2007, Volume 10, Paper 75

Mallee Farming

Bill Malcolm

Talk presented to the Birchip Cropping Group Field Day

September 2007

Introduction

In the future the Mallee is going to be hot and dry. Farming in the Mallee is going to be very profitable sometimes, middling profitable in some years and not profitable at all at times – as has always been the case. In 10 years time there will be less Mallee farmers; they will be farming a little differently to now; and most will earn a good living. The scale of operations will be greater. The rate of change will be faster. Change makes it possible to cope with change. The size of the challenges will be greater, but the capacity to deal with the challenges will be better than now. The past is prologue.

The situation seems to be:

  • since the mid 1990s we have had a run of ordinary years in which the timing and amount of annual rainfall have been different from the levels expected;
  • there have been fewer wet and fewer typical (expected) seasons and more drier than expected years;
  • the drier than expected years have produced lower than expected yields and higher than expected prices for crops;
  • despite receiving higher than expected prices per tonne of grain produced, crop farmers have suffered seriously lower than expected profit and net cash flows more often than they had been accustomed too in the previous decades;
  • the cumulative effects of a run of poor and bad years has eroded farmers net worth and increased gearing ratios of farm businesses.

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