Farm management - Growth from intensive grazing
A Western Australian woolgrower explains how he is intensifying his land management to increase productivity of both the farmed and un-farmed parts of his property
Rob Egerton-Warburton works his farm hard, driving its grazing capacity to the maximum. With tightening margins, he says there is no choice but to keep pushing the productivity boundaries, which in his case means sustained, intensive grazing.
However, this is no rapacious use of the land. Rather, the management strategy is pursuing an increase in wool production from less land actually devoted to sheep. Rob’s production goals are being built on an environmental management program that is returning 20 per cent of the farm to commercial trees and agroforestry. The consequence of this is a reallocation of resources to the best land for pastures and crops. The outcome is rising production, despite a reduced area being farmed.
A high – and increasing – stocking rate of 17 dry sheep equivalent (DSE) per hectare is set by the amount and quality of feed, and this comes from substantially improved pastures, supplemented by crop stubble.
“Basically, we are not going to make money producing 30 kilograms of wool per hectare per year,” Rob says. “We need to be producing 60 to 80kg/ha/year.
“When wool hit $2.50/kg greasy in 1996 it was half of what we needed. That’s when half of our farm went into crops. It was a business decision based on what the land has to earn.”
Rob, who farms near Kojonup, WA, with his wife Jennifer – who adds an agricultural science background to the decision-making mix – describes their wool-growing today as based on sustained, intensive grazing with commercial and environmental sustainability the clear business objectives.
Their 2400 hectares are home to a self-replacing Merino flock on half the arable area, while the rest has been turned over to canola, wheat and barley.
Contrary to what might have been expected, Rob says the move into cropping has had the effect of intensifying and increasing their wool production, largely because cropping taught them how to grow better pastures, which are the basis of the more intensive grazing regime.
The whole process was started by segmenting the property into its different production capacities to determine which parts were actually producing the income. The unproductive areas have now been turned over to an outside commercial tree-planting venture. The trees have been grown in belts separated by lanes large enough to take two passes of a sprayer, in the expectation that over time the trees may help to invigorate those soils.
Added to this environmental initiative is the revegetation of all the creek lines – generously so, extending 50 to 80 metres out from the actual creeks.
“The transformation has been extraordinary,” Rob says. “The wildlife and birdlife that has come back to the farm is fantastic. The water in the streams is fresher and we have a natural supply of insect predators. Above all, it has made the farm a very nice place to live.”
But such environmental investments have to be paid for, and the profit driver for Rob is the land’s sheep-carrying capacity: “For us, that is determined by how much feed we can grow, which is why we have opted for a high-input system. To be more productive, the land has to be made more fertile.”
He says they look at the land resource in terms of its capacity to produce the right amount of feed with the right nutrition at the right time. “Because our best country is cropped, it allows us to develop the rest as permanent pasture and to make it very good pasture.”
At the moment Rob says they mate about 7000 ewes and run 2000 wether hoggets and 2000 ewe hoggets. He prefers to run large mobs in a rotational grazing system, saying larger mobs simply make life easier.
When it comes to animal type he has a clear view of what he wants – an easy-to-manage, plain-bodied sheep that is less susceptible to flystrike and worm-resistant. “Keep the animal simple and invest your time and energy in making sure they have productive pasture,” he says.
The animal as a production unit also dictates selection. “If a ewe doesn’t produce a lamb, or consistently falls behind the mob, she’s gone, irrespective of her wool quality. This is the sort of productivity trait we must consider when managing for maximum profitability.”
Rob and Jennifer are enthusiasts for the wool industry and for farming, and for using their time to build a legacy of profitable, flexible farm management within a healthy landscape.
Rob also brings this optimism to the new AWI sustainable production system advisory group on which he sits. The group has been charged with assessing strategic directions for areas such as pastures, grazing management, natural resource management and extension. “On the production side we’re looking at projects that can be classified as horizons one, two and three: existing research, then where next to get the ‘best bang’ for the research dollar, and ‘blue sky’ projects. Our job is to recommend what percentage of research funds should be allocated to each horizon.” In April, Rob was also appointed to the board of the new Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation. Rob believes AWI has been a good investment for the industry, saying it has introduced research and development that has produced valuable results and cultivated a whole new culture of R&D in the wool industry. He qualifies this with a concern that R&D is to be cut again in favour of promotion. “It means we risk losing the research groups that have only just been rebuilt within the industry,” he says.
Nonetheless, he remains excited about the future unfolding for wool and also the potential for joint wool–crop enterprises. He regards high-grade dual-purpose wheat as being a next step-change because, aside from the grain income, it will substantially increase winter grazing capacity.
“It will mean we can peak our pasture production in June-July and bring lambing forward so that we have larger store animals at the end of spring,” he says. “Then, after harvest, we have the crop stubble that will allow us to maintain our spring stocking rate right through the summer.”
On a final note, Rob reiterates that while everyone has different approaches to their farm management, he is constantly mindful of the industry’s potentially tenuous place in the textiles trade. “The difference between wool and wheat is that not everyone needs wool; there are alternative fibres. So even if 20 per cent of our clip goes into a dedicated supply chain that produces 50 per cent of our income, it still leaves 80 per cent of our wool remaining a bulk commodity, subject to supply and demand. That is the reality to be addressed.”
More information: Rob Egerton-Warburton, korellup@bigpond.com
Image: Tree-belts have been planted by Rob and Jennifer Egerton-Warburton to improve the productivity of marginal land and to arrest a rising water table. The space is wide enough for two passes of a seeder so the strips can also be cropped.
Photos: Brad Collis
Image: Rob and Jennifer Egerton-Warburton and baby Zara: building a legacy of profitable, flexible farm management within a healthy landscape.
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