Real Farmers Managing Climate Risk

This month, Zita Ritchie interviews Paula Gray. Paula is a farmer form Rolland’s Plains on the Mid North Coast of NSW who farms with her husband Mick. The Gray’s have been the NSW case study farm for a project called Dairy Businesses for Future Climates which enables farmers to understand the likely impacts of climate on their farm and help them prepare to better manage the risks or changes.

It is the first time this project has been run in NSW with previous work having been done in dairying regions in Victoria, South Aust and Tasmania.

This project has been funded through the large R,D&E program DairyUP and Dairy Australia and facilitated by the NSW DPI.

Useful resources related to this podcast:

DairyUP

DairyUP clip of “Gray’s Focus Farm” 

Dairy Businesses for Future Climates (Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania)

This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit

It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services

Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com

Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include;

NSW DPI Dairy Facebook page

DPI Intensive Livestock Twitter feed

NSW DPI Dairy Newsletter

Transcript here

Produced by Video Lift

The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice. 

Transcript

The Business of Dairy 

Episode #18 Transcript – “Real Farmers Managing Climate Risk”
 
 

Sheena Carter: Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast, I'm your host Sheena Carter, Development Officer with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Team. Each month I speak with industry people generous enough to share their stories, knowledge and skills with us to help you in the increasingly complex area of farm business management. This month, my colleague Zita Ritchie interviews Paula Gray, Paula is a farmer from Rolland’s Plains on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, she farms with her husband Mick. The Gray’s have been a New South Wales case study farm for a project called Dairy Businesses for Future Climates, which enables farmers to understand the likely impacts of climate on their farm and help them prepare to better manage the risks or changes. 

It is the first time this project has been run in New South Wales, with previous work having been done in dairying regions in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. This project has been funded through the large R, D&E program DairyUp and Dairy Australia and facilitated by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. 

Zita Ritchie: Paula, welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast, it's great to have you along today. Recently you presented at the Bale Up conference, the Women in Dairy Conference in Port Macquarie last month, and it was such a great presentation that you did about your involvement in this project and it's just great to be able to share more about your experiences with the project and yeah, potentially reach a bigger audience that might be interested to find out more about it. So thanks for joining us. 

Paula Gray: Thank you. I'm excited about this one, I think climate change is something that is lurking for every farmer and this project is the start for all of us I think, to have a bit of a handle on the challenges we might face longer term. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, before we get into the project, I was wondering, just to give those listening a bit more background, could you just give us a bit of background about your farm, who you are, a bit of a description of the business and then yeah, we can talk more about the project as we go. 

Paula Gray: Right, so my husband and I, Michael, have been farming together on this property at Rolland's Plains near Port Macquarie in New South Wales since 2010. We've been farming together since 2001. We farmed in a number of states, on a number of sites and in a number of farming systems. We are now on a pasture based farm, we operate a PMR system,­ milking between 220 and 250 cows, and my husband and I are often ably assisted by our children and a small group of staff. 

Other things about our farm: we calve between March and December; my husband's passion is pasture and so we are pasture based with a PMR supplement; our current pasture mix is a mix of… the permanent pasture mix, is a mix of clover, lucerne, cocksfoot, prairie and chicory and our summer crops are BMR, peas, corn and we have recently introduced soybean into that mix as well. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, you got a bit of a mix there, don't you, going on in the system? Yeah, that's really good. So I guess what prompted you to get involved with this project? I mean, it started in 2021, what was your motivation for you and Mick to get involved in this project and a bit of a description about what the project was about? For those that don't know about it. 

Paula Gray: I guess for us, like many farmers in New South Wales, we've been primed to want to look at what was going on with our climate. We'd been talking for a number of years amongst ourselves at home, that rainfall seemed to be intermittent, further apart and kind of unreliable. And then I guess you couple in a major drought, bushfires and unfortunately in our region a major flood and we were pretty well primed to look… to be convinced that climate change was already occurring and to look at what we needed to do to adapt to further climate change. 

Zita Ritchie: And I think a lot of farmers can relate to that as well, particularly in our region, up mid-north coast lately, with the pretty significant floods we've experienced as well, so gives a bit of context about why you wanted to get involved. What were the key features, what was it trying to do, what was it looking at and what were you exploring in the project? 

Paula Gray: The project was specifically looking at dairy farming in New South Wales and looking at what may change as a result of climate change in the next 20 years in our region. And so as part of that there was a reference group formed which involved some professionals involved in consultation in the industry and local farmers who have an interest in seeing the further development in our industry really, I guess, in our region. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, and like, because, I mean how many were there on the reference group, probably about eight or ten farmers, is that about right? 

Paula Gray: Yeah, I think so, and I guess they went from Kempsey in the north to Taree in the south, as farmers, and so that's a couple of hundred kilometres I guess as a geographical snapshot. So that gives you a bit of a different range of climates in that region to start with and systems and just different business stages as well, which I think is important to look at. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, definitely, and slightly different systems as well. I was lucky enough to also be part of the project, in more of a facilitator role, for the reference group, what kind of function did that reference group play, what did they contribute? 

Paula Gray: The reference group was really quite an interesting group. The reason, I think, to have other people involved in the reference group and in the project, as such, was to make the project relevant to more farms then just ours. Our farm is merely a modelling tool, really nothing else about it. It gives you an idea of what will change and makes the project grounded in some reality. But the other farmers came from different stages of business, for their own developmental journey, and different considerations for where they thought, 1. Climate change would affect them and, 2. How they would adapt in their own business to climate change and so that gave a much broader perspective, I hope, for the whole project. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, for sure, and I think having the two consultants on the groups – we had Dan Armstrong who did the economic analysis, and then we had Brendan Cullen from Melbourne Uni doing some of the biophysical, like the climate modelling, the impacts. I think what was really good too, Paula, was that the reference group, the Farmer Reference group, were able to cross-check like… ground that modelling in reality. To be able to test and give them feedback on some of the results that it had, like with the group and say, oh, look, this this could work, this could not work, you know, kind of ground truthing it as well, which was interesting. 

Paula Gray: Well, it's really important that it's not an abstract study. Climate change is not an absolute, the models are pretty clear that there's a certain trend going to occur, but it's not an absolute. And so it's really important that there's some grounding in some reality of what's really likely to occur with the knowns that we have in what is forever an unstable system being weather. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, absolutely. So, given that the project was centred around climate and the impacts of climate change on the risks now and into the future, you mentioned you've already experienced some of these events, how has the climate already impacted your farm, whether that’s financially, production wise, people, like for Mick and yourself? That’s a big question, I know, but it has probably motivated you to be involved in the project, but I'm just wondering if any key things stand out, I guess, in terms of the impacts that you're facing at the moment? 

Paula Gray: The year we're recording this is 2022 and for most of the east coast of New South Wales it's been an extremely wet, very challenging season. And I guess one of the things that was really challenging this year was the constant wet, but particularly the constant wet at key periods of the year. So for us we had an extremely wet autumn, which in this region is a critical production time, so we're relying on getting our summer crops off and our winter crops in. We were fortunate enough to get those two circumstances to happen fairly well, and I say fairly well because it was very protracted. 

But this is perhaps a reality for what will continue to happen with climate change. If our autumns are going to be significantly wetter this could be a real challenge for our future management and it's a bit of a taste of how you have to try and be extra adaptable, if there's such a thing, with climate change challenging you how to manage your dairy to the best it can be. 

Zita Ritchie: So the group, the reference group, met over a period of 12 months, face-to-face and then online meetings, using your farm as the case study, essentially, to represent what could be happening in the region on other farms. With the biophysical modelling, so when I say biophysical I mean, what are some of the changes that we’d see in the biological systems? So changes to pasture production, impact on the cow, milk production, that kind of thing. What are some of the key findings from that modelling, this is modelling out to 2040, what are some of the key things that you found and did anything surprise you or stand out from things that you were already experiencing, what was different out to 2040? 

Paula Gray: The first thing, I guess, that really – particularly given 2022 alarmed us – was that regions that could be similar climate to ours in 2040 would be Nambucca, Lismore and further north into Queensland. Now those regions, I would say, suffered a horrendous early autumn due to the flooding that happened there. And I know that the flooding is a one off, we hope that the flooding is a one off, but it's certainly a wakeup call that we could potentially experience significantly more rainfall in our region in the future and that could be a real challenge. 

The other parts of the climate change for 2040 are probably equally as devastating. A one degree increase in temperature for this region, for 2040, based on an increase in temperature from a baseline of the years 1990 to 2009, so that's not that long ago, I think that temperature change could present real challenges for us, particularly as the extremes for heat stress could extend now, or are likely to extend in our region, from October to March. 

It almost means that your management needs to be set up for heat stress and heat more than anything else. The other parts of climate change that I think will present a real challenge will be the decline in winter rainfall. 2040 figures are what I'm going to quote, so a decline by 5% in winter rainfall and an increase in autumn rainfall by the tune of 10%. There'll be little annual change overall for our rainfall – basically, our region is reliant on storms and the storms will still come and should give us a fairly robust rainfall across the year, however, it will be concentrated in fewer events for the longer periods between – I guess that’ll be a real challenge for us.

The other part of the change in 2040 for climate really means that our animals will have to be more adaptive, if that is possible, and our pasture will have to be fairly resilient to periods of dry and wet and hotter periods in between. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, so there's definitely a few different impacts with the research that you touched on, what do you think's the key focus for you in managing those risks, out of those impacts is there one that stands out more than the others, is more critical to manage? 

Paula Gray: For us the heat stress is the most critical to manage, simply because the modelling indicates we might take an extreme production impact in lactation. Heat stress impact could be something like four litres a cow throughout the summer, which is per day, so that is a huge impact, so I think that's the one that we can adapt most easily and most consistently. It's very hard to adapt your pasture on a long term basis if you're based on cropping. It's something you need to do more regularly rather than a broad decade or two-decade long look. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, and like you mentioned, that four litre decline, I think the figure was something like… was it 3 to 4% decrease in total production across the year wasn’t it, in 2040? That's probably representative of what could happen on other farms too, potentially, that kind of heat stress impact there. There's definitely some significant impacts, aren't there, Paula? But also what I found surprising, also maybe pleasingly, but rainfall events will likely be more intense, but not a great deal in change of annual rainfall which made the pasture feed base actually quite resilient to predicted climate change, which I thought was, well, I was surprised by that given what I've learnt and experienced in southern Australia, so in Victoria, for example, where they're seeing more of that contraction to the growing season, particularly autumn and spring, you know, positively, there's aspects there that the feed base system is quite robust, so it's trying to manage that. I don't know if that was the same for you or not, but yeah, that's what I was kind of surprised that with the modelling. 

Paula Gray: I think our region is very fortunate. Pasture growth responds to rainfall pretty much at any time of the year here, provided you plant the crops they will grow. We are very fortunate that we have a relatively mild climate. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, that's right. So now you've met as a group, we've got the impacts, so then what did the group discuss? So it's around, okay, this is the likely changes we’re to see in temperature, rainfall, heat stress impacts, then what did the group do in terms of looking at development options and what were the options that you looked at as the reference group to adapt to climate change? 

Paula Gray: The group looked at climate in 2040 and decided that you had the option to either develop or take, perhaps, what could be seen as a step back in development, or to do some adaptation. And so broadly in the group, we called those options a housed system, which was basically an intensify system. An adaptation system, which was using the current farm, current location, current facilities and perhaps changing them a little bit or changing your calving pattern or changing your pasture, and then we had a simplify option, which was… and I hesitate to say, I don't think it was an easier option or a regression, it was simply not being quite so intensive. However, I would be very quick to note that the simplify option requires an extremely good manager. The basis of the simplify option was a pasture based system, and so that really relied on whoever was managing that being really good at pasture management. If your basis of production is pasture then you need to be really good at it and you need to be really adaptable as required. 

Zita Ritchie: I think that's a really good reflection because if you think, okay, adapting to climate change, alright we've got to change and maybe build more infrastructure, which sure, that might be an option for some farmers, but then not looking at the simplify system is an easier option, it is just requiring a different set of skills really, and where the businesses at that stage and what the business hopes to get out of it. So I think looking at these three options is really good and challenging also, because one farmer will view one option better for his or her place compared to another – it's quite an interesting way to look at it. 

Paula Gray: I think it was really important as the whole group to have a number of farmers involved. There were a number of people with different ages and different stages of business, and I think that presented different opportunities for all of us. And so the other options that we looked at was an intensify option, which was to become more reliant on housing of animals for feeding and management of their heat stress and during wet periods – so I guess the whole lot, and so that was a housing option where they would be fully housed and the farm would become a cropping operation only. To utilise the housing in a better manner, year round calving would be a priority and concentrates per animal would be increased and this had a really good impact on production to the tune of 67% increase, so it's quite a significant increase in milk solids. This one was really surprising when the analysis was done because these animals were the most susceptible to heat stress. Basically a cow milking really well has a higher impact on heat stress, which I guess shouldn't have been a surprise but I must say it did surprise me during the analysis. 

So the intensify option requires a large investment. It requires high investment in machinery. For our circumstances and the base farm – so that's what I'm discussing – an investment in machinery, a new dairy, significant housing and feed storage facilities, and it requires high equity. The intensify option was really good, it increased cow comfort and production, particularly in the extreme years. One of the things that the group did note was that this would require a very skilled labour force and the risks for the intensify option was deemed to perhaps be the exposure to the grain market, particularly in a dry period and for this region it could be potentially a difficulty with access to contractors. The intensify option required the operation to be very finely tuned and timing of operations, such as harvesting and planting, were absolutely critical to the success of the business. It was a highly variable option with profit and risk being dependent on extreme factors, external factors. Certainly when a higher milk price was present, the option to house animals was a really attractive investment. 

The second option that we looked at was adaptation. So things from the herd and farm, from the base farm, stay fairly similar in terms of herd size and calving pattern and the concentrates stuck at around two tonne of concentrates per cow per year, so again, fairly similar to the base farm. The permanent pastures stayed fairly similar to the base farm, and so the real adaptations were perhaps in more permanent pasture, involving tropical and temperate mixes, and a modest investment in concrete and shade to simply allow for better management of the heat stress and the wetter periods. It was a modest capital investment and reflected in that, perhaps was a modest increase in production per animal, associated with the increased intake. It certainly achieved the outcomes of increased cow comfort and decreased heat stress, which were things that were deemed to be critical for success in a changing climate. 

And then there was a simplify option, which was to decrease the herd size from 230 down to 180 cows and decrease the concentrate use down to about a tonne a cow a year. This had a corresponding decline in milk solid production of about 27%. So there was some labour saving initiatives suggested in the simplify option. Split carving would enable, hopefully, less labour required. It was noticed that the lower production would have a restriction on the ability for the business to purchase in the future. It was considered a less debt option, and as I've stated, it would require someone who is very in tune with pasture production because it is a highly exposed business to pasture production. So I think, even though it's less cows, it requires some very savvy management to be a success. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah well, it's requiring different skills… each system is requiring a different set of skills and different emphasis on labour. I mean, you're right – I’m just reflecting back on that intensify housed adoption – I think the group overall were fairly surprised in the results of that, like you said, you know, well I guess the cows being… high producing cows more impacted on heat stress, but also the variation in potential profit and returns based on those external factors. Like you said, it performs really well with a higher milk price, but then is so exposed to the external feed market, which we know goes up and down and, depending on dry or wet season, on a broader basis. So it really comes down to the attitude to risk, doesn't it, with a lot of those things? 

Paula Gray: Very much. Each option really would have to manage the year on year variability, which would be a real challenge. And the climate is going to be a challenge in 2040 and for all options, compared to today, the profit did decline in real terms. So climate will have an impact, it's just trying to manage it so that it has a lesser impact on your business. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, that's right, because the economics showed that regardless of whatever option we went with, we'd still say a decline in overall profit than the base farm currently today, so it's just knowing that. But I guess was there, I mean, often people ask me, well, was there a clear winner of the options? I think Dan and Brendan would both say that there's positives and negatives to both options, but for you and Mick, from where you sit and for your business, is there an option that stands out more to you, or is an option that you would consider going down that path? 

Paula Gray: I guess everyone carries baggage in their farming business and our baggage is we've done a free-stall farm in the past and we didn't like it, so for us, the intensify option is not one we even want to consider. My husband is really passionate about pasture growing and so the adaptation option is the one we want to do. I would love to be in a financial position to do the simplify option, but right now I think we want the challenge of running more cows and getting more… I guess pushing our farm further. But I don't think we want the risk of having to be fully pasture reliant, which is what the simplify option for us would be. I think this farm performs really well sometimes, but I don't think I am game enough to rely on pasture growth alone for our production. And so for us the adaptation option is a really attractive option and it had been one we had accidentally, I guess, been starting to work towards already with looking at how our farm performs. 

We have already slightly changed our pasture in the last couple of years to become a more subtropical and temperate mix and we have changed our calving pattern in the last couple of years to try and avoid the heat. I'm not saying you can't calve cows in the heat, but it can be a challenge and I think we both think it's one we can do without. Sometimes summers here can be pretty ferocious and the animals really can suffer at times when you would like them to just be kicking on and calving well and starting to milk well and just feeling great. And so I guess they’re some of the reasons we like the adaptation option, and I guess there's a bit of comfort in what we already know and we can see that we can easily adapt our current operation with just smaller tweaks here and there, as opposed to the housed option, which would be quite intensive, and I think perhaps not necessarily reflective of where we are in our stage in our career. If we'd done this ten years ago I might have looked at that and gone yeah, we should do that. And I guess the simplify option in ten years’ time, I may look at that and go, yep, we want to do that too.

The up part of it is our farm has a creek and a river through it. And so for us, on a very practical level, this is not a farm that would do well for housed. A large portion of our farm gets flooded and so there would be a real problem with citing a space to house cows effectively and the effluent management would be frankly a nightmare. And so I think it's a great option, just not for here. For a different farm, even in this region, would be great. Just not this one. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, that's right, like taking those physical characteristics into consideration is pretty critical, isn't it, with investing so much capital like that. So but with the adapt option, like you said, it's kind of more suitable for where you're at with the farm and what you want to be focusing on and it allows that more moderate capital investment to mitigate those impacts of heat stress. So have you and Mick discussed anything further about… well you've said you've already made changes slightly to the calving pattern and pasture and that kind of thing, but with that option, with looking at, you know, a concrete feed pad or extra shade – I know that was discussed in that option ­– since the project, have you discussed any plans about wanting to take that further, or what are your plans with that going forward? 

Paula Gray: Yes, we are actively planning for that one. We are hoping to have approval sometime in the next six months from council to do a concrete shade shelter for our cows, to have them fed underneath and as a shade option during the extremes of summer, and I think, perhaps even an option for them to have somewhere to go that's not quite so wet in the pelting rain should we have a year similar to this one again. It will not be a bedding option, but it will be a feeding option. 

So as well as that shade, we're also looking actively into covering our cow yard further. It has a small portion of shade, we're looking to cover most of it with shade; expand our sprinkler system underneath the shade; we're looking at altering our watering system slightly, not at the locations closer to the dairy, but at the extremes of the farm where there is more natural shade at present and we could put the cows there more often until we get some options for shade closer to the dairy ­– if they had better access to water and I think we'd see a lesser decline in production. And we have actively planted some trees adjacent to the dairy in a couple of locations with the view of them providing shade for cows in the longer term. So we're well on board with the adaptation option and we're looking at making that the one that we want to pursue. 

Zita Ritchie: That's fantastic. For the other farmers in the group, obviously there were different businesses there in different locations, do you know of any of them, if they're considering any other options or have interest in the adapt option as well, or more the intensive system? 

Paula Gray: There's definitely a farm located further north of us that is actively pursuing the housed option and I think for them that will be a really good option. They've put some real focus into that and some real background into it and I think they’re well along the way of planning to have a housed system for their cows and turn their farm more into a cropping operation. I think they're at a different stage to us so I think that complements them and their family and their farm quite well. As to the simplify option, I'm not aware of anyone in the group looking at that, but there are plenty of people farming in our region and I'm sure that that will be an option that some will actively pursue. And I think we need to be very careful to say that simplify is not necessarily an easier option or a less technical option, because I think it requires a lot of skill and a lot of management. Simply because you have less cows doesn't mean you have less demands on your farm to make it perform well and I think that that's a really critical point to make, that the simplify option requires still a fair bit of knowledge and skill. It's a really good option for some people. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, that's right. So although it says simplify, it's not simple at the end of the day is it? It’s just different. 

I think that's a really great overview of the project, Paula, and especially practically about how you're, you know, actively considering it on farm and the things that you and Mick are planning to do in the future too. I mean, overall, do you think the research has given you more confidence to do that, and also input from the farmers in the room as well that we had on the project? 

Paula Gray:  Oh, I've loved the project, I think it's been really good. We were kind of surprised, I guess,­ when the project sort of validated what we’d thought was changing with the climate. We just sort of thought it was anecdotal and I guess the spin-off of being too experienced to, I say too experienced, but having lived through a drought recently, so you sort of had a bit of a skewed look. So we were quite surprised that the climate change that we thought was occurring was, was validated by the project and I guess it really spurred us to really decide that we needed to make some changes before climate change accelerated for us and try and give us a chance to be on the front foot and be proactive in changing our business. 

Zita Ritchie: Yeah, and I think that's like a message that we can all take, you know, as an industry as well, just being proactive and just knowing what the risks are and how we can incorporate that into our management and thinking ahead for the future. Do you have any key messages that you'd like to leave any farmers with listening, or industry, about the project or how you view managing climate in the future as an industry going forward? 

Paula Gray: I guess one of the things that this project also highlighted that there will be a large variation year on year and I guess the last eight years of farming have certainly – no season has been the same, no year has been the same. And so you have to be fairly analytical of your business and I think perhaps prepared to try things that you didn't think were the things you needed to do in your pasture, or your farm, or your carving pattern. I guess it's easy to be set in your ways and think that you don't need to change, but I think the reality is most of us change and try to fine tune our business most days, years, weeks – I'm not sure which timeline you want to look at, and I'm hoping that this is just the start of climate change focus within the industry. There's a real challenge here that we all need to step up and have a look at and each change for climate within the business is not for everyone, so I think the more research is done then perhaps the more options people will look at and decide what is for them, not necessarily just in the overall business, but maybe it's pasture, maybe it's calving pattern, maybe it's breed. Dairying is pretty diverse and changes can be exactly that as well. 

Zita Ritchie: That's a really great overview, Paula, and I don't know, for me personally too, being on this project and working with you and Mick and the reference group, and Dan and Brendan from the technical perspective, I've learnt a lot and just really trying to focus on, okay, these are the known risks – well the very likely known risks, that we're going to experience into the future and what can we do about it as an industry? And like you said, you know, farms are already adapting daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, depending on what's going on, so I've got confidence that we can adapt as best we can to kind of meet these challenges. It's just, yeah, the more information that we can get to farmers to help incorporate that decision making into their business too the better, so yeah, thanks so much for taking the time today to have a chat to us and as a follow on from the conference last month too, it's great to chat to you more about the project in detail and where we can go from here, I guess. 

If people want more information about the project, I mean they're welcome to contact you or I, but also there is information on the Dairy Australia website, we might be able to put it in the show notes, but on the website, you can just go to the Dairy Australia website, and type in “dairy business for future climates” and you can actually get the case study of Mick and Paula’s farm, but you can also get case studies – so if there's listeners here from other states – so Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, we've done some modelling down there, you can jump on and have a look what some of the impacts are likely for your region and then yeah, the adaptation options that were explored in those case studies as well. But yeah, hopefully that's given everyone a bit of a summary and thanks very much and thanks again, Paula, and I'm sure we'll be seeing you around soon. 

Paula Gray: Thank you very much, we've loved the project and I hope many listeners get a lot out of researching the project as well. Good luck. 

Zita Ritchie: Great, thank you. 

Sheena Carter: Thank you for listening to this month's The Business of Dairy podcast, produced by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Business Advisory Unit. This series is also brought to you with funding and support from the Hunter Local Land Services. A big thanks to Paula for sharing her learnings from the project with us in this podcast. Climate and weather impacts both short, medium and long term, are risks that need to be managed by all farmers. If you would like to see further information on this and other projects that are being delivered in New South Wales through the Dairy Up program, please go to the link in the show notes or google “Dairy Up”. There is also a link to the work done in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the show notes through Dairy Businesses for Future Climates Project. 

We'd love you to share this podcast with your networks and feel free to send any feedback or suggestions for future episodes to thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com. You can also subscribe to our New South Wales DPI Dairy Facebook and DPI Livestock Twitter Feed and view or subscribe to our quarterly DPI dairy newsletter using the links provided.