THE saying that Australia was built on the sheep’s back will be familiar to many of us.

This was true not only in pioneer times but also until the 1950s.

The Korean war made demand for Aussie wool surge as soldiers needed woollen coats to survive freezing winters.

The old adage was particularly apt during those years as  wool brought a pound (in currency) for a pound (in weight) – prices beyond belief today.

Farm income like that is no more, the Australian economy is much more diversified, yet the rural sector remains one of the nation’s main drivers.

This is specially so in country areas where communities share the good and bad times of those on the land.

According to Agriculture Victoria’s Livestock Farm Monitor 2021-22 report our south-west sheep and cattle producers are flying at the moment – with farm profits at a 20-year high.

This will come as no surprise to farm equipment dealers, some of whom struggle to meet surging demand as tractors and other gear are updated to bigger and more powerful machines.

Not many of the little grey Fergies of my youth operating these days.      

Many producers are using the high returns and recent low interest rates to make capital improvements with plant and equipment, infrastructure like new fences and buying more land.

 With a few successive good years small wonder farmland values have rocketed.

We’re now seeing corporate farms becoming more common and the big boys getting bigger.

Strong red meat prices and improved wool prices have resulted in the highest average farm income here for 18 years, the Ag/Vic report says.

Inputs everywhere, though, are more expensive these days.

Some, plus shortages, hit rural producers especially hard.

Fertiliser, for instance, rose from $50 per ha in 2012 to $105 today.

No surprise that this resulted in progressively less being applied.     

The survey listed south-west Victoria’s farm sales cash income as follows: sheep 47%, beef cattle 25%, wool 19%, grain 8% and sundry 1%.   

• * *

OF COURSE anyone experienced with life on the land knows that farm income is mostly unpredictable.

Townies, on the other hand, comfortable with the knowledge that there’s an employer topping up their bank accounts weekly, may find it difficult to understand the stress when the income stream they rely on to survive suddenly peters out.

The dairy industry is a great example.

  Some years ago dairy farmers were cock-a-hoop.  

Milk prices were high and there were repeated announcements of major capital investments coming to places like Warrnambool, Camperdown and Cobden.

With foreign buyers eyeing the industry in the south-west dairy farms were hot property.

There was word of a free trade agreement with China from which dairying was expected to be one of the big winners.

This followed a six-month battle for the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory with three potential suitors.

 That contest took the share price from $4.51 to $9.40, providing a massive windfall for supplier-shareholders.

And while all this was going on some leaders in the industry were encouraging dairy farmers to expand, expand, expand, in anticipation of boom sales to China. 

Soon all the hooha was no more. Milk prices collapsed.

Few industries hit a wall so hard and so quickly, only to recover well years later.

That’s the uncertainty of farming.

• *  *

HAVING everything on the line and then losing the reward for all the hard farm work was something your correspondent remembers well from an earlier life.

 Not many months after we married, Nola and I decided to buy our first house.

The house was demolition material by today’s standards.

 The appeal was that it came with some acres which gave us a taste of farming.

Both sets of our parents were milkers, with some cropping on the side, so fluctuating income was well known, especially on my side as we relied on the seasonal proceeds of share dairying.

 We decided to start with growing onions and borrowed to get past sowing and initial sprays.

 From there on we were on our own, and it was endless hours hoeing weeds – either on all fours with knee pads and knife or using a two-wheel manual hoes of the time where soil structure allowed.

 It was back-breaking toil but satisfying. Our crop flourished, prices stayed firm as harvest approached and expectations were high for a big cheque.

 It was then we noticed onion tops starting to droop and turn grey. The soil had a disease which brought fog-rot, making the crop unsaleable.

After that painful lesson a life in agriculture lost its appeal and we turned our sights to rural support opportunities.

Leasing a wool scouring plant came next, specialising in cleaning dag wool.

When wool prices suddenly collapsed in the mid-60s dag wool had no value. The farm dream died.

 That eventually took us into the country newspaper industry and more stability.

Farming can provide a great lifestyle but, as a price-taker business, there’s always the need for a plan B to guard against storms from left field.