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News
Rain welcome but winter chill bites
Producers facing
more challenges
BRONWYN LISSON
Murray Grey breeder and livestock agent Bernard Atkins.
6 TASMANIAN COUNTRY Friday, July 5, 2024
FOR farmers who have experienced
extremely dry conditions, the last
week’s rain has been a welcomed
break.
For others, the rain hasn’t had much
of an impact and now new challenges
arise.
This is the case for Stanley stock
agent and Murray Grey stud operator
Bernard Atkins of Atkins Livestock
Services.
Mr Atkins has experienced one
extreme to the other, from suffering
through Stanley’s driest year since
1868, to now harsh frosts and cold
weather that put stress on his stud
cattle.
Across the last few days Mr Atkins
had about 25mm of rain at his property
but not enough to alleviate his growing concerns.
“Now it’s turned so cold, we’ve had
more frosts than ever at this time of
year, and we don’t normally get too
many in Stanley, but we’ve just had
four frosts in a row.”
He said a big concern with the frosts
is that they burn the feed off and make
the ground too cold for grass to grow,
leaving the cattle with nothing to eat.
For Mr Atkins, the dry weather over
autumn meant giving the feed was a
struggle.
“Now we’ve got two battles, we’ve
got no feed and its cold, the cows need
a certain amount of food to regulate
their body heat.
“We haven’t had enough rain, you’ve
got to get a certain amount of rain to
see growth. We won’t see any growth
for a few months.”
Looking ahead, Mr Atkins acknowledges the challenges to come.
“We’ve got a very hard few months
ahead of us, probably harder than
ever,” he said.
Earlier this year the Government
provided drought relief to farmers in
need, including Mr Atkins, but he said
it might not be enough to get through
the winter.
“We’ve used up all of our money
reserves so now it’s getting very serious,” Mr Atkins said.
“Prices are terrible at the moment, its
very tough on beef farmers.”
“It has affected the cattle prices and
although they will come back up, people
can’t buy cattle to take home if they’ve
got no feed.”
He noted many beef farmers don’t typically invest in fodder crops because it’s
often not 昀椀nancially viable.
However, he said having an alternative
this year could have been bene昀椀cial.
“We’re a reasonably viable farm
and we do okay, but after 45 years of
stud breeding, I’m trying to hold the
nucleus of my stud together and I’ve
never experienced that before.”
“I believe it wouldn’t hurt some of
the government people to come out and
have a look at how tough it is out here.”
