Livestock industry spooked by El Nino

Talk of El Nino is spooking farmers across southeastern Australia despite many regions experiencing the best autumn break in decades.

Livestock producers have been spooked by talk of an upcoming dry season despite heavy rain in April.

Talk of El Nino is spooking farmers across southeastern Australia despite many regions experiencing the best autumn break in decades.

While some towns such as Swan Hill, Stawell and Bendigo have had double the April rainfall, almost all have had at least average rain.

Cropping farmers are forging ahead with their sowing programs albeit with some nervousness, but livestock markets are not faring so well, as producers either offload numbers or fail to stock up.

The benchmark Eastern Young Cattle Indicator, a gauge of restocker and processor demand, closed on Monday at 672c/kg, losing 14c/kg in the past month despite good autumn rain.

The latest outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology showed the El Nino – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is currently neutral, neither La Niña nor El Nino.

But feeding farmer fears is the BOM statement there were signs El Nino may form during winter, and there was “approximately a 50 per cent chance of El Nino in 2023”.

Riverina producer Marc Greening from Holbrook, NSW, said bull clients he spoke with were nervous about the season despite most recording a good autumn break.

Mr Greening, who measured another 25mm of rain over the weekend, said it was important to carefully consider forecasts rather than be frightened by them.

“If there is a 50 per cent chance that there will be an El Nino, then there is a 50 per cent chance there won’t be,” Mr Greening said.

Marc Greening from Holbrook, said many areas had received good autumn rains but some were worried after predictions of El Nino.

“It is also frustrating to hear that people say that we have had a couple of good years so we are due a bad one – why are we due a bad one?”

Mr Greening said while he knew there were predictions of an El Nino, he would “budget and prepare for an average year”.

“We have had a good start, and even if there is an El Nino, if we get an inch (sic 25mm) of rain at the right time, then we can still have a good season,” he said.

Brian Higgins from Glemmaggie said the constant reminders of the possabilty of an El Nino weather event had farmers “spooked”.

He said he believed the weaner cattle he sold last week could have made more if negativity had not struck restocking sentiment.

“There are people talking about climate change or global warming and they think they’re the gods of weather,” Mr Higgins said.

“We are in a reasonable position with the weather, and while it’s not flash, we do have grass.

“We have had a couple of very wet years and I think now people expect it to be normal.”

While livestock producers are cautious, farmers in southeast Australia’s major grain-growing regions are optimistic of a decent cropping season.

Heavy rain fell across much of Victoria and southern NSW in April, giving growers a solid autumn break. The state’s northwest has had only patchy rain, but farmers say just a little more is needed for crops to fully germinate.

Rupanyup grain farmer Andrew Weidemann says he will need more rain in May for his crops to fully germinate. Picture: Andy Rogers

Rupanyup grain grower and Grain Producers Australia southern region director Andrew Weidemann said he had received his best autumn break in more than 30 years, with 70mm of rain falling on his property in April.

But he was keeping a nervous eye on the rain gauge. A dry May would mean his crops could “struggle to come out of the ground”, he said.

If the forecast El Nino season brought a dry spring, Mr Weidemann said cropping outcomes would depend on a grower’s subsoil moisture: those with access to moisture could still produce a crop, while those without would be forced to cut crops for hay, but could still earn good prices.

For farmers whose crops were wiped out when floods swept down the Goulburn, Campaspe, Wimmera, Avoca, Loddon and Murray rivers in October, this year offered a ticket to recovery.

Farmer Brenton Osborne, who grows crops between Serpentine and Dingee, east of the Loddon river, said he was hopeful of an average crop after losing a third of his yield last year to floods.

This season offers a chance for recovery for growers who lost crops to flooding last year. Pictured: crops at Serpentine on the Loddon River in October 2022. Picture: Prue Milgate

This week he was midway through planting a program of canola, vetch, oats, wheat and barley in flood plain soil that was “hard as concrete” after floods left it covered with a layer of dried clay silt.

“It has been a long, drawn-out process to clean up and get paddocks back in shape … but so long as we get some spring rain I believe we’re looking at least an average year,” he said.

In southern NSW, Bob McCormack of Lenton Park at Winchendonvale described the autumn break as “magnificent”.

He emptied 30mm out of the gauge after the rain on Sunday.

For Mr McCormack, like many farmers in NSW’s southeast, wet weather meant a stop-start sowing program.

“We will certainly take the rain, though,” he said.

Baker Seed Co business development manager Aaron Giason of Rutherglenin northeast Victoria had also been forced to stop sowing due to rain in April, but said the prospect of a good season outweighed the inconvenience.

In Victoria’s Mallee, Merrinee grower James O’Day said he had received21mm in early April, before the rain dried up.

“It would be great to get another rain now, even if it was another 10mm, just to wet the top up again and get good germination,” he said.

“We’ve got not a bad moisture profile. If we could jag that rain now to get a nice even germination and get the (topsoil) moisture to join up (with the subsoil moisture), that would put us in pretty good stead.”