Climate and sheep webinar
A free webinar from noon to 1pm on March 2 will provide sheep farmers with insight into the impact of climate variability on farming businesses and highlight ways to improve business resilience in a variable environment.
Lambs Alive agricultural consultant Dr Jason Trompf will present the webinar, which people can join via their web browsers, a Webex app on smartphones, tablets, ipads or by dialling in.
Dr Trompf said farmers had to juggle many factors to make big decisions – decisions that affected not only their livelihoods but the wellbeing of themselves and their families, animals and landscape.
He said the complexity of this ongoing juggling act was exacerbated by a highly variable environment and producers that established flexible business plans and deployed proactive management tactics could adapt most effectively.
“Improving the consistency of profits means that you need a production system that can make money across most years, not just the good ones,” he said.
“This means we need to be proactive and have strategies in place that can quickly adjust to the individual circumstances of a production season.”
Dr Trompf said the webinar would feature producers who had undertaken a review that critiqued the flexibility of their enterprises from an enterprise structure-mix, feed demand to pasture supply, infrastructure, animal management, genotype, business and human-resource management.
Dr Trompf has been an agricultural consultant for more than 20 years.
Working nationally, he has had significant input into the design, delivery and evaluation of a range of farm-management programs widely recognised for lifting onfarm productivity and profitability.
He also has extensive experience in lamb survival, consulting with and presenting to producers across Australia and New Zealand.
He has been associated with Bestwool Bestlamb and Betterbeef programs since their inception.
People can find out more information and get help joining the webinar by emailing climate.webinars@agriculture.vic.gov.au.