LAKE Bathurst farmer and lucerne producer Ian McLennan says he was glad to be able to speak to Prime Minister Tony Abbott when he visited Goulburn last Monday.
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Mr McLennan and his son Austin own ‘Connen Hill’, a 5,000 acre (2,000 ha) mixed farming operation approximately 5 kms north of Lake Bathurst.
At the moment the father and son team are producing 15,000 small square bales of lucerne hay each year, with the hope of increasing to 25,000 bales a year in future years.
They also run cattle and sheep enterprises with a flock of 2,000 Merinos and 2,000 or so cross-bred ewes, as well as 220 Angus cattle and their winter cropping program containing 140 hectares of oats, 60ha of canola and 35ha of barley.
The McLennans also currently have a water access licence where they can pump from their dam, which has a capacity of 300 megalitres.
“You can actually access 400ML some years as long as you don’t average more than 300-odd a year in a three year cycle of years,” Mr McLennan said.
“We’re using this water for irrigation mainly of lucerne, but also for some cereal crops.”
He explained to the Prime Minister about his thoughts on a State government policy regarding farm dams.
“I spoke to Tony about being able to build a dam in what is known as a ‘third-order stream,” Mr McLennan said.
“When you see blue lines on a map, the more blue lines that run into each other eventually become the third-order stream.
A lot of the time, the third order stream might not be all that major a stream, and may not always be a viable stream that flows into the Sydney water catchment, because what the State Government is worried about is getting enough water for the residents of Sydney.
So if you could find a third order stream which would be big enough to fill a reasonably large sized dam on everyone’s farm, we could all then build decent dams and then reticulate that water around our farms.”
Mr McLennan said that this measure would certainly drought-proof farms for stock watering purposes.
“You wouldn’t drought-proof it for feed purposes, but certainly for stock-water purposes,” he said.
“Mr Abbott seemed quite interested in this idea and asked me a couple of other questions about it, but whether he’s got any influence over our state government, who knows?”
He also spoke to the Prime Minister about the $20,000 budget write-offs for farm purchases which were implemented in the 2015 Federal budget.
“I asked Mr Abbott whether the $20,000 instant write-off measure could be a permanent thing, and he indicated that there was a good possibility that it will be permanent now,” Mr McLennan said.
“Also we spoke about the 100 percent write-off for new fencing which he hopes will continue into the foreseeable future as well.”
Mr McLennan also hosted a busload of farmers, agronomists and other delegates on Wednesday afternoon who were in Goulburn for the Grasslands Society of NSW 29th Annual Conference and were touring a number of local properties to find out more about their operations.
“It’s good to have a diverse group of people coming to visit here today,” he said.
“Obviously there were researchers there and farmers who seemed interested in everything that we do.
There’s a really good feeling in agriculture at the moment- there’s a future in it, people are making money and I also think the community is starting to value agriculture at more than any other time in my life.
I think they actually see the value in good, clean healthy food and they’re realising that we need to be self-sufficient in our food production.”
