spectator this week that he was working closely with some farmers to reduce “fodder debt.”
He added that there were cases where farmers had increased their acreage by purchasing additional land at high prices, which have declined over the last three years against a background of rising interest rates and increasing costs, not to mention the difficult season.
He also noted that land values were beginning to come under some pressure as a result.
With the salutary lessons of the dry of 2024, farmers will now be focusing on infrastructure upgrades, making the targeting of the grant on this aspect of farm investment apposite.
Looking further back to the buying of land at high prices in 2021, the prudence of farm acreage expansion as a default goal could be called into question.
Where retained farm profits from the pre-COVID boom years were invested in off-farm assets, it appears probable that family balance sheets would now be healthier than in situations where more land was purchased.
Industry sources have, this week, told The Spectator that the land market is being affected by a lack of demand.
The opinion has also been ventured that banks are extremely cautious about lending for land purchases.
All this suggests that after the heady years of 2016 to 2021, it’s back to business as usual, where disciplined businesses will be the ones which survive and, in due course, flourish.
