This event is a WMLIG and Rice Extention joint initiative, made possible through funding from Ricegrowers' Association of Australia Environmental Champions Program, Murray Dairy & the Murray Local Land Services through the Australian Government's National Landcare Programme.
14th June 2018, Barham NSW
Fifty one people attended the Barham Business & Technology Forum held at CluBarham, as part of a joint initiative between Rice Extension and WMLIG. Three forums were held in the local district, the first at Barham on the 14th, followed by Deniliquin and one in Griffith on the 28th of June.
All forums followed a similar theme with topics individualised to suit the interests and needs of agricultural professionals in each region. The driving purpose for these events was to 'provide information to aid management decisions within the local farming community'.
Barham local, George Warne (RMCG) started the day with a presentation on 'The Elephant in the room- Horticulture'. Many irrigators are concerned about the impact that increased horticultural planting downstream of Swan Hill may have on the provision of peak-season delivery capacity of water, particularly between the Barmah choke and the SA border.
The issue is that there is about 9.600ML per day available from the Edwards & Murray rivers to provide downstream users, as compared to Murray Irrigation Limited who can divert more than 10,000ML/day in mid-summer! Horticulture (Almonds in particular) are experiencing high prices, in some cases up to $24,000/ha or $2,000/ML of gross profit is generated by these crops. Hence they are extremely competitive for water, especially during peak summer demand times. The area of almonds planted has increased dramatically in the last 15 years, with more still projected to come there is potential for annual water demand to increased to 195,000ML (15,000 hectares x 13ML/ha requirement). At peak demand this would equal 1,900ML per day.
WHY THIS MAY NOT BE A PROBLEM:
Continuing on the theme of safety and legislation, Allan MacArthur (RMS) presented on the Transport Chain of Responsibility which has recently been brought into affect. He outlined the main duties of primary producers:
So, if we don’t know how the business has been performing, how do we know what to change to maintain its prosperous future? Through both the P2P Agri Program and Tony's ESSENTIALS or MANAGEMENT courses or even using the Farming the Business Publication you can gain a great understanding of the financials in your business and use it to analyse future opportunities.
Glen Wilson, a Business Financial Planner (Commonwealth Bank), shared some tips and tricks on how to protect your business through Insurance and Superannuation. The first step was succession planning. Understand where the business is set to go in the future, who will be involved and how this will work. His next point was whether to self-manage superannuation or not, he felt that although it could be a useful tax tool, the process was time consuming and the gain may not be worthwhile for the effort. Lastly, he spoke about insurance protection, in particular- knowing the difference between 'stepped' and 'level' premiums for insurance. Although stepped premiums seem cheaper at the beginning, you can be caught paying huge amounts later in life. Therefore, even though level premiums may seem high at the beginning they are far cheaper in the long run.
To give attendees a snapshot of ways to strengthen their business, a panel of three presenters was organised. The first was Neil Bull (RGA Envrio Champions Program), who was representing the Water 2030 Group. This group was initiated to assist farm managers to deal with the complexities of managing irrigation farm businesses post irrigation water reform. The collaborative group holds four sessions where participants:
Katrina Myers (Barham Avocados) presented on 'approaching the unfamiliar' as her family had when they decided to grow and expand their Avocado business. She spoke about the considerations they made and the learnings they gained along the way, Originally, they found that developing a strong connection with consumers and expanding the business was the main challenge. They did this through clever marketing online and through face-to-face communication with consumers. Sustainability was also a large factor in their business and alterations to inputs toward composts and other 'natural' amendments helped to do achieve this. Finally, innovation is a key element in their business and as such, they are currently looking into protected cropping to help prevent frost damage, water loss and reduce overheads.
Another way to strengthen your business is having the ability to retain trained staff. Melva Tyson presented on how Murray Dairy are doing this through their Employment, Farm Transitioning, Leadership Pathways and Careers programs.
So what can you do, as the CEO of your business, to ensure that you offer an enticing work place that future staff will seek and current staff will stay for the long term?
The condensed to-do list seems simple and includes the following:
The forum ended with a focus on innovation using precision agriculture for farming enterprises.
Using irrigation monitoring and managing equipment can provide large benefits for farming businesses. Alleena Burger (Moulamein Cropping Group) explained that there are a large range of moisture monitoring products on the market, and at times it can be hard to determine which one will be most useful for your business. The Moulamein Cropping Group compared 5 mositure monitor systems locally, across a range of irrigation layouts. Key messages from this were:
Adrian Orloff spoke about the infrastructure available through WaterSave, enabling farmers to take the 'guess work' out of irrigating. This involves affordable LoRaWAN gateways, micro-weather stations, pump flow meters and soil moisture sensors on irrigated farms.By receiving real-time alerts the moment a paddock is sufficiently irrigated, farmers are saving up to 20% in power and water costs. These solutions can be retrofitted to current irrigation systems, which reduce the cost of adoption for farmers. Most importantly, farmers are no longer at the mercy of telecommunications companies as the WaterSave sensors do not require SIM cards to operate.
Precision agriculture during harvest is also an exciting innovation which is already occurring in-field. Jonathon Ham (Landpower) is the product manager for the LEXION header in Australia and New Zealand. He gave an overview of the CEMOS automatic system which is used to optimise the machine settings entirely automatically. The CEMOS system will continuously adjust combine settings based on the current harvesting conditions to ensure maximum throughput, top grain quality whilst keeping fuel consumption to a minimum. A ‘top’ operator might be able to beat the system at any given moment but will not be able to keep the machine optimised throughout the whole day of harvesting. All the operator needs to do is activate the automatic functions, sit back and enjoy the ride!
Protein Testing on the run may also be the way of the future, Phil Clancy (Next Instruments) explained. In the last few years, NIR analysers have been adapted to fit on a combine harvester in order to collect protein, oil and moisture data as the grain is stripped. Next Instruments have developed the CropScan 3000H On Combine Near Infrared Whole Grain Analyser that provides farmers with On- the-Go Protein Maps. These maps have the ability to improve flexibility and return on grain by enabling the grower to make decisions based on the protein content of their grain at harvest. A grower could choose to blend the grain in the paddock by selectively stripping the red area and combining with grain from the green areas to raise the grade from ASW to APW. In effect blending in the paddock could result in a $30 per tonne increase in revenues for those areas where the grade was ASW.
A massive thank you to all the presenters for this forum, which either generously gave their time or charged reduced rates for their services. Their generosity ensured that a great range of topics were able to be covered in a cost-effective manner for attendees. Thanks also to ClubBarham which provided a great venue and catering!
WMLIG still has a number of resources from this event, feel free to contact us if you would like any additional information.
Fifty one people attended the Barham Business & Technology Forum held at CluBarham, as part of a joint initiative between Rice Extension and WMLIG. Three forums were held in the local district, the first at Barham on the 14th, followed by Deniliquin and one in Griffith on the 28th of June.
All forums followed a similar theme with topics individualised to suit the interests and needs of agricultural professionals in each region. The driving purpose for these events was to 'provide information to aid management decisions within the local farming community'.
Barham local, George Warne (RMCG) started the day with a presentation on 'The Elephant in the room- Horticulture'. Many irrigators are concerned about the impact that increased horticultural planting downstream of Swan Hill may have on the provision of peak-season delivery capacity of water, particularly between the Barmah choke and the SA border.
The issue is that there is about 9.600ML per day available from the Edwards & Murray rivers to provide downstream users, as compared to Murray Irrigation Limited who can divert more than 10,000ML/day in mid-summer! Horticulture (Almonds in particular) are experiencing high prices, in some cases up to $24,000/ha or $2,000/ML of gross profit is generated by these crops. Hence they are extremely competitive for water, especially during peak summer demand times. The area of almonds planted has increased dramatically in the last 15 years, with more still projected to come there is potential for annual water demand to increased to 195,000ML (15,000 hectares x 13ML/ha requirement). At peak demand this would equal 1,900ML per day.
WHY THIS MAY NOT BE A PROBLEM:
- Users upstream of the Choke and within MIL are not directly impacted
- Peak demand is in January & February, so only a short overlap with summer crops
- The industry will continue to become more water efficient and trees may not need 13-14ML/ha
- There are opportunities to call on MIL and the Torrumbarry scheme to channel water around the choke
Continuing on the theme of safety and legislation, Allan MacArthur (RMS) presented on the Transport Chain of Responsibility which has recently been brought into affect. He outlined the main duties of primary producers:
- Your main duty is to make sure that your conduct does not contribute to unsafe practices by a transporter.
- Provide information about goods so that the transporter knows which vehicle and permits are required.
- Make sure that there is safe access to your property and equipment (or people) necessary for loading.
- Avoid offering any incentives for drivers to exceed speed or mass limits, or to drive while fatigued.
So, if we don’t know how the business has been performing, how do we know what to change to maintain its prosperous future? Through both the P2P Agri Program and Tony's ESSENTIALS or MANAGEMENT courses or even using the Farming the Business Publication you can gain a great understanding of the financials in your business and use it to analyse future opportunities.
Glen Wilson, a Business Financial Planner (Commonwealth Bank), shared some tips and tricks on how to protect your business through Insurance and Superannuation. The first step was succession planning. Understand where the business is set to go in the future, who will be involved and how this will work. His next point was whether to self-manage superannuation or not, he felt that although it could be a useful tax tool, the process was time consuming and the gain may not be worthwhile for the effort. Lastly, he spoke about insurance protection, in particular- knowing the difference between 'stepped' and 'level' premiums for insurance. Although stepped premiums seem cheaper at the beginning, you can be caught paying huge amounts later in life. Therefore, even though level premiums may seem high at the beginning they are far cheaper in the long run.
To give attendees a snapshot of ways to strengthen their business, a panel of three presenters was organised. The first was Neil Bull (RGA Envrio Champions Program), who was representing the Water 2030 Group. This group was initiated to assist farm managers to deal with the complexities of managing irrigation farm businesses post irrigation water reform. The collaborative group holds four sessions where participants:
- Seek and share knowledge and experience to engender entrepreneurial skills.
- Develop and deliver their business plans.
- Have plans challenged by peers to identify risk, opportunities & maximise outcomes.
Katrina Myers (Barham Avocados) presented on 'approaching the unfamiliar' as her family had when they decided to grow and expand their Avocado business. She spoke about the considerations they made and the learnings they gained along the way, Originally, they found that developing a strong connection with consumers and expanding the business was the main challenge. They did this through clever marketing online and through face-to-face communication with consumers. Sustainability was also a large factor in their business and alterations to inputs toward composts and other 'natural' amendments helped to do achieve this. Finally, innovation is a key element in their business and as such, they are currently looking into protected cropping to help prevent frost damage, water loss and reduce overheads.
Another way to strengthen your business is having the ability to retain trained staff. Melva Tyson presented on how Murray Dairy are doing this through their Employment, Farm Transitioning, Leadership Pathways and Careers programs.
So what can you do, as the CEO of your business, to ensure that you offer an enticing work place that future staff will seek and current staff will stay for the long term?
The condensed to-do list seems simple and includes the following:
- Have a clear vision
- Create a Culture
- Communicate
- Know exactly what is required of you as the employer.
The forum ended with a focus on innovation using precision agriculture for farming enterprises.
Using irrigation monitoring and managing equipment can provide large benefits for farming businesses. Alleena Burger (Moulamein Cropping Group) explained that there are a large range of moisture monitoring products on the market, and at times it can be hard to determine which one will be most useful for your business. The Moulamein Cropping Group compared 5 mositure monitor systems locally, across a range of irrigation layouts. Key messages from this were:
- Moisture meters that had online capabilities were more likely to be used but can have issues with mobile service, customer service and can be costly to purchase with ongoing subscriptions required
- Meters that had to be checked in the paddock were significantly cheaper and in some cases, much easier to visually assess moisture in-crop if the farmer was going past the crop regularly (eg: G-Dot).
Adrian Orloff spoke about the infrastructure available through WaterSave, enabling farmers to take the 'guess work' out of irrigating. This involves affordable LoRaWAN gateways, micro-weather stations, pump flow meters and soil moisture sensors on irrigated farms.By receiving real-time alerts the moment a paddock is sufficiently irrigated, farmers are saving up to 20% in power and water costs. These solutions can be retrofitted to current irrigation systems, which reduce the cost of adoption for farmers. Most importantly, farmers are no longer at the mercy of telecommunications companies as the WaterSave sensors do not require SIM cards to operate.
Precision agriculture during harvest is also an exciting innovation which is already occurring in-field. Jonathon Ham (Landpower) is the product manager for the LEXION header in Australia and New Zealand. He gave an overview of the CEMOS automatic system which is used to optimise the machine settings entirely automatically. The CEMOS system will continuously adjust combine settings based on the current harvesting conditions to ensure maximum throughput, top grain quality whilst keeping fuel consumption to a minimum. A ‘top’ operator might be able to beat the system at any given moment but will not be able to keep the machine optimised throughout the whole day of harvesting. All the operator needs to do is activate the automatic functions, sit back and enjoy the ride!
Protein Testing on the run may also be the way of the future, Phil Clancy (Next Instruments) explained. In the last few years, NIR analysers have been adapted to fit on a combine harvester in order to collect protein, oil and moisture data as the grain is stripped. Next Instruments have developed the CropScan 3000H On Combine Near Infrared Whole Grain Analyser that provides farmers with On- the-Go Protein Maps. These maps have the ability to improve flexibility and return on grain by enabling the grower to make decisions based on the protein content of their grain at harvest. A grower could choose to blend the grain in the paddock by selectively stripping the red area and combining with grain from the green areas to raise the grade from ASW to APW. In effect blending in the paddock could result in a $30 per tonne increase in revenues for those areas where the grade was ASW.
A massive thank you to all the presenters for this forum, which either generously gave their time or charged reduced rates for their services. Their generosity ensured that a great range of topics were able to be covered in a cost-effective manner for attendees. Thanks also to ClubBarham which provided a great venue and catering!
WMLIG still has a number of resources from this event, feel free to contact us if you would like any additional information.