Re-thinking the value proposition of grazing crops
A team of researchers, farm economists and farm consultants have joined forces to undertake an MLA/MDC funded 5-year project that will cast a new lens on the value of grazing crops.
Grazing crops has copped a mostly poor wrap in WA since the concept was flagged well more than a decade ago, especially in medium to low rainfall zones.
But much has changed in that time, with significant new cultivars now commonplace and farm economics driving changes to farming systems. The changes are so significant that the project team is setting out to prove the value of crop grazing and encourage the WA industry to ‘have another go’.
The simple maths suggest that if growers were to increase the area of winter crop grazed by just 10 per cent across the state, then we would be making an extra 1.6m ha of grazable land available at a time of year when feed is the limiting factor.
The project will start by documenting what is happening in this space now – who isn’t grazing crops and why; but also who is; how they’re doing it and what are the differences in outcomes across the rainfall zones.
But in order to give options to those who don’t currently graze crops and need evidence and guardrails to try it, or try it again, a series of on-farm trials, experiments and economic analysis will follow the initial benchmark work.
The success of grazing crops requires a clever combination of timing, crop type, livestock class, season and appetite for risk. The project will deliver a freshly informed set of crop grazing guidelines that considers these new paradigms and quantifies the value to a whole of farm system, while providing producers with evidence in the value and time invested in grazing crops.
Graze expectations is funded by Meat and Livestock Australia (using sheep levy funds and MLA Donor Company – Australian Government), WAARC and Murdoch University in collaboration with CSRIO.
The project team includes Murdoch and CSIRO researchers plus farm consultants Alan Peggs, Phil Barrett Lennard, Ed Riggall and Nick Eyers, and farm economists Michael and John Young. The Grower Group Alliance will play a key role in extending the project information on behalf of the team.