Graziers react to Bureau of Meteorology formal El Nino declaration

With the weather bureau’s warning of merging patterns which are likely to mean hotter, drier days well into next year, farmers in cattle country have revealed how they prepared for the shift.

With warm months and likely little rain ahead, Whitsunday region graziers say they have long been preparing for the big dry.

It comes after the Bureau of Meteorology announced a El Nino weather event and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) was underway, meaning warmer and drier conditions would be more likely over spring and summer.

Grazier Greg Ashton, who owns approximately 7000 head of cattle in the Mount Coolon and Central Highlands area said the announcement was to be taken “with a grain of salt” as “this has been coming for two years”.

“We cut a lot of sileage,” he said.

“Our (water) storage will last two years from our last fill up (and) we’re only six months without rain.”

Another local grazier, Greg Smith, who owns 1500 head of cattle in Mount View near Collinsville said he had started to cut his cattle numbers for the past two years to avoid being “caught up” in weather that was too dry in coming seasons.

“You can measure how much grass you got, how many kilos of grass you got per hectare on your property,” he said.

“You have a look at your field and see ‘well, I’m not going to get through Christmas like this’, so you get your numbers down early,”

“If you don’t sell then and lighten your stock, they’re going to die of starvation.”

El Nino events increase the risk of extreme temperature shifts, like heatwaves and hotter days, the Bureau of Meteorology stated.

A positive IOD often results in below average rainfall during spring for much of central and southern Australia and warmer than average maximum temperatures for the southern two-thirds of Australia, the report stated.

The Bureau added that the last time Australia encountered both El Nino and a positive IOD was in 2015.

Mr Smith said the region had “a run of pretty good years”, but that he didn’t expect it to happen all the time.

“If you’re in this country you always expect that is it going to get dry so you’re ready to react, otherwise you get caught up,” he said.

“You know it’s coming, you don’t know when but you know it’s coming,”

Mr Ashton said at this point, he hadn’t reduced his cattle numbers but would do so later on during the year if no rain came.

He said if it hadn’t rained by December 10, he would have to reconsider his strategy and if no rain comes past February, he would “start to worry”.

Charity Rural Aid CEO John Warlters said primary producers could access a range of assistance measures including financial, hay, drinking water, counselling and volunteer assistance.

“We’ve already seen a huge increase in requests for emergency hay and household drinking water from farmers right across the country,” he said.

“I’m encouraging farmers who are finding themselves overwhelmed to give our rurally based counselling team a call for a free chat, to make sure they’re in the best possible position they can be to take on the upcoming seasons,”