John Hamparsum
'Drayton'
Breeza NSW
On January 19th 1991 John Hamparsum experienced first hand the power of weather over his livelihood. John's 1480 hectare property 'Drayton' at Breeza, (near Tamworth, NSW) was purchased by John's father in 1961 as a grazing enterprise. It went on to become one of the first irrigation properties in the area, producing mainly irrigated cotton, with some wheat and corn. Water comes mainly from bores, with some surface water from high flows in the Mooki River. |  |
A departmental change in water licensing from area to volumetric in the early eighties resulted in over-allocation of water resources. They faced losing up to 77% of their allocation of groundwater for irrigation.
'My father was against the department's approach because he believed it was a mining situation that wouldn't be sustainable. But they ignored his advice' John said.
'Now we're faced with a situation where we could lose up to 77% of our licence, which means our farm is under considerable pressure because our infrastructure is set up for 100% allocation.
'Our interest in the climate has been exacerbated by the pressure that's been placed upon us, so we use as much information as we can to minimise the amount of water that we need to put on the paddocks and try to keep that water in the bank until we need it in dry times.
John turned his lifelong interest in weather into a serious study of how he could predict and plan for the longer-term cycles of climate. He drew on the independent learning techniques he developed while studying agriculture at the University of Western Sydney Hawkesbury. His observation of weather as a pilot also proved to be of great benefit.
'You access information from as many relevant sources as possible. You determine what is relevant to your operation and then stay in touch with it constantly' John said.
'Putting it all together in to your head and making an informed decision is the secret of success. Nobody gets it 100 percent right.'
John had early success using seasonal forecasts to help the farm recover from the 1991 losses. Under pressure from the bank, he was facing forecasts of a dry season in 1992. After talks with the National Climate Centre, John decided to take the risk of putting down a new irrigation bore, at a cost of $150,000.
'To make the money back we needed a crop. To grow a crop we needed water' John said.
'We put the bore down and as a result managed to increase our yield during a period of no rain. I was able to compare the fields that were irrigated with those that weren't.
'We increased yield by 1.5 bales of cotton per acre on 450 acres in a drought year. We ended up with a 300 percent return on our investment in the first year.'
John and his father Ian travelled to the United States to talk to Mississippi researchers about managing for climate variability. They returned with the catchcry 'Earliness is next to Godliness' and changed their whole philosophy of cropping. They began to work with the factors that would affect the cotton crop from well before the date of planting.
In 1998 their approach paid off again. There were indications in Autumn that the north-west cloud bands were getting stronger and that a wet winter was probably coming. John brought in another contractor to harvest the cotton crop as early as possible. The harvest was completed by May, while many neighbours were unable to complete harvesting until August because of the wet winter conditions.
'The costs of not getting the crop harvested in time are huge' John said. 'We saved over $150,000 in yield and grade penalties by harvesting before the rain.'
Climate is now a key factor in assessing risk and making management decisions for the coming season. John considers factors such as yield, prices and climate forecasts, then makes a decision about the risk involved in certain management decisions.
'Last year we had climate indicators showing a good finish to the season' John said. 'This year commodity prices are at record low levels. Even though there are indications of a wet summer coming on, I won't be growing dryland crops of a high risk nature.'
John accesses his climate information from the Internet (especially the Long Paddock and Bureau of Meteorology sites) and his shorter-term weather information from the Cotton Fields Farm Weather fax polling service, provided by the Special Services Unit of the Bureau of Meteorology.
'I've made a point of making personal phone contact and becoming friendly with the forecasters. I talk to them as regularly as I can and that seems to be of great benefit' John said.
'I've found by contacting them personally that they often get quite excited. They work in dingy offices and don't have much contact with their customers. They don't know how or why their information is being used.
'There needs to be a lot more interface between the researchers and the users. In fact one of the things we do is send down a bag of cotton seed to the special services unit each year and they plant it in their gardens in Sydney. It gives them a bit of an agricultural feel to what they're doing.'
John's advice to other farmers: 'Be observant of all the information you can access, from lots of different sources. Spend time analysing the information you get. If something new turns up, find out more about it.
'Recently we were in a drought and all of a sudden the trees started shooting leaves. Two weeks later we had six inches of rain. These sorts of observations are a lost art today, but your climate information needs to come from as many sources as possible.
'Remember to expect the unexpected! The chaos theory holds as much water as any other!'