2023 agriculture issues: How top farmers survived Labor policy pain and wild weather

Amid commodity price dives, wild weather and spiralling costs, former Farmer of the Year winners detail how they coped this year.

The lights will turn off for 2023 with a bruised farming community needing a few weeks in the proverbial ice bath.

The biggest issue across the year was the resumption of agriculture’s battle with Mother Nature, the impact of weather featuring long wet and dry spells, flooding and frost at unseasonal times and places.

Some parched paddocks were barely planted and predictions of a dry winter left farmers fuming as a urea shortage hit the eastern seaboard after buckets of rain.

But it was BOM’s El Nino declaration, triggering a rush to de-stock livestock that sent markets nosediving, that will bookmark the year for many.

For The Weekly Times 2019 Sheep Farmer of the Year Duncan Barber, the forecast contributed to his biggest challenge of the year.

Duncan Barber on Coliban Park in Metcalfe. Picture: Chloe Smith

“Off-loading stock for a profitable price has been the most challen­ging, especially since the Bureau of Meteorology said we were heading into an El Nino,” said Duncan, who runs Coliban Park at Metcalfe.

“We’ve had a cracking season here, and when it came to selling our store stock we found it hard as people were waiting to see what prices would do and what would happen with the weather,” he said.

“Even the repeat buyers were standing back.”

Weather was also the biggest headache for 2022 Cropping Farmer of the Year winners David and Jenny Thompson, who grow grains at Illabo, in southern NSW.

Cropping Farmer of the Year winners David and Jenny Thompson. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“We have just finished barley and still have wheat to go,” David said.

David and Jenny have received 550mm of rainfall for the year, 50mm more than the annual average.

Laughing, they said they wished the rainfall had been good news for their operation, but it arrived at all the wrong times. This included receiving 100mm in November, which further stalled harvest.

And in August, some of their canola experienced extensive hail damage.

The Thompsons grow canola, wheat and barley and this year added 130ha of vetch to the mix, which they said would help incorporate nitrogen into the soil for the following crop.

The Weekly Times Coles 2022 Farmer of the Year winners Nicole and Brendan Saunders were hit hard by huge downpours on their Maffra farm twice in the past year.

Maffra dairy farmers Brendan and Nicole Saunders are The Weekly Times Coles 2022 Farmer of the Year winners. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“It’s been a challenging but positive year,” Nicole said.

“We’ve had floods- we’re currently dealing with the clean-up from our second flood.

“About 75 per cent of our farm has been underwater, so that’s created a whole heap of problems. But farmgate prices have been fantastic. When you look at New Zealand’s prices, Australia is in a really good position. But it is needed, given the price of everything from insurance to electricity is a lot higher now.”

For 2021 Horticulture Farmer of the Year finalist Andrew Young at Wemen, his business had to shoulder cost increases that he couldn’t pass on this year.

Andrew and Eleanor Young of Redgold at Wemen.

But he was focusing on gaining efficiencies through labour-saving practices, new technology, waste reduction and improving yields.

“The positive is that we still have strong relationships with our customers; we value that.

We have good relationships with our staff, we value that. And our suppliers,” Mr Young said.

“We are at the whim of the weather god, and the consumer downturn. If demand drops off that will affect our lines.”

Instead of focusing on factors out of his control, Mr Young said he was turning to mechanisation and innovation to boost productivity.

“Technology and AI are very interesting,” he said. “We’re already seeing some technology making a difference and I think we’ll see that increase rapidly.”

Other growers harbour hopes that technology can help ease the problem of an ongoing shortage of farm labour, particularly in the horticulture sector.

How agriculture weathered the Labor policy storm of 2023

Labor’s solution for agriculture’s labour pains – the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme – took a hit when Oceania signatories unexpectedly revealed they might cap their contribution – while the Greens disappointed many in November after agreeing to Murray Darling Basin Plan amendments, which remove legislative barriers in the Water Act to the Albanese government buying up to 700 gigalitres of water out of irrigation communities.

Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young hold a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra after striking the buyback deal. Picture: Martin Ollman

After 18 months of spruiking its carbon credentials, Labor finally put the foot on the decarbonisation accelerator. But the most confronting energy issue for farmers was not bill shock – in a year of continuing farm input spikes – but the emerging iron-clad links between sustainable farming and financial markets.

The Albanese government’s heavy animal-welfare focus, particularly its move to halt the live sheep by sea trade, also put the agricultural community on edge and left many wondering who was next on Labor’s hit list.

Sheep in pins awaiting loading on trucks bound for port, for live export at Peel Feedlot, Mardella, WA. Picture: Philip Gostelow

Meanwhile, as difficult as farm leaders found parliamentary proceedings in 2023, they fear what may unfold when policy springs into action in 2024.

For one thing, while this year’s Lumpy Skin disease crisis was another reminder of why Australia needs tough biosecurity measures and a funding injection to create a sustainable biosecurity system was welcomed – the biosecurity protection levy on farmers to help pay for it will come into force on July 1.

For another, the government will likely get back to its culture heritage plans shelved after Western Australia’s botched laws to protect Indigenous culture were axed after their divisive and stressful impact on landowners.

Hydro electricity transmission lines near Lake Pedder. Picture: Philip Young

But farmers see land use competition coming from mining, carbon offsets and energy developments, including a potential tsunami of transmission lines to follow a five-fold increase in taxpayer underwriting of clean energy projects and yet-to-be-announced sector decarbonisation plans.

Meanwhile, farm leaders will also focus on competition reform to ensure family run businesses receive a fair go during a predicted worsening of the cost-of-living crisis.