George Lambert in a deeply eroded landscape in the Condamine Catchment
Condamine Alliance
Assessing the real cost of holding stock through drought
Low dam levels, poor-quality water, very low levels of available feed, and little time left for summer-growing grasses – the list of worries for stock owners appears to grow daily as the drought drags on.
But this list doesn't include the real financial cost of drought if graziers are determined to hold their stock, according to George Lambert, technical officer for grazing land management for the Condamine Alliance.
Mr Lambert is pictured, at right, in a deeply eroded landscape in the north of the catchment.
The Alliance manages the Condamine River catchment area and is concerned about the run-down in pasture conditions. Mr Lambert has urged graziers on the Darling Downs, where rain has been patchy, to consider other factors in calculating the cost of holding stock in the lead-up to autumn.
"Animals will have to be fed and feed is becoming more expensive by the day because supplies are running low," he said.
There is anecdotal evidence that banks already are taking a tougher line on lending for stock feed.
Mr Lambert is president of the Tropical Grasslands Society and will be among speakers dealing with grazing issues at its annual conference in Dalby on 11-12 April .
Mr Lambert, who also served for many years as a senior pasture agronomist with the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, said the key questions were "How long you keep feeding, why are you feeding selected animals, what and when do you sell, and what are you doing to your land by running animals on pasture land that is degrading each day?"
The obvious cash costs of holding stock included:
- cost of supplementary feed.
- returns lost when money needed for feed was not earning in another high-return investment.
- opportunity cost of selling animals when they did not fit market specifications.
- reduction in animal performance because of poorer quality forage.
Other costs included:
- loss of genetics from breeding herds.
- land degradation, where pastures would take years to recuperate when it did start to rain.
- runoff, where most rainfall would run off because of a lack of ground cover, reducing the benefits of any rainfall events.
- low levels of organic matter on the soil surface, resulting in reduced fertility, so that the response of grasses to rain would be slower and reduced.
- soil organisms needed to break down organic materials to plant-available nutrients would be drastically reduced in number and need extra time to rebuild.
Mr Lambert listed the following possible solutions to this dilemma for grazing land managers:
- "agist – this is shifting responsibility of holding stock and, possibly degrading land, to somebody else.
- "sell all but the bare essentials of the breeding herd and hold them in a feed lot. This confines them to a 'sacrifice paddock' or yards so the damage to pasture land is minimised. In this way the total quantity of feed goes into reduced maintenance. No energy is expended chasing small amounts of pasture forage.
- "sell all the animals, invest the money and wait until the property has properly regenerated before restocking.
- "consider that there is an enormous bank of animal genetics available through artificial insemination and invitro-fertilisation. The general quality of cattle herds in Australia has improved immensely over the past 30 years so there is no shortage of high-quality genetics."
"All these decisions are best made early, so that the damage and rebuilding time is reduced to a minimum," Mr Lambert said.
Graziers who wanted to learn more and discuss the issues could attend the grasslands conference, being sponsored by Condamine Alliance and local pasture seed companies.
"The title of the conference says it all - Pastures for protection and production on marginal cropping land.
"All of these issues will be discussed in depth and new ideas will be presented on land use, pasture species for the area, and pasture management. The conference aims to link conservation with production, showing that they really cannot be separated - do one and it directly benefits the other."
For more information contact George Lambert, Condamine Alliance, on 4620 0112 or 0427 131 626.
Back to the VoiceLast updated 04 April 2007