The recent rain across NSW boosted confidence in rural and regional NSW and sent many to work sowing the 4.7 million hectare winter crop.

And for livestock producers the rains have shot pastures out of the ground.

I spent an afternoon in the rain at the Orange saleyards recently where there was a buoyant mood among the locals … rain was falling and prices were high.

I share their enthusiasm that this early break is a sign that we may be returning to a normal season … however we are a long way from declaring the drought over.

Let’s hope for soaking follow up rains in the coming weeks to build on this great start.

RAA expands farmer help

The Rural Assistance Authority (RAA) has opened a satellite office in Orange to help speed up the processing of Exceptional Circumstance (EC) applications.

The additional office has allowed the RAA to expand its operations and dramatically increase the number of EC applications being processed from 200 up to 350 per week.

An additional 16 new assessment staff have been employed in recent weeks.

This means the RAA now has three times the number of people working exclusively on processing EC applications compared to staffing levels at the beginning of the drought.

The RAA has more than 30 staff now 100 per cent focussed on processing EC applications and has increased its working hours to include Saturday so that it can meet demand.

Scientists awarded

Two NSW Department of Primary Industries beef and salinity researchers have received national recognition for excellence in innovation.

NSW DPI scientists based at Armidale, Dr Peter Parnell and Dr Garry Griffith, earned the Beef CRC an award for excellence in education and training and public outreach activities.

The ‘adoption’ component of the award refers to the Beef Profit Partnerships project, a major program headed by Dr Parnell which involves training facilitators to achieve increased adoption of beef research by industry.

The Beef Profit Partnerships project is also supported by Dr Griffith, a senior NSW DPI economist, whose research was critical to the recent successful bid for the third successive Beef CRC, known as the Beef Genetic Technologies CRC.

The second innovation award, in recognition in adoption and end use of research went to the Sustainable Grazing for Saline Lands project and associated Grazing Systems teams run under the auspices of the Salinity CRC.

Core research sites in NSW were led by Dr Warren King (recently replaced by Dr Warwick Badgery) and producer network sites are led by Luke Beange.

Congratulations to these researchers on their fine work and for receiving due recognition.