I did contact Duxton about a fortnight or so back and asked whether it was recorded and was it
available online and what Ed had said about the canola crop, and I dont think its online and what was said
about the canola was that they had managed to get a small amount off before the rain and it was of a
good quality and yield...but that was before the rain
Like I said in my last post, I have kept buying and probably now hold too many, and with a fairly big
question mark over what this years crop is going to look like when everything is finally off and sold
I had the opportunity to take a job up to Bathurst and thought I would swing by Forbes and WW on the
way back have a look in person at what was happening first hand
Well, it is still very wet in general, probably wetter than I thought it would be and water was actually
flowing from the lachlan river and back towards farmland on the other side of lachlan valley way, so
instead of the river draining the land, the opposite was occuring it was being further inundated.
I have checked the river levels since getting home and there appears to have been another minor
peak at aroung the 7metre mark, (after dropping to around 6metres earlier), from a peak of close to
8metres during the recent major flooding event
Even at 7metres the lachlan valley way was probably only 30cm from having water flowing over it, and
some of the local dirt roads were still impassable with water or closed. it was an enjoyable drive the areas close to
the river were quite pretty and there is a sculpture trail along the road
From the road I couldnt quite work out where our properties started and finished and what was
ours and what wasnt, but there appeared to be quite a big area of inundated farmland about a
kilometre or so in that may have been on Wallah Wallah or more probably next door, I could only see
the sunlight reflecting off of it so it may have even been flood irrigation but I dont think so, dorrelan,merriment
and cowarbin seemed to be dry, some of our neighbors have completed harvest and not as much action
going on in general in the area as I assumed, only saw a few combines all up in that whole jemalong area, with a bit of
grain being stored on farm probably because of the road conditions, our neighbors seem to be in front of
us in regards to getting the crop off or that what it appeared to me in general
Timberscome and kentucky, well driving down the newell doesnt provide the best vantage point, but again
still wetter than I thought it would be in general, there appears to be now quite a large lake sitting between the
two properties, I think there was windrowed canola close to the road and some areas of wheat that had not
been harvested, but I couldnt really see much, just the general impression that there is a lot to do still and
there is alot of water still sitting around whether that be on our land or our neighbors
On a positive note, I didnt see one mouse all day not even scurrying across the road at night
This all had me thinking this morning when I got home, Ed says that you have to be an optimist to be a farmer,
I suppose he is correct here because having such a promising year snatched away would even break many a realist
After a few seasons like these you would only have optimists left!
Anyway, we had two years of drought, a bumper year where we only made really $2-3mill operational profit, then
this year...well who knows now. I did look up the previous owners of west plains when it was announced that we
had bought it and saw that it had grown the highest yeilding wheat crop in a very large area some years ago, (I
cant find the article now) and thought this was good news that the land is very fertile.
I googled the previous owners of west plains this morning and found a few articles and quotes
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-28/nsw-floods-farmers-in-central-west-still-recovering-3-months-on/8220022and a quote from a national daily paper about locusts from 2011
Mr Hammond's father, James, aged 95, remembers a 1930s plague so bad that the locusts ate the farmhouse's green blinds.The son, Peter Hammond, said that after running an irrigation property for 10 years without water, if locusts eat his crops and pasture, he will have to quit, but wonders by how much it will devalue his land. ''Even worse, if we wanted to get out we probably couldn't,'' he said.
So if we take some of this at face value, the decade 2000-2010 was dry, little or no irrigation water, then locusts, then mice then 2016-17
bad floods then 2018-19 drought again, 2020 a binbuster that you struggle to make 3% ROI, now what was looking like a pearler of a
season being rained away.....who would want to be a farmer, is this the whole farming picture in general or is it just where we happen
to have our farms, mainly on a floodplain when global warming is making intense weather events more common and severe
I am still happy to hold as I think we are about to see higher prices for what we grow and inflation in general and probably about time
that we saw a good few years of growing conditions, but I reckon we are owed a few more good years than that
anyway, finished my ramblings now and heres hopeing this season gets back on track
I think I am a realist...but have been told before that I am a pessimist...go figure
cheers grant
(20min delay)