WA Farmers CEO Trevor Whittington says the ongoing delays to extending irrigation in Kimberley is damaging Australia’s ability to grow and supply fodder

Eyes are turning to countries like Sudan and Brazil as the fodder baskets of the future

Forgotten food basket

Plans to expand irrigated agricultural land around the Ord River have stalled since the ‘70s, leaving Western Australia lagging behind when it comes to producing fodder

In 1972, the Ord River Dam was completed in the far north of Western Australia, capturing 2,500 gigalitres of water. This was 11 times the size of Sydney Harbour and, with it, came 15,000 hectares of land for agricultural development.

In the same year, Sudan opened up the first of the upper reaches of the Nile River for foreign investment, while Brazil opened up the vast central Cerrado region, along the southern tributaries of the Amazon.

In all three jurisdictions not much happened between 1970 and 2000 due to government ineptitude, a lack of infrastructure, crop failures and supply chain issues but, after 2000, the race was on to expand and utilise their respective massive water resources.

In the last 20 years, in an attempt to open up Stage II of the Ord, Western Australia has spent over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds, along with vast amounts of bureaucratic time, to release another 13,500 hectares of land.

In that same time, Sudan released 750,000 hectares of large-scale irrigation leases to investors from Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria, Jordan and Turkey. In addition, it is looking to release another 3.4 million hectares for irrigated agricultural production.

Brazil, in the same time period, opened up 3.5 million hectares for fodder under irrigation and is well into the planning stage to release another 22 million hectares.

All the while, Western Australia, with its massive standing start, staggers along on its 50-year process of assessing the 5.4 million hectares of the Fitzroy catchment deemed suitable for irrigated agriculture, with only trial blocks released to date.

As Sudan and Brazil race to utilise their water assets and develop intensive livestock industries, Australia is flat-out finding reasons not to.

The frustrating thing is the potential to produce vast amounts of fodder through broadacre irrigation in the Kimberley was first recognised by the Duracks in the 1940s on the Ord and then by the famous Texan Jack Fletcher in the 1970s on the Fitzroy.

Fletcher had plans to develop a million-acre fodder industry across the seven stations owned by his Australian Land and Cattle Company but bureaucratic delays and a one-in-100-year flood washed away the 25,000 hectare stage I of the project, along with kilometres of levy banks, and, with it, probably the last chance of turning the Fitzroy into a fodder food basket.

More recent attempts by the Harris family of GoGo station to get approval for a 50 gigalitre license for its planned 8,355 hectares of freehold irrigated cropland has run into endless hurdles, while mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s offer to exchange part of her Kimberley pastoral empire for a 325 gigalitre water license and a billion dollar development fell on deaf ears.

Despite the strong demand from Kimberley’s 93 pastoral stations for fodder to supplementary feed their 650,000 cattle, the government in its wisdom has, after decades of inaction, ruled out any dams on not just the river but any tributaries.

The government continues to claim that it is committed to working with anyone who has the patience to wait for a final decision, which will be an allocation of between zero and 600 gigalitres of water. A coalition of Indigenous and green groups are, however, calling for it to be zero.

Its little wonder that all eyes are turning to countries like Sudan and Brazil as the fodder baskets of the future.

Trevor Whittington, CEO WAFarmers

Lake Argyle, created by the building of the Ord River Dam

Window of opportunity

Here’s how one South Australian grower is using John Deere’s virtual control systems to get the most out of his crops after a challenging start to the year

A determination to take control of the production elements he can, including machinery, is empowering mixed-enterprise producer Andrew Thomas to minimise the impact of varied seasonal conditions across his Murraylands farming operation.

“Timing is everything when it comes to farming,” says Thomas.

“There are small windows in farming where there are opportunities to implement practices to maximise production and, for us, we feel ensuring equipment is up and running is a strategy within our control we can use to help counter uncontrollable risks, like the weather.”

John Deere’s Connected Support has been the key tool used to make this prioritisation of machinery possible across Andrew’s equipment fleet, which is used to farm 4,000 hectares spanning two properties — one at Moorlands and the other at Wynarka, about 120km southeast of Adelaide.

Through Connected Support, a suite of digital tools linking farmers with their dealership, skilled technicians can connect virtually into Thomas’ cab via JDLink to provide instant remote diagnostics and back-up support.

“I would say we wouldn’t be where we are now if it wasn’t for the technology we have,” says Thomas.

“Connected Support is very important to our business. Our dealership used to have to travel an hour-and-a-half to our farm. Now, they can just log on remotely and fix an issue straight away. It’s saved me time and it’s also saved our dealership time.”

The need to maximise productivity during any season was drummed home recently for Thomas, who farms alongside his wife Emily and four boys, Jake (14), Micah (12), Owen (10), and Reuben (4), as his properties endured the worst start to the season he has ever experienced.

“It was a very challenging start to the year. We had a lupin crop which had enough moisture to germinate, but not enough to survive, so we resowed the paddock to canola,” he says.

“Across a lot of our region, we didn’t receive any decent rainfall to around mid-June. We are not looking at a bumper year, but providing we get a good spring, I think we are shaping up to achieve an average yield.”

The Thomas’ cropping operation is typically made up of wheat (20 per cent), barley (25 per cent), canola (25 per cent) and oaten hay (10 per cent), with the remainder sowed to beans.

About 500 hectares of land is under pasture, running Merino ewes bred to White Suffolk rams to produce crossbred lambs.

For most of the year, Thomas is supported by a small on-farm team, including one full-time worker and a part-time employee. However, during the peak season, more staff are brought in to operate his John Deere 8RX 370 4-Track, 6620, 8245R and S770 combine harvester.

The full fleet is connected to JDLink, meaning Thomas’ local dealership can analyse diagnostic trouble codes with the Connected Support’s Service Advisor Remote function and dial in through remote display access.

“During seeding this year, we had a new casual worker who wasn’t used to John Deere equipment, who had few questions while he was operating a machine. Connected Support was so helpful, as we could dial in, look at his screen, and he was up and running again in a few moments,” says Thomas.

Connected Support also provides farmers with access to Expert Alerts, a proactive monitoring system that automatically notifies dealers of certain unforeseen machine issues that can arise. While Thomas hasn’t personally needed Expert Alert, he knows the technology has helped other farmers avoid unnecessary repair bills.

An eager adopter of precision agriculture practices, Thomas has also used John Deere’s integrated yield monitoring system with Active- Yield automatic calibration technology on his S770 harvester to grow his business’s productivity.

“We are constantly running our own trials,” Thomas says.

“We often tweak our input levels to learn the full capacity of our country, and through our monitoring system, we can quantify any gains.

“Overall, we are growing more grain with less rainfall, and are managing our risks a lot better. Given the advancements in farming technology, the sector has become much more attractive for the younger generation. It’s a promising industry to be in.”

John Deere Connected Support is vital to Andrew Thomas’ business, which farms across 4,000 hectares in the Murraylands region of South Australia