Matthew Pitt
Farm: Cluny
Region: Hamilton, Tasmania
Commodity: Oil seeds, dairy heifers, veal production, contracting
Farming area: 70 hectares
Rainfall: 356-431 mm rainfall per year
Email: clunypitt@activ8.net.au
Phone: 03 6287 1229
Because of the demands on food production and the economics of trying to run the farms, farmers are pushing production a lot harder than we had to do 30 or 40 years ago. We need to change our management practices to meet the climate, though.
We can’t keep thinking that wet times are normal and this is ‘just a bad time’. We have to adjust our management systems to deal with dry times as a normal occurrence, and the wet times as a bonus.
Hear what Matthew has to say about:
- Balancing farm contracting and essential oil cropping
- Drier conditions in Tasmania’s centre
- More variable seasons and temperatures
- Retaining moisture in a drying region
- Encouraging sustainable practices through our contracting business
- Supporting farmers to move to sustainable practices by encouraging contractors
- Changing stock management systems to meet the climate
Balancing farm contracting and essential oil cropping
Our farm is called Cluny. Cluny is between eastern Hamilton and the Derwent Valley in Southern Tasmania. I have been farming here for about 30 years – I grew up here.
The farm used to be a grazing enterprise – beef and wool, with some prime lambs. The farm used to be 1,200 hectares but for family reasons it’s been cut down to the 70 hectares we have today.
We farm essential oil crops with another company; fennel or lavender, for instance. We are establishing dairy heifer and veal production, and we also have a farm contracting business.
Contracting is now about 60% to 70% of our business and the rest fits in that remaining 30%.
We rely more on irrigation here than natural rainfall. Our allocations are 150 and 250 megalitres for the two parts of our property.
Drier conditions in Tasmania’s centre
A lot of people imagine Tasmania as green and wet, but it’s not everywhere. Central and southern Tasmania are a lot drier than what people think, more akin to western Victoria.
Like the rest of the country, we haven’t missed out on the drought either. From 2000 to 2010, it’s been tough and the climate has definitely been more variable. Our long term annual rainfall used to be 560 mm, but in the last ten years it has probably been closer to 360 mm.
We always used to have pretty good winters and springs, with a dry summer and no autumn. Now it’s as if we have no autumn, cold and dry winters, and the rainfall coming in spurts. The times we do have an autumn break, it comes in January or February. However, there’s no rainfall for the next two months, so we lose the benefit from that rainfall.
We have also had a very local change in our climate because of the timber that’s been harvested between us and the wilderness area. There is only forestry between our farm and the south-west wilderness area of Tasmania. When I was 15 years old, driving a tractor on the farm here, I could watch rain showers coming in from the west over the hills, knowing I would be rained on. Now those showers don’t make it to us.
More variable seasons and temperatures
Although irrigation has and will always be reliable, with the Derwent River bordering our property, if the temperatures aren’t stable we still won’t get good yields.
We’ve found in Hamilton that the seasons are getting later. That impacts on grass growth, crop germination and the vigour of the crops. There’s also risk if there’s not decent summer rain.
Summers here are becoming more erratic and less consistent. There are hot spells, which might not come next year, and cold times in among them, which slows growth down.
For example, this year, it has been a cold year and the season is a month late. We haven’t had good rain, then in October we got rain and even snow. We should have had good growth in October but it’s still cold. All the work we normally would have been doing in October, we’re now doing in November.
Retaining moisture in a drying region
Retaining moisture in the soil is just as important here as it is in Victoria’s Mallee region. Our rainfall patterns are similar and we have howling winds that blow away our light soils. Plus there’s a risk of losing soil carbon and organic matter if we turn the soil over.
One of our clients changed his mind about what he wanted to plant and ploughed the ground up, which we then sowed. But we could probably have direct drilled the field instead and given him a better result. The ploughing meant he probably lost a lot of moisture and soil.
The same goes with stubble after a crop. If you’re able to water it well, you could work it conventionally and it would be fine. But by the end of summer, a lot of the people’s water resources are limited. If we can direct drill into their stubbles, it will keep the protection of the stubble for the crop that we’ve just sown. Any moisture there from the irrigation of the previous crop will be retained. It also means any rain or irrigation will be kept longer.
Encouraging sustainable practices through our contracting business
In our farm contracting business, we employ two people and run three tractors. Most of the work we do is drilling, with a focus on direct drilling.
The reason we got into contracting was that living off 70 hectares was becoming unviable, so we had to look at other options. In doing so we also realised that we needed to change the way we were dealing with the soils, because the type of management practices that were practiced when we started cropping weren’t sustainable.
We try to encourage clients not to burn stubbles or plough stubbles in, but to leave them standing there to protect their soils and retain moisture.
We encourage pasture cropping with people we work with, even if pastures are run out (eaten to the roots and unable to grow back) and re-sowing them. We can also direct drill straight after harvesters, so we can sow into poppy or cereal stubbles as soon as the harvester’s left the paddock.
Of course, we will cultivate soil for clients because we feel the way forward is not to refuse a service, but at the same time we try to demonstrate that ‘You don’t actually need to do this. Can we just sow a bit without doing the way you like to do it, so you can see how it works?’.
For example, last year, some of our clients were a bit sceptical about our ability to sow into poppy stubbles. They asked us to do ten hectares to see how it went. We ended up doing 30 hectares for that person. Another farmer sowed into half his stubbles and this year we’ll be doing all of them.
Once people see what we can do we can convince them that it’s the way to go. It’s natural to want to see it to believe it. Just telling people doesn’t work.
Supporting farmers to move to sustainable practices by encouraging contractors
The only way farmers can use equipment that supports more sustainable practices is through a contractor because they’re the only ones who can justify buying it. At the same time, I think it’s important for government or Landcare groups to encourage and educate contractors to buy the right equipment to do this work.
It’s like a community investment: you need the community to support the contractors by giving them a reliable amount of work.
Until people saw what we could do with the direct drill, they didn’t really know whether they wanted to use it or not. Now I’m surprised by who takes it up. An older member of our farming community, who many people thought was set in his ways, decided to use us to direct drill his crop this year, which turned out really well.
Changing stock management systems to meet the climate
Because of the demands on food production and the economics of trying to run the farms, farmers are pushing production a lot harder than we had to do 30 or 40 years ago. We need to change our management practices to meet the climate, though.
We can’t keep thinking that wet times are normal and this is ‘just a bad time’. We have to adjust our management systems to deal with dry times as a normal occurrence, and the wet times as a bonus.
We also need to focus more on how we manage our stock and pastures. Finances are obviously a problem but we have to help farmers manage susceptible and sensitive pastures so they can still sustainably produce and make a profit from them.
There is no easy solution but the drought has offered us an opportunity to showcase the benefits. You only have to look at the properties that have de-stocked during the drought. They’re looking magnificent now because the pastures were able to rest. Obviously you can’t survive without stock but it shows the benefit of properly resting paddocks. If the animals eat the pastures to the ground, that weakens the plants and they die. They’re too expensive to keep re-sowing.
I recommend a rotational grazing system, as long as stock is moved around and not sitting in one place, overgrazing the paddock. Those moves can be once every two days, once a week or once a fortnight.
I encourage farmers towards a middle ground, being realistic, which is doing the right thing by your country within the boundaries of what your business allows you to do.
I think that while farmers have red ink on their books they aren’t going to worry about being green. You need to take a couple of steps back. We all want to plant trees and tidy things up, but you need to get the system working properly so you can take the next step. Then, when people are in the right frame of mind they can make changes.
Interview date: 15 November 2010
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