Mark Flemming moved from Finley in southern NSW to Cobrico in south-west Victoria to get away from a water problem.
Now he’s experiencing a totally new type of water problem, but he’s not complaining too much.
Late last year Mark, his wife Philippa and son Brenton moved from their well-established farm to escape from the Riverina’s irrigation water supply and cost issues.“The last couple of years we had zero water allocation,” Mark said.
“Two years ago, we spent $300,000 to buy temporary water but that only got us a third of the water we needed to run a normal year.
“Historically, over the past 15 years we’d only returned an average of 51 per cent water allocation.”
Mark said water wasn’t a problem when they moved to the southern Riverina in 1993.
“When we went there in ‘93, water was never an issue. Some years we could get more than 100 per cent of allocation, and it only cost about $20 per megalitre.
“Then government policy allowed water to be separated from land and non-farmers could own the water as an investment.
“Moreover, these investors do not contribute to the upkeep of the irrigation system, but sell their water for temporary transfer in a number of markets.
“The active farmers are forced to compete in these water markets, which has seen the price skyrocket to as high as $600 per megalitre.
“The people who are left have to pay more money for the upkeep of the system.”
Mark said Finley was traditionally a strong dairying area but it had become too hard because of water.
“In the end, financially we weren’t going to be able to keep going.
“It’s all gone pear-shaped since the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The landscape has changed.
“The people who stay will probably get bigger and shift to barn systems of dairy farming. With the limitations on water, they’re going to have to spend more on crops that return the greatest amount of feed.”
The Flemmings moved to south-west Victoria last November, arriving during one of the best seasons in memory.
But more recently, water has again emerged as an issue.
“The biggest thing is managing the wet,” Mark said.
“Mt Emu Creek runs through a neighbour’s property and two-thirds of his farm was recently under water.
“A few neighbours had warned us about how wet it gets. I can look on my radar in the morning and it shows no rain but you walk outside and it’s actually raining.”
However, compared to what was happening up north, Mark is rapt with the move.
“They say it takes 12 months to adjust because there is a lot of stress involved in shifting, but production is really good.
“The shift affected them (the cows) a bit, but now they’ve calved again this spring in good condition and milking really well.”
With their former 450-hectare farm sold to sheep and cropping, the Flemmings started relocating their cows in B-doubles last November but had to make tough culling choices.
The new farm is 130ha, less than a third of the Finley property. The herd is being cut from 600 to about 280 and a 20-a-side herringbone has replaced a rotary.
The old farm had five permanent staff, supplemented by backpackers, but now they are running Cobrico with the three family members and a weekend milker.“It’s already quite noticeable that we don’t have those input costs we used to have,” Mark said.
“The aim is to milk about 280. We’ve got more than that at the moment, even though we sold a lot before we shifted, and some since.”
They have been using genomics to guide the reduction.
“We’re exporting the bottom end to China. If you’ve got too many, you can just focus on the best two-thirds and sell the others.”
Mark said the biggest challenge for the cows was shifting from a rotary dairy to a herringbone “but they’re used to that now”.
They’ve also have had to adjust to different weather and feed conditions.
“Summer was very mild compared to Finley,” Mark said.
“We used to get many days over 40 and some up to 46 or 47, but we only had about five over 40 last summer. It’s a very dry heat up there but down here it’s very humid, but they’ve adjusted.
“They’ve had a bit of a change in diet.
“Up there we had a feedpad and they were fed out of a mixer wagon; through the summer it was 100 per cent TMR and through the other six months of the year we’d have partial grazing of annuals supplemented with the mixer wagon.
“Down here last season was very good so we had grass right through to January before we had to start feeding out silage.
“People tell me not to think this is normal, but then we had a good start to the autumn and had plenty of grass through the winter and now we hope we can have a good harvest this spring.”
The Flemmings run a mixed registered Holstein and Jersey herd but will move to 75 per cent Jersey in south-west Victoria, with Mark believing the smaller cow better suits the conditions.
While the cows have had to adjust, the humans have had to make a few modifications as well.
“We’re happy with the move; we’ve just got to get used to the winters. I’ve had to buy some wet weather gear,” Mark said.