Today's episode discusses mental health and suicide prevention. If you find this discussion upsetting or you feel you'd like more support with your mental health, please contact Lifeline on 13-11- 14 or the Mental Health Hotline on 1- 800- 011- 511. And please, go to our show notes where we have provided these links and more resources for your information.
This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good yarn about ag life with producers who are having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories, and
also pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan. In this week's episode, we're reaching out to talk to one of the farmers you suggested through our Nominate a Mate campaign. In today's episode, we are catching up with John Murdoch from Bombala on the Southern Monaro. John farms in partnership with his wife and father in a mixed- farming business, consisting of merinos, first
cross ewes, Angus cattle, and fodder cropping. As you'll hear today, John gives us a bit of an insight into farming in the Monaro and talks to us about his role as a previous chair and board member of Monaro Farming Systems Group. John talks through one of the major projects the group has managed in the Farming Forecaster network, and how that pasture prediction support tool has helped decision-
making on his own farm. John is also an outspoken advocate for mental health amongst farmers, and gives us a candid insight into his own mental health battles as a result of farming pressures and the disasters he has faced. Local Land Services mixed farming advisor, Rohan Leach, reached out across the Monaro and caught up with John for this great chat.
G'day, listeners. Today I'm with another of our Nominate a Mate suggestions from our audience, John Murdoch. John, welcome to the Seeds for Success Podcast.
Thanks, Rohan, for having me. I'm very happy to be here.
Mate, can I get you just to start off with a bit of a rundown of your farm business?
We're a mixed- grazing enterprise on the Southern Monaro. We operate on two properties, about 2, 500 hectares combined. We're about 75% sheep based in our DSEs with a merino ewe breeding base for the 50% to 60% to a border Leicester. And then, on the cattle side, the balance of the DSEs is an Angus breeding herd. And within that, a small seed stock production enterprise, which we run our genetics out of and supply a few
other people with genetics as well. And we're working to actually shift that balance of DSEs to probably a greater weighting on cattle and bringing back the sheep numbers.
And is that just from a labor perspective or just the margins aren't in sheep as much at the moment?
I think like everyone, the last couple of years have been challenging with sheep. But it's not just labor, it's the rise of input costs as a whole. And we're just finding that we can run the cattle DSEs much more competitively against the sheep where it was difficult to do. The 10 years prior, the sheep were so profitable, the cattle really took a backseat. But the last two
years have made us look at our farming system. My dad's retired and stepping back as a labor unit. And yeah, I found it a lot more challenging with the existing labor myself. And so, part of it is obviously profitability driven and other is probably sanity and lifestyle driven as well.
Absolutely. I know a lot of people in recent years have probably gotten sick of chasing fly in sheep and just the general input cost, like you mentioned, which is a real shame because they're such a integral part of rural communities. But you've really mentioned there and a focus on your DSE rating. Yeah, what sort of DSE capacity
per hectare is a lot of your country? I'm assuming there's probably a big mix of soil types and those sorts of things that influence that.
Our main farm's 100% basalt. And that's a low cost, probably seven to eight DSEs, pushing a lot higher on the river flat country. And then, you shift out to our southern block, which is granite and then a bit higher rainfall. It's 10 to 12 DSE per hectare country out there.
And so, what are the the pasture types across some of your soils?
For those that haven't ever traveled to the Monaro, our hilly country is very naturalized, so full of native pollers and stipers. And then into the improved country on the basalt we had a traditional fillera space pasture system. We've in our system use on the basalt, particularly lucerne as our primary improved pasture mix, whether they're straight stands or in a mix.
And then on the granite country, which is more acidic, we use fescues and short to medium term rye grasses.
You're carrying your breeding stock on those grass pastures and finishing stock on the lucerne for example?
Yeah, we run a pretty active pasture improvement program. We work on working probably 100 to 200 hectares a year and putting that through a fodder cropping rotation and then into a pasture. And that is the primary engine room for our lamb finishing. And with our steers we wean the steers, we wean in March, April and we actually winter them through on crop and target feedlot entry in August, September.
If we come into a big spring then, then we have the option with those fodder crops to take those weaners onto to heavier, to kill weights. But that's how we juggle our feed gap is have some winter crops in particularly targeting the cattle and the Merino wether portion of our merino flock. We usually slaughter them after shearing them in July.
That's really good. I was interested in the system and you've explained that pretty well, especially with timing and dates and stuff there. What sort of fodder crops are you using and do you grow any grain crops?
We use wheat a lot through the winter and annual rye are our primary winter fodder crops. As well as that we're just using a lot more grazing canola as well. But the real bread and butter of our winter growth is in our wheat and annual rye so where we can still get some winter production. The Monaro is a very, very cold winter being the altitude we are. And so, most pasture
types are fundamentally dormant through winter. We do get growth in those winter fodder crops help that system operate.
Yeah. You want to go into winter with the good bulk of standing feed to draw on basically, and fodder crops are providing that?
Yeah, look, I mean our rule of thumb, that's certainly for young stock. Our rule of thumb is if we're not winter feeding, supplementary feeding, particularly in our sheep, our sheep breeding, a new base, we probably don't have enough stock on once spring hits. We will have a winter feeding program every year. And that's targeting in lamb sheep and we scan all our breeding ewes. And so obviously trying to give the
twin and multiples a more precise ration. And then sometimes we don't feed singles, sometimes we do. It depends what sort of autumn we've had.
How's the season shaping up this year on the Monaro? By the way what's your closest town?
Closest town is a little town called Bombala. Which our main farm's north of Bombala and we have a smaller satellite block, the granite block, which is south of Bombala. That's within 20 minutes, 25 minutes to drive from one farm to the other. Our closest major town that people know of would be Cooma.
Well, I think Bombala has actually rocketed to fame on this latest season of Farmer Wants a wife. One of the boys on there is enjoying himself with some lovely ladies.
Yeah, I know Joe very well.
It's good to hear. Yeah, how's the season shaping up this year, mate?
The season has been like a light switch down here for the last 12 months. It's either been on or off. We had a very dry end to summer and then got a autumn break in April, start of April and we've had nothing since. And so now we're on a bit of a knife edge. We're getting to the end or very much at the end of our growing season, but we've still got soil temp. And any rain now would
be of help. New established pastures are just sitting there with single leaves sticking up, looking very thirsty. And another drink on them would certainly help them get through winter.
And obviously lucerne, one of your main species is probably switching off now, so hopefully onto the fodder crops soon.
Yeah, that's right. I mean lucerne is, we just haven't had the consistent frosts. Lucerne is still producing a bit not significant growth rates, but we just still are carrying enough soil temp that we can get a little bit of growth. I mean I think we've only got probably another two weeks window before we're really shut down now,
which is quite late for us. You'd think by the start of May where our growing season would be very much over, but this year we've just still got that soil moisture due to not having the runoff frost. Soil temperature, not soil moisture, unfortunately. I'd love to have the soil moisture.
Good to have both. Thanks for giving us the run down on the block and how the season's shaping up. I believe that you've been a previous chair of the Monaro Farming systems group, is that right?
Yes, that's correct. I spent about eight or nine years on the board with them and finished my time and I wasn't allowed to stay any longer.
They had to drag you kicking and screaming. Mate, can you just tell us a bit about that group?
Yeah, look, it's a fantastic group. It was based off the Birchip Cropping Group, but it was really looking at some pioneers before my time looked at the extension base and R&; D base in our region and realized that there was a significant gap there, particularly with DPI flagging and then
executing in terms of removing extension. That there was a need for some really focused Monaro- based R&; D. A group of farmers essentially created the group and it was a membership- based group and it was supported by the federal government
initially in terms of some funding for administration. And it just grew from strength to strength there through the engagement of its members and has really delivered some significant projects to the Monaro and state and to some extent federally with something like Farming Forecaster. It's a very progressive and forward- moving group.
Great that you've touched on one of my subjects there that we will probably explore a little bit later, but what sort of projects did it look at?
It's done a significant amount of work and early in soil carbon, so we've got 10 years if not more, history of soil carbon on some of the sites across the Monaro. We've got some really accurate data. Well, robust data in the sense that over a long period of time around soil carbon, it's focused a lot on I
guess productivity and profitability within farming systems. It set up benchmarking groups within the region and got really championed the balance between production profitability and sustainability, which was really the ethos of the group. You had to call that an A triple bottom line. We were really targeting things that did that.
And what was the sort of uptake in practice change from? Have they really supported it and continue to do so or was it a bit of a flash in the pan?
No, if you look at looking at your business life cycle, it's got to maturity and it's stayed there. It hasn't declined. We set up one of our biggest events is the Soils Club. Every year everyone routinely goes out and sample tests paddocks and that is fed back into a soil database and all the participants get trends in their soil fertility
reported back to them. But in combination to that, you've got experts each year coming down in December and talking around soil health and soil fertility and it's really matured. This is an example, matured. We're not just now talking sulfur, phosphorus, we're now onto micronutrients. It's really lifted and matured a group of producers and taken everyone along for the ride.
That's awesome. I love when farmers get nerdy about their soils, so it's good to hear that things, it sounds like it's going from strength to strength. Mate, we might move on to the Farming Forecaster that you mentioned just before. Yeah, obviously one of the originating projects from the Monaro Farming Systems group. Can you explain what that project or program does?
Yes. We were always using the CSIRO model grass grow to run seasonal outlooks for our members on a quarterly basis to give a forecast of where the season was looking from a feed base. And where that evolved was that we saw the value of having soil moisture data
to be able to add to that forecast. And so, initially it was set up within Monaro farming systems table and farming systems, I believe it was Holbrook Landcare and the CSIRO. And I believe LLS were involved too, that we decided to put together a network of these soil probes with grass grow farm models sitting on top of them.
What you would get is real time soil moisture data and temperature driving a forward- looking fodder based forecast based on the pasture species and climate for that environment. And really, with the rollout of that, it started with about six or seven sites, it grew to 15. Now it's up to about 190 sites across New South Wales, Tasmania
and WA. And looking, and I'm told to expand by another a hundred sites through New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia in the coming 12 months. And so what you're really getting there now is a significantly powerful seasonal modeling tool.
What do you use that modeling for? What sort of decisions does it help you with?
It is primarily a decision support tool. And so it's looking at, it's really flagging early where you are your trajectory into an uncomfortable situation or a situation of opportunity. It's if you are feeling like things are getting tight, you can look on your nearest probe or this probe that matches your farm system in terms of soil type. And get an indication of where the model in the next
six months are looking like. And it can then be a decision support till to either, " I've got to start buying in feed." Or, " No, I think I'm okay. We've still got time.
There's still a lot of upside there." And conversely, it's making timely decisions in trading opportunities when you may have a surplus of feed in your farm system, which you're not aware of, that you're not fully comprehending how much moisture you've got in your soil profile and how much soil temp future climatic influences may give you in terms
of fodder. And so, it's flagging those things so you can make decisions earlier and hopefully more profitably to your farm.
How is that fodder information and predicted fodder growth displayed or presented?
Displayed primarily in the graph format and it will graphically display based on a model run of the last 50 years of rainfall and temperature where you would likely end up from day zero essentially, which is when that reading is currently taking place. And it will give you a spread of deciles. And I believe it's zero to 10
percentile, it might be zero to 15 percentile. The 15 percentiles of worst years will lead you this way, your average bands, middle percentiles will lead you this way. And then in the top 15% of years you would end up here in terms of kilograms of dry matter per hectare. And it's important to point out that that kilograms per hectare of dry matter is based on what the farm model is at that site.
They might be working on a system that's 50% improved, 50% native or 100% native. That kilograms per hectare will fluctuate depending on what farm model is sitting at that site. But the trends will be generally consistent.
You might look at the soil probe site for one area that might be near you and a similar soil type for your moisture readings, but be looking at a site in a different location for more of the pasture information and the pasture types.
Yes, that's right. And I think ultimately the end game would be to get to a point where you can toggle as a user where you think you sit and the pasture types that you've got there. However, adapting CSIRO's grass- grown modeling is a taxing task. We're I think happy, and I say we, I'm no longer on that committee,
but very proud to be where we are. But there's the group's ambitious and wants to keep moving forward with this as a tool.
It's probably now is as good as time to plug our involvement as well. Central West Local Land Services is actually rolling this out as well in our region. We'll be one of those probably four or five sites of those 100 new ones that you. Yeah, I guess for producers out there that might want to be involved, probably reach out to myself and yeah, my details will be in the show notes. But how do you use it
actually in your own business? Can you maybe give me an example of a time that you've used the Farming Forecaster?
I actually use it the most when I'm in my, not so much the breeding part of my system, but in the fodder cropping side of things with trying to balance the number of lambs or cattle on hand versing any with bred versus any trading opportunity that might present itself. And so in a year like this where we feel
like there may be potentially opportunities in trading cattle. And we go, " Oh, we've got wheat crops up where we've got the feed." And you go jump on Farming Forecaster and go, "Whoa, your soil moisture is low. The actually outlook for winter is not great. Perhaps you won't be able to do the job that you're thinking you can do at this point in time come two months in the heart of
winter." I tend to use it mainly for that in terms of projecting where my fodder supply will be. And also that's likewise for summer lambs, where spring lambs, summer wean onto crops at the start of summer. It gives you an indication of from this starting point how long with the soil moisture we've got, that lucerne's going to
be productive and grow X amount of kilograms. You can start calculating whether you are understocked for lambs and whether there's a trade opportunity, you're okay or you're going to have to start supplementing sooner than you thought.
Where's your nearest site? How far away is it from your place?
I've actually got a virtual site, well, which is a farm that we're currently moving off literally nearly on this farm. But our main farm, we've got one within five kilometers. Actually we've got three within probably five to 10 kilometers of our main farm. And our southern block, we've actually got one on the farm next door, highly accurate to our farm
out there. We're a bit spoiled for choice. I mean the MFS group and the Farming Forecaster group really tried to spread the probes around so it benefited a lot of the initial membership base but also had enough geographic and rainfall and soil type spread.
I think the central west region is probably a little bit bigger than southeast, so ours might be a little bit further spread out. But yeah, hopefully that might be the aim one day for us. Does the Monaro farming systems or do you have a separate Farming Forecaster group that you maybe mentioned that get together regularly? Or is it you just operate independently with this information?
The Farming Forecaster site is public access. Anyone can log on and access it and look at the sites and look at the outputs. We generally have quarterly field days with our members and we use it to support either some of the presentations or discussions. Or if we think the season is throwing up things that are challenging. We will go into detail on some sites and look at where are we
at, what would be some of the solutions. And again, this could be positive, a very big summer or spring. And we might run the figures on performing a steer trade and the risk involved in that. Or looking at the management of potential drought situations emerging and what would be the management considerations to do with that. And so we look at adapt... Using that on a quarterly basis
in a face- to- face. Manner it's otherwise, yeah, for everyone to access as they wish.
Mate, we might just move on to the next topic I had in mind, which I know the Monaro in recent years has had its fair share of natural disasters. How has your business fared during those times, talking droughts and fires?
My farming career's been quite funny. I mean I've been farming for 12 years now. I'm previously an accountant. And I happened to come back at the end of the 2010, 2011 when we just came out of a major drought. I came back to phenomenally good run of seasons up to about 2016, 2017 and an upward inflection on commodity prices. And I
was supremely lucky to experience that. And then, I guess I was put on the belly I guess in, it got dry 2017, 2018 on the Monaro and very bad in 2019, 2020. And that was a tough period without a doubt. And I mean resilience, while it's a phrase that it's thrown around a lot, it's just part of organizations' names in terms of drought, resilience got tested I think for everyone, but
certainly for me during that little period. And even probably this last spring, summer was probably as equally tough if not shorter and with less external pressures just with the capitulation on sheep prices and the fear of God of that putting you with feeding them, feeding them when they're not worth anything were two very difficult periods for myself.
I mean taking for granted the run that I had to begin with, we did have a few challenges within that good period. We had foot rot and a number of other things that went on. But yeah, when you're at the mercy of the elements, I think we're all built with a degree of resilience and it's all different amongst us. And eventually I feel that it is a finite resource, just variable in size in different people.
And yeah, I know they talk about it being an elastic band that can stretch and stretch and eventually it might snap in some.
Yeah, and that was my case. I remember this was even before the fire started, we were impacted by drought for probably a year prior to being severely impacted by fire. But even in the lead up to then, was managing fine. We'd done a year of feeding and we were lucky in that where we were still selling sheep and cattle reasonably well. It was for all intents and purposes, profitable drought
feeding as oxymoronic as that sounds. And I remember we were tight and we were weaning lambs off mum to sell as suckers, which we don't normally do in our first cross system. And I just remember the agent pulling up, who's a very good friend of mine, but looking at the lambs and just going, " Ooh," and making that noise. And that, I was gone. I just went, " Oh God, we're in
trouble here." And that just, I'll never forget that capitulation of panic and stress and worry just come on. In the end we got out of those lambs okay, fine. But just there was that moment that I just went, " Oh God." And that made for then a pretty tough six months afterwards where it just took me that long to get back out of the doldrums if you will.
Thanks for being so open, mate, but can you tell people what the doldrums were like?
Well, for me it's just I guess, I mean I'm genetically predisposed to mental health issues. My mother suffers quite severely, but for me it's just all encompassing the anxiety. Just stress and worry and it just is at you always. Not sleeping well, not eating well, not being able to focus on what you're doing on farm because you are stressing and worrying about everything. And it's just a huge, all
consuming gear that's just driving inside you. And you feel it in your head and you feel it in your stomach. And you live with it, well, for me for that six month period and it exhausts you.
That sounds shocking, mate, but how'd you pull through it? How'd you get through it?
Well, I mean I guess with coming from a family that knows about mental health, that helps. I certainly saw medical professional help which did make a difference, but also just, I mean as different as it sounds, making time for actual
mental health as a physical thing. Whether that be, I spoke to a psychologist which helped a lot, but also making sure to exercise to particularly, this is when you're feeling 100%, is to take time to I guess switch off when you can. It can be very hard. We're a family with three young kids. And my wife works full time and we both manage separate careers and businesses. You forget to do that. And it come back to
bite you. And so, taking that time to just stop and let your have some peace I've learned is hugely valuable.
Yeah, I've found even in my own life, if I've been having a bit of a long day or a tough day that I love going to footy training on those days just to switch off and just chase a ball around for an hour and a half. That's really important for myself.
It's not easy because you don't feel like you don't want to do that. I love touch footy and I love tennis and you don't want to do it. You have to force yourself to do it. You all of a sudden don't want to socialize, you don't want to and you've got to work. And so it's a slog. You got to work against yourself essentially when you're, we'll call it down in the
doldrums. But when I was knocked, you're fighting yourself because your body's instincts are probably pulling you a way that's in a direction that's not going to get you to the best long- term outcome.
Battle still ongoing, mate?
It comes to me at times and it's always farm triggered. In my 10 years, 12 years, I probably had three really low points or where I've really battled. And a psychologist said to me, " Why are you farming?" because this time. My most recent one, I said, "This is a very, very good question." But yeah, no, as I get older and wiser, I'm trying to do more to manage myself when I'm feeling 100% healthy mentally so
to prevent those relapse. Because they are, I find very costly both to your emotional self, but also, you're not firing as a business person when you're feeling like that. The thought of taking on more risk or doing something that is a little bit more aggressive is so far out of your appetite when you're feeling like that, that you
would step over good opportunities because of that condition. For me it's about personal health but also about being better at business. Is it's a part of that discipline is having good mental health. And I mean I think if you want me to reflect on it, we went through
that drought period, then we had bushfires. My second daughter was born with an emergency C- section in the middle of the bushfires two days after we had a drowning on our property. And I was chasing the ambulance actually to Canberra, which is about two hours north. And I've never ever felt more mortal in my life. I was
just felt that so vulnerable. And so, I reflect on that a lot as part of grounding yourself on a day- to- day basis or a week- to- week basis. We are actually quite mortal. And when you're wrapped up in business and farming and trying to manage a farm, you forget to reflect on yourself a little bit.
John, that's really powerful. You've had a run there. And I'm sure COVID and all of the stresses since then have probably certainly not helped, but how do you go about your days now?
Well, I mean discipline- wise, I've felt like for a year where I've just been chasing our tail with family and kids and the farm. Particularly now we've changed moving a farm over. You're getting everything done, but you're only just getting it done. That is a physical and mental toll that I've become aware of. And that's one of the reasons why, and I touched on it at the beginning, was our shift into a
more cattle- centric enterprise. With the complexities of our farm system, we are literally jumping from one animal health or fodder crop based process to the next. And it's just monkey barring continually. And if you have a breakdown in labor or an anomaly in the farming system, it causes mayhem. It's just such a finely tuned system that we have that we're busting yourself to keep it firing. And I mean,
we were greedy because it was profitable. But yeah, it certainly minds me of resilience. And I think, yeah, look, it's funny. Some challenges you are fine with and some of them knock you. And there's no rhyme or reason to it in my reflection. For me it was that agent just going, " Ooh," looking at the lambs. We went
through COVID fine. COVID wasn't an issue for us. I mean partly because we had the bushfires in the three months prior where that was far worse. We had no phone reception, you couldn't see anything. The highways were closed. COVID was actually probably a significant improvement from where we were within the bushfires. But there is no rhyme or reason for me as to what triggers something directly to
start impacting you. And for those that aren't affected by it, I mean I'm supremely happy. It's a very hard thing for people, I think, to comprehend that haven't had challenges. But I know there's people out there that don't. And I don't certainly resent that at all.
I think a lot of producers would understand where you're coming from and having that system just redlining almost like an engine. Yeah, going from one operation to the next with no real downtime. A lot of people would be able to apply that in their own situation and hopefully, yeah, be able to pick up on some of the triggers that might bring them low.
Yeah. It's an evolving issue within society, but it's evolving in the right ways I think. And that's something to be hopeful about in terms of where mental health sits. Both mental health for the people that are mentally healthy and mental health for the people that are struggling.
Just for my final question, what do you see as the big issue in Australian ag at the moment?
No, I think the balance of land use in Australian agriculture is probably one of the biggest issues, and that's whether the land is used for primary production or that it's mandatory used for emissions abatement or whether it's mandatorily used for biodiversity in conservation. Or I mean, there's other addendums to that as well. There's timber production or housing and residential.
I think we're at a juncture in Australian agricultural history where, and I'm talking to federal government here, but we need to decide what we want the Australian agricultural industry to be. And how it fits within the economic, social, and
environmental space of Australia's future. And I do think we're at a juncture where the ill- thought out pen stroke could have significant ramifications for agricultural production in this country going forwards.
Yeah, I think our landowners are definitely some of our better land managers. I think there's probably a lot of industries and maybe government agencies, but maybe I'll get in trouble for saying too much there, that might be able to learn a thing or two from farmers. Yeah, definitely agree with you. That's a good one, mate. I don't think
we've heard that one before. Yeah, thanks for that. Mate, I've had a cracking time today, so thanks so much for coming on the podcast, John.
My pleasure. Hope to catch up soon.
If you need support for your mental health, please contact Lifeline on 13- 11- 14 or the Mental Health Hotline on 1- 800- 011- 511. Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you by Central West Local Land Services. Local Land Services delivers advice and support to Farmers, landholders, and the community across
New South Wales. To learn more, you can find us online by searching for Central West Local Land Services. If you'd like more information about the topics we discuss today, as well as links to relevant articles, fact sheets, events, and other helpful resources, we've added those into the show notes for this episode. You can find them by tapping or swiping over the cover art in your podcast player
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