Building drought resilience on the Atherton Tablelands
eastAUSmilk’s project team has been delivering the Farm Business Resilience Program assisting dairy farmers across Queensland develop business plans to improve drought resilience.
Late in 2021, Bill Hamilton, a dairy farmer located in Ravenshoe, North Queensland started developing his business plan identifying increased labour demands, water and feed security as his main farm risk during a drought. Bill runs a certified biodynamic dairy farm milking on average 110 Brown Swiss and Jersey cows across 334 acres with an annual production of 500,000L.
The development of a business resilience plan identified a priority list to improve overall farm preparedness and resilience. In the case of a drought, feed and water security was highlighted as a priority area for Bill. The focus for his business was to increase his total irrigatable area on farm by expanding his current solid set from 20 acres to 50 acres.
Investing into additional sprinklers has increased feed security on farm. Solid set has high water use efficiency where water is evenly distributed across the paddock improving pasture yields and consistency throughout the paddock.
Bill was successful in obtaining a 25% grant for the project cost through the Drought Preparedness Grant (DPG). The irrigation has been utilised over their dry season to maintain pasture production for the milking herd. On average, milk production sits at 14L/cow/d and with the irrigation he has been able to maintain this level of production without the need to supplement fodder.
His next steps are to expand the hay shed on the dairy block from 40 bale to a 120 bale capacity to improve feed security and labour demands during a drought, also partially funded by the DPG. Extra shed capacity will allow Bill to feed bank fodder in preparation for a drought and minimise the risk of spoilage from the humidity and rainfall commonly found in the region.
The farm business resilience program provides great benefits for Queensland dairy farmers - contact Jade for help to access it.
Jade Chan – eastAUSmilk Project Officer