Andy Cassim

In the New South Wales Southern Tablelands, beef producer Andy Cassim has put together a well-engineered drought strategy to help see him through the persisting dry times.

On his 400 hectare property ‘Glenfield’, Majors Creek, south of Braidwood, Mr Cassim runs a self-replacing Hereford herd of about 150 breeders and either sells weaner calves or grows the cattle out to feedlot weight.

With yet another season shaping up as not much of an improvement on previous years, Mr Cassim has undertaken the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) StockPlan® workshop to help ensure he makes the best possible drought management decisions.

StockPlan® is a training program for sheep and beef producers, advisors and agribusiness, focusing on developing a flexible drought management plan. The training manual is backed by three key decision support programs: these computer applications allow the least cost strategies for drought and the recovery period to be easily determined.

‘Essentially the training package gives you a road map to create a drought management plan,’ Mr Cassim said. ‘It helps you put together a complete drought strategy so that you have a plan to work with – a plan that can be incorporated into your business.

‘Having done all the base work just makes that whole decision-making process a lot easier during drought. And by identifying weaknesses in your enterprise early, you can start to work towards solving problems before you are in a drought situation.’

Mr Cassim said that through StockPlan® he had access to tools to help him make informed business choices in relation to drought-related issues.

‘The first program, Drought Pack, assesses the cost of feeding and provides a break-even point,’ he explained. ‘I found it helped me make informed choices about stocking tactics. I could determine the cost of retaining and feeding livestock and the amount of fodder required for a lengthy dry period.’

He said Drought Pack also helped him to estimate the break-even price he could afford to pay to replace a particular class of stock at the end of a drought.

‘The feed summary gives you the amount of feed (recorded in dry matter) needed per month, a cash flow based on all the available options and then a break-even point that allows you to make your decisions for the best possible outcome.

‘The feed, sell and agistment component (FSA Pack) is a fantastic computer program. You enter in the cost of available feeds, cost of agistment and current sale value of the livestock and the program gives you the bottom line.

‘You can spend many tedious hours weighing up your management options, particularly with changing markets, to find the bottom line - but, using the StockPlan® FSA program, the process is much faster and less complicated.’

Mr Cassim also found Im Pack of benefit. This is a herd modelling program that looks at herd numbers and associated cash flow over a 10 year period, as in the cash flow resulting from herd reduction during drought years.

‘It was astounding to find out just how long it can take to get back to full production if you remove a couple of age groups of cows during drought and then don’t buy in extra stock after the drought breaks.’

He said being able to identify the long-term impact of any selling decisions on the enterprise as a whole was also very helpful.

StockPlan® provides a producer manual, resource CDs, a version of the decision support software and a StockPlan® webpage on the Australian Wool Innovation and NSW DPI sites.

The software and user manual offer a selection of decision support computer tools that enable producers to explore management options in the early stages of drought and during drought. Management options are explored through three StockPlan tools: Drought Pack, Im Pack and FSA Pack; and advice is available through the StockPlan webpages and CD resources.