The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Thursday the 1st of February 2024.

By Dwain Duxson

If you can, please get your family, friends and colleagues to sign up. See the website link here.

The Battle for Acres in WA

There's an interesting graph below. The second image down. It shows the massive increase in Fertiliser and Urea use in Western Australia. In my Ram Selling days, we travelled a lot to WA, where we had a sister Ram selling operation. People talked openly back 20 years ago about the decline in Sheep numbers and how they were losing acres to Cropping. That decline looks as though it accelerated since 2009/10 if you go by the graph. It's probably something that is not just immune to WA; it's happening in other states, and it's something that seems to be happening with Sheep rather than Cattle. I know of quite a few WA Farmers that have gone out of Sheep (some of them were clients) and gone into the wall-to-wall Cropping. Things like threatening to ban Live Exports doesn't help, and the Sheep and Lamb market has been and still is pretty depressed in WA. It doesn't take much for the incentive to drop away, especially when these guys are fully kitted out for decent-sized Cropping programs anyway. Have you gone in favour of Cropping over Sheep? Reply to [email protected]

What's happening underground?

We have a Bore here on our Farm, and the water is magnificent. So crystal clear and tastes so good. So much so that we put it through the house where we drink it and bathe in it; the last owner used the tanks in favour of the Bore water, which we couldn't work out why. We are, say, 6 or 7 km away from Mt Franklin as the crow flies, which is the most popular water brand in Australia. But back to our Bore, how it works confuses and fascinates me. How is this water so good when it's 50 metres below the surface and travels through the soil? Or does it come from somewhere else? It's like thinking about how far outer space goes. It does your head in. But however it works, we are very grateful because it's a massive asset to have on your Farm. If anyone can inform us what goes on with underground water, please reply. Reply to [email protected]

Does it work?

As Farmers, we work outside a lot and have a lot of exposure to the Sun. We see the real old photos of Farmers working in the Paddocks where they are well covered, and some even worked with ties on. Then in the 60s, 70s and 80s, many wore just a blue singlet without a hat, and everyone was as brown as buggery. Some didn't even wear tops in the heat of the day. Then we started to get sunsmart with bigger hats, and the singlets went out the door for a bit more cover. We also started using sunscreen. I don't know, but I get this feeling that we are seeing more and more people who have to have sun-related spots removed. Now, whether that stems from the singlet years or, more recently, from the sunscreen years, we will probably never know. I'm just wondering if these sunscreens actually work. Yes, they do stop us from getting burnt, but does anyone else have questions? It could be like ad blue, a big con where someone created something that we all thought we had to adopt and make a fortune. What do you reckon? Reply to [email protected]

Your replies

Below are snippets from some of the replies you sent in. All quotes will remain nameless. See a few current ones below:

• “Might buy an ag paper once every 6 months, used to buy every week”. - In regard to what media they do or don’t consume these days.

• “Dairy farms here employ Vets, Grain Mills, Fertiliser depots, Agronomists, Truck Drivers, Farm Contractors, Electricians, Plumbers, Farm Hands, Builders, Welders, etc, etc the list would be a mile long, so when it’s all in blue gums they employ bugger all in comparison so the people and their services go and that hurts schools, sporting clubs and so on” - In reply to our Note on how a German Company is buying good Dairy Land in SW Victoria and planting blue gums and exporting the Carbon credits.

• “The answer is yes, I've considered it. Especially as a younger Farmer starting out, I seriously wondered if, by starting that insurance account now, by the time I've got any scale, I'll have enough saved, thanks to compounding, to make it work, especially as I can't see it getting any cheaper”. -  In reply to our Farm Tender Daily story on self-insuring. See the article here.

• “The biggest risk for any Farmer in Australia is public liability. Most insurance companies will not offer public liability insurance by itself without insuring some other components of the Farm, such as sheds, etc”. - On self-insuring.

• “On the water buybacks, Irrigators have lobbied strongly to make public $ amounts, names and more importantly, the amount of ML sold, so those who were successful knew they would be named”. - In reply to our question, why were these people named? The Government is still holding back the number of megalitres bought and at what price.

• “I deliberately don't do social media. It's about having some sort of privacy in your life”. - In regard to our Note on social media and whether it was bad or good.

• “I have been pruning the policy every year for the past 5 years. The new policy just arrived, up 12%, I will probably run with that as I'm sick of the merry-go-round and hours spent chasing quotes. Having said that, it was very worthwhile initially”. - On the Farm Tender Daily story about how much you are paying for Insurance. You can read it here.

• “I’ve heard from a few different rumour mills that they want 200,000 acres between the Otways and Portland, as this is where the trees grow the best”. - On our Note about this German company buying up Land in SW Vic.

• “I’ve always wanted to look into it. We are probably spending $40 to $60k a year on insurance with never a claim in years. Trouble with putting it aside is it isn’t a tax deduction”. - On self-insuring.

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

Random and associated Ag articles and images.