South East farmers are hopeful the coming months bring improved rain after what many have described as one of the most challenging seasons in recent memory.
Heavy frosts and a lack of rain led to a green drought in the region last year, however late spring rains meant the season turned out better than initially anticipated.
The late spring rains mean Limestone Coast farmers will have feed through the summer months, although it might be of a lower quality.
Mount Gambier Combined Agents chair Chris Manser said farmers experienced an extremely tough autumn and winter last year but were optimistic for this season.
“There is a lot more optimism and we are going into the summer now with more feed than we did the year before,” he said.
“There is still a little bit of a green pick, it has not completely dried off but if we get a few more hot days a lot of that tinge of green will be dried off,” Mr Manser said.
“We did end up getting some reasonably good spring rains, admittedly some of those were a little bit later in the spring so it affected some of our hay quality.
“There were some quite reasonable cuts but some of the quality was maybe not so good because it got rained on and an excess bit of rain but in saying that, it gave us some good spring feed and that is going to carry us into the summer.
“The year before, our spring did fail us and that is where it hurt us because spring failed, the autumn did not eventuate so it was a combination of basically those three seasons that did not sort of help us.
“Where we are looking forward to now is hopefully we can get a good autumn break and usually that autumn break comes around Anzac Day for us here.”
The year’s opening fat sale at the Mount Gambier and District Saleyards last Wednesday saw heavier cattle sell for 20-30 cents more a kilogram than pre-Christmas.
Meanwhile lamb prices have dipped since before Christmas with lambs now selling for around $7.80 – $8.50 a kilogram, however Mr Manser said it was a vast improvement to prices at the same times last year.
“Prices are looking good. Everyone is saying the cattle market could well increase,” he said.
“We have just seen the opening cattle market and if that price stays where it is and maybe lifts another 10 cents, we would be happy with that.
“I think if lambs stayed exactly where they are, that would be good, we do not need lambs any dearer than they are at the moment.”
Mr Manser said the Mount Gambier Combined Agents are waiting on the current Federal Government to match the Liberals’ federal pre-election pledge last month that if elected in 2025 they will support the Mount Gambier and Districts Saleyards Transformation Project with a funding commitment of $7.5m.
“We currently have an application with the current government for that. We were hoping to hear if that was successful before Christmas but Christmas has come and gone so we are hoping now that in the new year they will announce the funding is there,” he said.
“We are shovel ready to go with that. We are very optimistic that that will take place and for the area it’s well overdue and it’s needed.
“It has been five years or more (of planning). We have been knocked back on our applications in the past and a change of government last time upset the apple cart but we are optimistic this time.
“If you are looking at the 200km radius you have had three saleyards close down in the last 12-18 months with Millicent, Warrnambool and Camperdown closing.
“We are already finding that we have got Millicent suppliers that are bringing their stock down here to Mount Gambier and you will also find that we will get a lot of stock from that western district area including Casterton, Heywood and Strathdownie.”