Birchip farmers say liquid urea can act as drought deterrent

Two Birchip farmers have dropped their urea costs by more than $130,000 each year, and are helping others to do the same.

Two Birchip farmers have dropped their urea costs by more than $130,000 each year, and say the change has also helped improve animal growth and yields.

Birchip mixed farmers Colin Kemp and son Nathan manage a 5000-head feedlot flock, 120-head piggery, and have sown wheat, barley, peas and lentils on their low-rainfall property.

They hosted about 45 farmers at their Mallee farm for a VicNoTill event on reducing synthetic inputs to improve soils.

Cassie, Hannah, Nathan and Colin Kemp hosted 45 farmers to discuss improving soils and lowering costs. Picture: Rachel Simmonds

Nathan, who is fourth-generation on the farm, said they have managed to reduce their costs from $180,000 annually to $50,000 after just 10 years.

He said they decided to transform a fish pond into a urea tank.

“We had a few trials, there were a few muck ups, but when we started to see it work we thought we needed to invent something new,” Nathan said.

”We started mixing feeds to mineral supplements and bringing it into the paddock.

“If we have a healthy ground, our animals are healthy, the grain is healthy.”

Colin said they avoided purchasing urea because they mixed it, which could service the 2024-hectare farm two-and-a-half times.

“If people take more notice of the liquid urea, it’s nearly the way to go,” he said.

“People are buying five B-doubles and we’re buying one and it’ll do our farm twice over and a half.

“We’ve had spray-damaged crop, and we can bring it back, if you get on it early enough.”

They said spraying urea was cost-effective, particularly during dry parts of the season.

“It’s like a drought deterrent, not all of that expense is going out at once,” Nathan said.