Meet the Researcher – Jon Welsh

Jon Welsh

Farmer Forecast lead climate analyst

When and why did you become interested in climate?

I came home to a mixed farming business at Walcha in the mid-1990s which ended up adding a block at Coolah in the central west five years later. 1994 was my first year on the farm, which was coined a ‘once in a generation’ drought - technically every 25 years. When you own livestock, protracted droughts can be gruelling, physically and emotionally. More so with cattle that eat the drought feed as quick as a bank can print the money. My father would not sell into a depressed drought affected cattle markets, so we fed, fed, fed, and lopped kurrajong scrub. Dry times in 1994, 2002, and the first half of 2005 then another drought of 2006 and a near record breaker of 2009 seemed more than bad luck. During the contrasting 2005 dry first half and wet second half of the year I started to wonder if science could help anticipate these emphatic shifts and that our farm’s fortunes were driven by the climate. Waiting for natural springs to break out and truck drivers giving advice on Bogong moth sightings was not working on a farm management level.

So, was it simply the toll of feeding cattle that motivated you?

Yes and no. Yes, because when you started feeding it was nearly impossible to know when to stop. We fed all our cows through a dry time for 10 months, sold them - then it rained cats and dogs 8 weeks later. Feeding over long periods costed a fortune and we almost gave back all the profits we made the year before when the dollar sunk to 45c (and stock prices were at record high levels). No, because the ‘once in a generation’ droughts that were meant to be 25 years were happening every 5 years or less. Old timers in the district used to shake their heads and say, ‘things were never like this’. The annual rainfall at Coolah could vary from 350mm to 1200mm in any given year. We used to budget for 28” but I don’t think we ever hit near that number in 13 years we were at Coolah. We bought a black soil grain farm and sold the grain crop on it for $130/t when grain was everywhere in a great season. No rain for 6 months followed, and we bought grain back to feed stock for $300/t. If science could help, then decisions to buy and sell stock and grain would be more informed – rather than simply a game of Russian Roulette.

“OUR CATTLE IN ONE OF THE MANY DROUGHT YEARS, WHICH, IN HINDSIGHT, HAD STRONG CORRELATIONS WITH BOTH THE MODOKI INDEX AND IOD. IF ONLY I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW”

What was your first step in understanding climate science?

There was 35 years of historical on-property rainfall records at Coolah and I started to compare them with climate cycles. I started to search online and find out about El Niño and La Niña which I thought was complete hocus pocus and witchcraft at the time. That preconception was mainly from 1997 touted as the El Niño ‘event of the century’ which was a good year with a wet spring. I cold-called CSIRO oceanography research in Hobart. I was dusty and stressed one lunch time with no end to the drought in sight. I was transferred by the receptionist to Dr Mike Pook who was very helpful, and we had a cordial chat. I was encouraged he gave airtime to a complete stranger. He then suggested I investigate the research done by ‘a bunch of scientists in Japan’ who had done some neat analysis on the Indian Ocean and the effects on the Australian climate. So, I scribbled down a Japanese surname and a research agency in Tokyo. With that encouragement I looked up the telephone country code of Japan and made an international call. To my surprise the receiver (Prof Toshio Yamagata) spoke broken English and was happy to discuss his findings. Our conversation centred around the Australian drought and farmer suicide here that must have made international news at that time. I was heartened once again and continued my climate investigations. After thinking excel was a brand of planter, I put the 35 years’ worth of monthly data into a spreadsheet as requested and sent it via email to the Japanese Agency for Marine Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). The climatic analysis that eventuated from the Japanese researchers aroused my interest in climate science and Australian rainfall.

IN 2009, JAPANESE NATIONAL BROADCASTER NHK, FLEW OUT TO AUSTRALIA TO REPORT ON A FARMER USING JAPANESE RESEARCH TO MANAGE DROUGHTS. THE AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY FIRST REFERRED TO THE INDIAN OCEAN DIPOLE IN CLIMATE ANALYSIS IN 2013

Speaking at an APEC international climate symposium in Japan – how did that happen?

In 2008 I was in routine communications with Dr Behera Swadhin, a colleague of Prof. Toshio at JAMSTEC, Japan. Halfway through the year they asked me to talk at the upcoming climate symposium at Tokyo University on “Impacts of the Indian Ocean on SE Australian Agriculture”. I did not know what it all meant but it was an expense paid trip and I figured nobody in Japan would understand me anyway, so nothing to lose. For the presentation, I managed to convince the local Graincorp contact to release some site-specific receival data from various silo locations in NSW and did some basic regression analysis on annual grain intake and Indian Ocean Indices, with the help of my Japanese mentors. I then muddled my way nervously through the 40 minutes on stage at Tokyo University. It was a relief when the presentation was over. The hospitality shown, the tours of JAMSTEC and seeing the huge climate supercomputer in Yokohama was quite an experience.

Tell us about your move into cotton research and climate extension?

The move into climate research and extension is a complete accident. Family farming businesses are complex and transitioning between generations, while accounting for siblings rarely goes in a straight line. I ended up in Narrabri in 2013 without a job and met with Cotton Research & Development Corporation for a position that included a climate extension component. With that, came a well-resourced project and very supportive cotton R&D Managers: Dr Ian Taylor and Allan Williams who instilled free-thinking and a no-limits approach to finding out whatever I needed to wherever I needed to look. I was informed the only other personnel on the project register was NSW DPI research economist from out west of Wee Waa somewhere, Janine Powell. The 4-year CRDC project gave access to CSIRO researchers, universities, international research contacts, extension specialists nationwide, conferences, as well as exposure to climate R&D among a host of other things. A new business eventuated with Janine as founding partners from the previous project, to what is Ag Econ and Farmer Forecast currently. Climate ‘researcher’ tag given in this interview is probably not as apt as climate ‘survivor’.

“A LATE LA NIÑA CONDITION FINALLY ARRIVED AFTER ANOTHER DRY WINTER. A BIN-BUSTING PIONEER G33 SORGHUM CROP, PICTURED WITH AGRONOMIST, JAMES MILLER”

What areas of climate extension and research are you involved in now?

As part of the ongoing CRDC role, distilling relevant information sources for decision making for cotton growers and advisors currently covers traditional NSW and Queensland areas, but is now shifting into the tropics, which is exciting. Post-graduate lecturing at UNE and course content on agricultural climate risk management is currently in its 7th consecutive year as well as routine workshops with agronomists at decision times, also communications to Local Lands Services. In terms of climate research, the bulk of time commitment is spent on reviewing existing journals and planning new research projects for cotton and other RDCs via the Managing Climate Variability program including MLA, GRDC, SRA and AgriFutures – mainly for relevance and application to farming. However, there is some applied research coming through the pipeline I am involved in with UNSW and CSIRO, which we hope to publish in scientific journals this year.

After increasing your climate literacy over the years how has it affected your attitude to risk and farm decision making?

Partners can live in a marriage their whole life and never understand the opposite sex. In the same vein, farmers can live with the climate their whole life and not understand it, simply accept it. From my experience there have been wins and losses on the farm over the years trying to anticipate broad scale shifts in the climate, particularly when the lure of super profits beckons from a good trade. I bought a sizeable cotton seed contract once that increased 400% in six months on a dry forecast, purchased cattle for $1/kg at the end of a drought which made super profits before it rained. But there have been losses as well. Forward selling a portion of Faba Beans during a wet harvest ended in disaster after 300mm - which isn’t easily forgotten. The commodities market is clearly better educated on climate than it was 10-15 years ago, without as many short-term wild swings in prices. Climate knowledge has without doubt, helped manage our livestock numbers and manage risk over the last 3 years. With a decent standard of climate literacy, I am probably more cautious now on decisions than ten years ago - relying on black cockatoo sightings and new growth appearing on river red gums was a fools paradise. I’m not sure there’s ever a pot of gold awaiting seasonal forecast info, but it can certainly can help stop bad decisions when the evidence is there.