Wellington farmer turns to renewable energy to help keep farm alive

Simon Barton, a farmer whose property on the Mudgee road near Wellington has been forced to cut back on production severely due to the drought conditions says the current difficulties are some of the hardest they've ever struggled through. 

"It's just about the worst conditions we've ever seen, I think I've seen it a little bit worse in the olden days, back in say the eighties, but generally we manage our company better now," Mr Barton said.

"The effects locally are probably as bad as it has ever been that I can remember."

"We'd have days where a truckload of sheep or cattle would go and then a truckload of hay would come in and one would just pay for the other so it wasn't very profitable."

The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Water Resources' (ABARES) recent look at Agricultural Commodities shows that the average farm income in NSW during the 2018 - 2019 year dropped severely compared to the previous year.

"We've had to de-stock quite a lot, y'know, I've gone from 220 cows last year down to about eighty last winter, and we've had quite a few away," Mr Barton said.

"Sheep numbers are down, not as much as the cattle, but one of our first cross-breeding enterprise has been halved, we're trying to keep our Marino enterprise running as close to what it's been as possible."

"Everything was fed last winter, everyday, which was very expensive."

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Mr Barton manages the farm along with his father and the property's been in the family's charge for nearly eighty years. 

Nearly a decade ago they were approached by Infigen energy with an offer to place wind turbines for a proposed wind farm on their property. 

"We were approached probably eight years ago by Infigen, it had always been in the back of my mind, because we live in such a windy spot that I figured it would be a good location."

"When they told us it would help drought proof the farm, we hadn't had a drought for a while, so we sort of just said 'Oh yeah,' but now we're feeling it," Mr Barton said.

"It's absolutely been a huge help, and it will do in the next - I mean, it's going to take a while to restock and recover from this drought, so it's helping drought proof us and keep us viable for the future."

While Mr Barton himself is still skeptical about some of the discussion around climate change, he's broadly supportive of the push for more renewable energy. 

"I don't know whether I'm a complete believer in climate change, but the climate variability that's affecting us - well, we used to get good summer rains going back thirty five years ago and now even summer storms are very patchy, very hit and miss," Mr Barton.

"That makes things very hard to manage, the variability and the unpredictably is what's making it a real challenge for us."

"With the renewable energy, which I think is the way of the future, if we can stop digging holes in the ground and just use natural resources like the sun and the wind, it'll benefit the climate."

"The benefits will certainly be there."