BCG Farm in Focus – Ken and Kathleen Dodds

By: "Farm Tender" News
US & World News
Nov 02, 2018
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Ken and Kathleen Dodds farm at Lorquon in the West Wimmera. Their farming business is comprised of cropping and hay enterprises. They have received 210mm for the year to date and 175mm over the growing season (April to October).

Given the conditions this year, what decisions have you made?

Some paddocks were affected by dry conditions in September, so we’ve cut two wheat crops for hay to take advantage of high hay prices. The rest of our wheat, barley and lentil crops will be harvested.

Hay is part of our business anyway with the vetch, so that’s a given. We always make vetch hay and it’s been very successful in our area.

How are you feeling about that decision now?

We’re sitting very happily. It’s reinforced our sowing by the calendar policy. The other thing that comes into it is single pass agriculture, our narrow point sowing, and it works.

Prior to making this change, our soils were depleting and going downwards in fertility. Now the vetch and minimum tillage are vital to our system and the place is improving out of sight. Rather than going backwards, we’re moving forwards every year. We’ve never been so excited about farming. You needed 15 inches (375mm) to grow a crop in the traditional way and now I reckon we can do it on 11 inches (275mm).

We’re comfortable with drought-like conditions now.

It must also be said that our long-term business relationship with our contractor and neighbouring farmer, Michael Koop, has been exceptional. A mutual passion for farming and great communication has been key here.

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What are your priorities going to be for harvest?

We want to do it efficiently of course and we must fit in with our contractor. We’re also going to consider whether we have enough biomass in the wheat paddocks to sell the straw for export.

We’ll look at weather conditions at the time, whether it’s had rain that has spoiled it or not, and whether there’s a window of opportunity to do it. The market is there this year because of the drought so it’s a very good time for us as we are lucky enough to have biomass in a year where, in most areas, there is none and the prices have gone sky high.

We’ll keep our lentils and we’ll store them on farm until the price comes up. We’re prepared to keep them for up to two years at this stage. With vetch, the market is looking for it, so we’ll probably sell to different purchasers. That’s one of my afternoon jobs today, to start ringing contacts up now and advise that we have a bit of hay. We’ve sold it mainly down south to dairies in Warrnambool and surrounds.

What are the challenges and opportunities you see for your farm and farming in the Wimmera/Mallee, in the future?

Annual ryegrass resistance is a challenge. We’ve got to beat the resistant weeds. We need to use rotations and act quickly.

I see farming as a great business investment. Regarding the generation transfer (succession planning), our approach is ‘education first’, then come back and the place is wide open for family members that are interested and can come back as investors.

I’m very excited about the future of agriculture. I think it’s a key part of the Australian economy going forward and I’m really glad that we have sustainable cropping methods in this type of country.

What do you and Kathleen do outside of the farm?

Kathleen was a school teacher and she has taught two generations. I’m a Rural Financial Counsellor with the Victoria – Wimmera South Rural Financial Counselling Service, based out of Hamilton. Eight colleagues and myself cover an area from the South Australian border to Geelong right across the Wimmera and Western District. We principally assist farming clients with financial planning and applications for interest subsidies, Farm Household Allowance, cash flows and balance sheets.

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