This should really be on the Gripes thread. .

[Phil Perry]

I have been PRAYING FOR RAIN for the last month. . . and a slice of the UK is getting plenty. . BUT NOT US !

 

NOT FAIR ! Some of my inernet friends are having to swim from their cars. . .bu My Garden is Dying of thirst. . .

 

Here is the latest Lighting map of the UK. . . .

 

 

I'm in the Middle of England and have not seen a lightning flash, or heard a rumble of thunder for a year. . . .

 

 

[turboplanner]

Sorry mate, can't send any, we're in the middle of one of the biggest droughts in our history, it's extending from Western Queensland, down through Western NSW, the Riverina and Victoria.

 

The good managers de-stocked about six months ago, and the bad ones have exhausted hay supplies throughout the area and are posting photos of dying lambs and blaming greedy city people, government spending on defence etc; the bottom line being we should pay for their negligence. A B Double full of cattle from the Riverina was bailed up by one of the Vegan pressure groups, and one of their spokeswomen bleated about the cruel conditions they were subjected to (a fully compliant stock transport vehicle) on their way to be killed....."and they probably didn't have names!" I explained that from the left was Daisy then Bill, then Spotty etc. I found out later the truck they'd bailed up in Melbourne was not on its way to the abattoirs, but taking stock to the western district where they will be agisted until the drought breaks.

 

 

[Thruster88]

Farmer from down under photography on face book has some good stuff.

 

 

[M61A1]

Sorry mate, can't send any, we're in the middle of one of the biggest droughts in our history, it's extending from Western Queensland, down through Western NSW, the Riverina and Victoria.The good managers de-stocked about six months ago, and the bad ones have exhausted hay supplies throughout the area and are posting photos of dying lambs and blaming greedy city people, government spending on defence etc; the bottom line being we should pay for their negligence. A B Double full of cattle from the Riverina was bailed up by one of the Vegan pressure groups, and one of their spokeswomen bleated about the cruel conditions they were subjected to (a fully compliant stock transport vehicle) on their way to be killed....."and they probably didn't have names!" I explained that from the left was Daisy then Bill, then Spotty etc. I found out later the truck they'd bailed up in Melbourne was not on its way to the abattoirs, but taking stock to the western district where they will be agisted until the drought breaks.

Well, there you go Turbo....something we both agree on.

 

 

[red750]

My second cousin, son of my first cousin, and a farmer, has written this poem to illustrate the conditions here.

 

The bank accounts are empty and the paddocks all quite bare,

 

The cows are looking skinny. There's no feed anywhere,

 

My youngest daughters 5 now, shes never seen it rain,

 

As i look up at the sky and wonder, will it ever come again,

 

My wife works at the pub now to put food on the plate,

 

The mortgage payments are non existent, or always very late,

 

I find myself quite lucky as every night l pray,

 

As the farmers from down south send up loads of hay.

 

This is much appreciated and helps us where it can,

 

But its not just me in this mess, its every other man.

 

Three generation farmers on this once thriving land,

 

But you city folk and pollies just never understand

 

You cut our prices to bits so the consumers have a win,

 

But you just don't get it do you that the shit that puts us in,

 

We bust our arse from dawn to dusk to try and make a gain,

 

But little does it help us without some bloody rain,

 

Three thousand head of cattle down to just thirty five,

 

And with no food or water how the hell can they survive,

 

I try to hold my head up when my wife and girls walk in,

 

And try to look all happy as i give them all a grin,

 

But the bank manager rang me and harsh words he did speak,

 

You must leave this property, you have but one more week

 

But how do l tell my wife and girls we have no where to live,

 

As i look them all in the eye and hope they can forgive,

 

As I put the last cows down in this battle i can no longer win,

 

And head up the paddock and place the gun under my chin,

 

As i close my eyes and think of my girls and beautiful wife,

 

And think that I'm so happy since they all came into my life,

 

But that's not enough to help me as I pull the trigger fast,

 

As the pain for me at least has left me at last.

 

 

[Yenn]

I feel for the man on the land, but I decided years ago to get out of farming and earn money that someone else had to find. Never regretted it, but now I am retired I am back on the land, but as a hobby farmer. No stock, no bills, just the good life style.

 

Primary production is dominated by big business who set the prices.

 

 

[APenNameAndThatA]

Sorry mate, can't send any, we're in the middle of one of the biggest droughts in our history, it's extending from Western Queensland, down through Western NSW, the Riverina and Victoria.The good managers de-stocked about six months ago, and the bad ones have exhausted hay supplies throughout the area and are posting photos of dying lambs and blaming greedy city people, government spending on defence etc; the bottom line being we should pay for their negligence. A B Double full of cattle from the Riverina was bailed up by one of the Vegan pressure groups, and one of their spokeswomen bleated about the cruel conditions they were subjected to (a fully compliant stock transport vehicle) on their way to be killed....."and they probably didn't have names!" I explained that from the left was Daisy then Bill, then Spotty etc. I found out later the truck they'd bailed up in Melbourne was not on its way to the abattoirs, but taking stock to the western district where they will be agisted until the drought breaks.

Turbo, are you saying the managers were negligent because they did not realise they were going to be in one of the biggest droughts in history?

 

 

[turboplanner]

Turbo, are you saying the managers were negligent because they did not realise they were going to be in one of the biggest droughts in history?

Yes, it's one of the most important parts of property management.

A city person might say "That's bullshit" who can predict rain?

 

But stock feed production is a much slower and more predictable process.

 

On our property I can observe the rate of grass growing through the year, and know what height it should by by September. If I check more frequently, and make a decision by November. Twice in recent years I have de-stocked, selling stud sheep stock worth $300.00 at the stock market for $48.00 one year and $85 the second time - a loss of thousands of dollars; but the remaining sheep had feed to live out the drought.

 

Each time I used the base of good healthy sheep to breed the numbers back up; that's what you are supposed to do.

 

RSPCA moved in on a neighbour once and confiscated all his dying stock; that's what you are not supposed to do.

 

In some areas of Australia, it's necessary to budget on a 10 year average cycle, using the good years to pay for the drought years.

 

In Western Queensland/parts of NT and parts of NSW there are two main ways to feed stock; from the heavy rains, which we don't see in the south, from the annual (not always) overland flood flow coming down from the channel country.

 

Sir Sidney Kidman in the 19th century bought up Stations from the Nortern Territory to Swan Hill in Victoria, and had drovers on the road all the time moving stock to locations where there had recently been heavy rain storms, or thousands of kilometres to greener pastures. If it didn't rain in the channel country he had several months warning to get his cattle out of south west Queensland and western NSW. He frequenty de-stocked properties for up to five years and sometimes ten years if the previous owner had been overstocking.

 

Overstocking and failure tocarry out superspreading or other soild remedial action result in pastures with much less staying power and protein, and those properties are usually the first to go in a drought, because that type of farmer usually hangs on and hopes.

 

I had a discussion with a farmer from Jerilderie this week, and he said he can't understand what the emotional videos of dying stock are all about, because it was routine for some of the properties to have 30,000 head of cattle on them one year, and none the next when rains failed.

 

Yesterday a Dairy Farmer made an emotional appeal for help on television, but when the camera shifted to his herd, and the condition the production cows were in it was clear he should have been kicked up the bum months ago, but City people would not have noticed the condition. He made the very good point that just an extra 20 cents a litre for his milk would resolve all his financial problems, would cover his production costs, and would cover his drought costs.

 

That would represent a milk price increase of 49%.

 

I don't have any doubt at all that he deserves it, and if it happened, his income would be spread around the local towns. NOr would it be an imposition on us, pushing a 2 litre bottle of milk in the supermarkets from about $2.00 to about $3.00.

 

Unfortunately our society has become so ingrained with buying the cheapest possible, that it's not likely to happen.

 

 

[Mewp]

Governments view milk as an essential food group and when farmers try using collective bargaining or withholding product they are threatened with punitive action. If the product is an essential food why not set a base price for the raw material to keep the industry viable. All we have seen is a push for smaller operators to get big or get out. This is quickly shifting the industry from local to foreign owned and creating small communities/towns depleted of population and commerce. Once again a free market ethos at all costs.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Governments view milk as an essential food group and when farmers try using collective bargaining or withholding product they are threatened with punitive action. If the product is an essential food why not set a base price for the raw material to keep the industry viable. All we have seen is a push for smaller operators to get big or get out. This is quickly shifting the industry from local to foreign owned and creating small communities/towns depleted of population and commerce. Once again a free market ethos at all costs.

Not drought related, but very important points about the eternal "farm gate economy".

I like to see Dairy Farmers being able to buy new cars and take decent holidays; you know you have an ongoing farm operation then.

 

We've had floor prices for milk, but in the early stages the dairy farmers rorted it and became poor again, then it was reorganised and they became profitable, and a few years ago it was deregulated and has virtually collapsed. Where there were milk factories in the towns and fifty or so truck drivers employed to bring the milk in, these days the country milk and butter factories are pretty much gone, and a few B Doubles drag the milk into the cities.

 

The future for dairy farmers is not looking good, as is the future of family owned farms.

 

 

[old man emu]

We are almost to the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century. We have the Cyberspace, and in there lie all the weather facts and figures for at least 175 years. Plus we can go to State libraries to read the journals of Europeans in Australia from 1788 to find out about the weather.

 

I'm sure that an analysis of all that data will show that there is a regular cycle of about 10 years or so where the weather swings from drought to flooding rain. As Turbo says, a competent farm manager will know about that cycle, and make long term plans to profit from that knowledge. The only way to lose by doing that is if the drought fails to eventuate after you have sold off stock.

 

There is much wisdom in the saying, "Gather ye rosebuds whilst ye may".

 

 

[Yenn]

Milk price today is ridiculous.

 

I was getting 36 pence per gallon in 1961.

 

That is about 9c per litre.

 

Now I hear that the producer is getting 28c per litre. That is a four times price increase. Back in 1961 wages were about $30 per week, so if wages were $120 a week dairyfarmers would be doing the same as in 1961. What are wages now?

 

 

[facthunter]

Weather prediction is still far from being something you can absolutely count on and I'm not sure the weather forecasts are any more accurate than when computers were not involved but we used more balloons and observers air mass analysis and people who understood interacting long term cycles. There's little doubt that the extremes are more extreme. Cyclones are more severe. and extend further from the equatorial regions. than they used to. Farmers records show this permanent rainfall patterns change. Some areas look like being un economic proposition and there will be situations where people lose everything when value and viability exits a venture. It was ever thus. If a place becomes such that a devastating weather event is likely within say 6 years It might be uneconomic to live there or live there in the manner you once did. Darwin is rebuilt to a much better standard than when it was Cyclone devastated in the 70's. That is appropriate but will have added costs. Nev

 

 

[facthunter]

Yenn, when WATER is dearer than milk it's all ridiculous. A cup of coffee equals 4 litres of milk? Plenty buy 2 Coffees'a day .That's over $2,000 dollars a year. Easily pay your power bill. Carry your own water bottle you refill. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Non-Aboriginals are now paying for the ignorance of the people of the 19th Century in Australia. That ignorance was the dismissal of Aboriginal knowledge which was gained (one can safely say) over the past 10,000 years of their residence on the continent. (Yes, I know that they have been here longer, but I am referring to the time since the last global Ice Age, about 10-12,000 years ago.)

 

If those early settlers had not allowed Aboriginal culture to wither and die, we could have accessed vast encyclopediae of local knowledge, as we are starting to do now with bush tucker. That knowledge would have included the cycle of the seasons, which we need to know to let our new land uses flourish here.

 

 

[facthunter]

ALL true, but they way they lived wouldn't support our present population let alone what we will grow to. I don't think an AWARENESS of the value of respecting nature and the condition of the planet and a love for it is unique to native tribes. As a kid/youth I often went places where I didn't see anyone or signs of human life for days. Harder now $#1t and plastic glass etc everywhere. There used to be Pristine beaches sand with no needles, rocks covered in Oysters. at low tide, Abalone on the sea floor, sharks galore. A wonder I didn't get eaten.. No whacko's with guns. Nev

 

 

[farri]

I`ve been desperate on more than one occasion, when I was farming Sugar Cane, due to too much rain! When my wife Frances and I went into partnership with my parents and purchased this property,45 years ago, there had been 5 years of what was called a drought, in this part of the country, unfortunately, that year the drought ended and down came an enormous amount of rain for most of the harvesting season! Fran spent a lot of it, on a tractor, towing me in our harvester, in an attempt to get the crop off! When I was at my lowest I would think of all the farmers doing it really tough in the really harsh drought regions and I would kick myself in the ass and keep going! Those first few years put us behind for the next 25, we stuck it out and we`re reaping the rewards now.

 

Ten years ago Fran and I were in a financial position to simply stop farming and remain on the property so, at 60 years of age, I stopped farming, we now have a lot of land that could be used for growing stock feed but the cost and the logistics of getting it to the farmers in drought, is immense!

 

"But that's not enough to help me as I pull the trigger fast,

 

As the pain for me at least has left me at last"

 

These couple of lines in the poem above saddened me! I know what it feels like! It is never the answer for those left behind.

 

Frank.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's a life you have to actually do to understand the level of risk of your capital involved. You can do everything right and still go broke. The Banks and the chemical manufacturers rarely do. and the workers you employ are sure they get paid. You are sure of nothing. The weather , The birds get it. the market is oversupplied, the person you sell to may default .. the Bank decides to call in the credit. A Co-op or winery that doesn't pay immediately goes into receivership etc. Nev

 

 

[pmccarthy]

We sold our olive grove last year. We made up to 1000 litres of oil each year for the local market. Or accountant says we lost $60,000 over twenty years. Fortunately it was a hobby farm and not relied upon for income.

 

 

[old man emu]

ALL true, but they way they lived wouldn't support our present population let alone what we will grow to. I don't think an AWARENESS of the value of respecting nature and the condition of the planet and a love for it is unique to native tribes.

You've miscalculated your winds, Nev, and drifted off track.

 

I agree that a subsistence existence would not support the country's present and projected population. The point I am making is that 10,000 years' of weather observations trumps 230 years'. I'm sure that Aborigines have observed longer cycles of drought and flood. Here are the seasons as described by the D'harawal people of the areas south and southwest of Botany Bay D'harawal calendar - Indigenous Weather Knowledge - Bureau of Meteorology

 

Check the bottom of this page for the 11- 12 year cycle

 

Untitled

 

 

[facthunter]

When things substantially change the older basis's for those predictions no longer are valid.. Sea temperatures haven't remained static and they are mostly the key to rainfall /drought patterns.. Orographic features stay the same but the airmass has different properties. Lapse rate relates to atmospheric instability and potential for high vertical velocities. The power source is the Latent heat of water and rising temps mean more water content possible with an associated energy increase of a large order/ Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

My experience growing up on a marginal dairy farm during droughts and flooding rains taught me to prepare for the worst nature can dish out. As Turbs points out, too many farmers don't. No all can afford the luxury of destocking to protect their land. That's where government action should be concentrated: to encourage sustainable long-term management.

 

Unfortunately, the electoral cycle is far shorter and shouts louder than the drought cycle.

 

 

[facthunter]

There's not likely to be many in the Parliament who have a clue about farming. I didn't say none. A lot of marginal land is utilised for farming and cattle raising. Some of it has to be of questionable viability.. In many parts of the NT the road boundaries are not fenced. I would suggest this borders (Pun intended) on irresponsibility to HIGHWAY users. Cutting costs at the expense others safety is not what I call running a business responsibly. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

All true, Nev. It's not politically correct to say, but quite a lot of our marginal farmland should be given back to nature. That's exactly what the free market eventually does, if not corrupted by subsidies and tariffs.

 

In many parts of the world abandoned farms are being taken over by forest and wildlife. Whole villages lie empty, with more than half of all humanity now living in urban areas.

 

Returning to flying, yesterday morning as we prepared our aircraft, a few hundred metres away the neighbouring farmer arrived to do the daily fodder drop for his starving cattle. Suddenly a couple of dozen small black calves ran away from the approaching machine.

 

Except they weren't calves. Feral pigs, hungry and desperate enough to come right out onto the open plains country.

 

 

[APenNameAndThatA]

but the remaining sheep had feed to live out the drought.

Turbo, I suppose you should be given credit for being such a good manager that you can be conservative with your stock and sell it off before it loses condition.

 

On the other hand, you just gave yourself credit for predicting when the rain would come, and how good it would be. But what would have happened if next year's rain had not come? You would have either sold off the rest of your stock just as the rain had come and lost tens of thousands of dollars, or sold off some of your stock lust before the rain came and lost half as much money, or held onto a small amount of stock too long.

 

Stated differently, when you look at how much grass you have in September, how many bad years do you budget for? Do you sell enough stock to account for the season you just lost, or do you sell enough stock for the loss of two growing seasons?

 

Furthermore, some areas have more distinct, and predictable growing periods than others. As a city person living in the country, you probably don't understand that.