@martinw-48 wrote:
Plenty of farmers are still doing exactly as their great great great grandfather and haven't adopted any modern farming practices besides having a tractor
There may still be a few like this in the hobby farmer / peri urban areas but it would be a rare occurrence on real farms. The truth is they simply would not survive financially if they farmed that way. ( and maybe they are the struggling ones being featured on current news stories )
My remote farm is 250 km. from my wet coastal country. It is right on the boundary of farmed land with unsettled / un-farmed desert only 10 km. from my farm boundary. Being so close to arid desert it was one of the first regions to feel the effects of climate change, with changes in vegetation and seasons quite obvious to keen nature observers 20 years ago.
I could see these changes taking place and it was one of the reasons I decided to purchase land in one of the wettest areas of South Australia over a decade ago and pack up the family and move to a cooler climate on the coast. Essentially I am probably one of the first farmers to actually move due to climate change.
There is still a vibrant farming community out on the border of the arid desert country with large cropping operations. They have expanded in size into multi-million dollar operations and are successfully making higher profits and growing better crops now than twenty years ago. The higher yields are being achieved on noticeably shorter growing seasons and less growing season rainfall. All of this is down to the way they have adopted new technologies and crop varieties, completely transforming the way they farm.
Like all things, the current drought has become politicised ( NSW / QLD focused NATIONAL PARTY ) and provides dramatic story lines and footage for the tabloid TV and radio media. ( PM standing in a dry, dusty dam bed, dust blowing from his hand......:Farmer feeding hay from back of ute to hungry cows etc. ) There are many areas of S.A that are being hit just as seriously by the drought as N.S.W and Queensland, but they are not being visited by the PM. featuring in the news or getting million dollar grants for their councils. In fact you would not even know there is a drought in large parts of S.A
South Australian farmers are just getting on with it, plugging away without any support, relying instead on their own drought preparedness and the modern farming techniques to get them through.
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