AUGUST 2025
. 33
Elle Moyle with her dog, Red, on her beef farm at Dunkeld in Victoria’s Western District. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin National Farmers’ Federation president David Jochinke (right) on his farm near Horsham. Picture: Nicole Cleary
E LLE Moyle walks slowly through a paddock on her family’s farm in Victoria’s Western District. The pasture is green but there’s no real feed in it – just a thin blanket of colour over relatively bare ground. Behind her, hungry cattle call out, handfed daily through a bitter season that has cost millions. For Moyle and her family, who run the renowned Pathfinder Angus stud across seven properties spanning western Victoria and South Australia’s South East, the past two years have been the toughest in memory.
Through it all, Moyles says the local community has been a lifeline. And now, after a recent turn in the weather, surging cattle prices and a drop in interest rates, there’s cautious optimism ahead of spring. Up the road at Murra Warra, north of Horsham, National Farmers’ Federation president David Jochinke says good recent rain has helped, but that it’s “a different story from farm to farm, even paddock to paddock” with the spring growing season still a while off for many.
“For many livestock producers, rains may have put water in dams, but the cold weather has stunted pasture growth while feed supplies continue to dwindle,” he says. While southwest Victoria and South Australia have been at the forefront of national drought discussions during the past 12 months, extended dry conditions have also been felt in the Wimmera and west and south Gippsland in Victoria, parts of Tasmania, and western NSW. To the end of July, Renmark in the South Australian Mallee region had received just 48mm of rain for the year – representing just 20 per cent of the centre’s long-term annual average. Loxton received just 61mm, or 24 per cent of its average, compared to Karoonda’s 88mm (26 per cent) and Murray Bridge’s 116mm (33 per cent). In Victoria, Mildura recorded just 74mm to the end of July, or 26 per cent of its annual average, followed by Hopetoun (95mm) and Horsham (132mm). Concessional loans, mental health support, advisory services and tax deductions for water and fodder infrastructure are some of the support measures put forth by the federal government for drought-affected farmers, but Jochinke says clarity is needed over the future of the Regional Investment Corporation, the main vehicle for concessional loans, with its current lending authority ending in June 2026. “The bottom line is farmers want to manage risk, not rely on handouts,” Jochinke says. “Policy needs to back that mindset with early, practical support that builds resilience and keeps farm businesses and rural communities going during dry spells.” The federal government’s National Drought Forum at Gawler, South Australia, in September will bring together drought stakeholders to engage on policy issues on a national scale, an opportunity for action, not just talk, Jochinke says.
“Since August 2023 we’ve had record low rainfall, and 2025 has been the lowest rainfall ever recorded,” the 35-year-old veterinarian says. “Severe drought with just rolling failed seasons – it’s been incredibly challenging.” The Moyles run more than 2000 stud females, selling upwards of 500 bulls a year, alongside a flock of a couple thousand composite ewes. But the drought – compounded by low commodity prices and unforgiving interest rates – has forced them to make unprecedented decisions. With their two-year silage buffer – a security net the family had never come close to touching – completely exhausted, they’ve been forced to destock 30 per cent of their cattle herd, sell off pregnant females and more calves than usual, and send weaners as far afield as Roma in western Queensland for agistment. They’ve also offloaded about 40 per cent of their sheep flock. Bought-in feed costs have reached record highs, averaging $12,000 a day – with the family forking out more than $1 million in the past three months alone. “Normal feed costs for year-to-date would be $300,000,” Moyle says. “(By May) you could not source a single bale of decent hay in Victoria or South Australia. We ended up trucking it from (near) Dubbo, the furthest we’ve ever gone.” With no freight subsidies in Victoria, the family are paying a whopping $150 a tonne just to bring hay down from Narromine. Alternative feed sources have also been tapped to keep stock alive: cotton seed from Coonamble NSW, almond hulls from Mildura, crushed barley from Victoria’s Wimmera region and even potatoes from Portland for the sheep. “We’ve had to bring a nutritionist on board just to budget feed to get our cattle through to September and hope spring eventuates,” Moyle says.
Conor Fowler is a reporter for The Weekly Times
Elle Moyle and David Jochinke will speak on their drought experiences at News Corp’s National Bush Summit in Ballarat, Victoria, this week.
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